582 
VAGARIES OF PHYSIC. 
gently for the “ pearl- trefoil it shall more benefit you than 
the four-leaved shamrock of fairy celebrity; “it hath a white 
spot in the leaf like a pearl. It is 5 ’— as you might have di- 
vined — “ under the moon, and its icon shows that it is of a 
singular virtue against the pearl or pin and web in the eye .’ 5 
Or, better still, take “ herb-clary this, too, is “ under the 
moon , 55 and goes right to the mark. “The seed put into the 
eyes, clears them from motes. Wild clary is a gallant re- 
medy, to take one of the seeds and put it in the eye, and 
there let it remain till it drop out of itself (the pain will he 
nothing to speak on).” Thank you, Culpeper — Nicholas, we 
are obliged to you, but would fain be excused. The human 
animal is not, it would appear, the only “ unfledged biped 55 
beholden to the ancients : the callow fowls of the air have a 
wonder-working elixir for destroyed vision in “ celandine or 
chelidonium, so called from a Greek word signifying swal- 
low . 55 But mark our oracle 5 s reservation: “They say, that 
if you put out the eyes of young swallows when they are in 
the nest, the old one will recover their eyes with this herb. 
This I am confident, for I have tried it [the old sinner !}, 
that if we mar the very apple of their eye with a needle, she 
will recover them again, hut whether with this herb or not , I 
know not” The eyes, it seems, are “ under the luminaries ; 
the right eye of a man, and the left eye of a woman, the sun 
claims dominion over . 55 Let those who attempt to operate 
for strabismus, look to it, or they may get themselves into 
trouble. In all matters ophthalmic, the Fates themselves 
seem to have laboured under an obliquity of vision. Escu- 
lapius, because of the marvellous cures he performed with 
the blood drawn from the right veins of Medusa’s head — a 
lady who boasted but a reversionary interest in one eye, 
which belonged in common to herself and her lovely sisters 
the Gorgons — fell under the thunders of Jove ; the issue 
being, that the great “luminary 55 Apollo himself, the father 
of physic, for his just vengeance, inflicted on the one-eyed 
Cyclopes who forged the thunderbolts, was thrust inconti- 
nently from heaven, and doomed to consort with the flocks 
of Admetus. After this, where shall the mortal be found 
bold enough to undertake so delicate an operation as that 
for squinting > on either the right eye of a man , or the left eye of 
a woman “ under the luminaries ?” Running through the 
pages of our author, there is a genuine undercurrent of 
humour and shrew’d common sense. We feel sure that he 
believes not in one half he propounds with such solemn 
gravity. Sundry of his prescriptions savour strongly of the 
mendicant friar’s celebrated recipe for the making of flint- 
