THE LAND OF BLACKBERRIES. 
127 
cumber a garden ? It makes the better hedge ; where, 
if it chance to prick the owner, it will tear the thief; 
though in this sense the term is not confined among the 
Saxon writers to the Blackberry plant, but applied to 
others which are ragged and thorny. Bor instance 
“ Swete as is the bramble floure 
That bearetb the red hepe. ”+ 
in which the wilding rose is “ the bramble floure,” and 
not our own true Blackberry: though in another use of 
the word there is no doubt but the Black -berry is 
referred to :— 
“ One of hem was a tre 
That bearetb a fruit of sauour wicke, 
Full croked was that foule sticke, 
And knottie here and their also, 
And blacke as berry or any slo.” % 
The Bramble was as much esteemed as an important 
article in the materia medica of antiquity as it is with 
us for the juicy coolness of its fruit. “ The berries,” 
says Pliny, “ are the food of man, and have a dessica- 
tive and astringent virtue, and serve as a most appro¬ 
priate remedy for the gums and inflammation of the 
tonsils.” I think it is in Hippocrates cited as a grand 
specific against the bite of serpents, and both berries and 
blossoms were used in such cases. Pliny also says the 
young shoots, pressed and reduced to the consistence of 
honey by standing in the sun, is a singular medicine, 
* Grew, Gosmologia , III. c. 2. 
+ Chaucer, Rime of Sir Thopas , v. 13. 
J Chaucer, Rom. Rose . 
