300 The Animal-Lore of Shahspeare’s Time. 
abound in the writings of the Elizabethan era. Sbak- 
speare only echoes the popular sentiment when he makes 
Bichard II. speak so uncivilly of the Irish kerns— 
“ Which, live like venom where no venom else 
But only they have privilege to live.” 
(Richard II., ii. 1,156.) 
John Trundle, the narrator of some exploits of a Sussex 
dragon, writes, in 1614:— 
“ The Irish ground is most happie, and it seemeth lesse sinfull, since 
it is free from contagion of these venomous creatures: but, non omnia 
fert omnia tellus, ‘ every ground brings not forth all kind of fruites.’ 
This land were happie if it were less fertile in these contagious kinds 
of serpents, which I ascribe not to the nature of the earth, but to the 
sinfull nature of men.” ( Harleian Miscellany , vol. iii. p. 109.) 
The herb origanum, or marjoram, appears to have 
been esteemed the cure for all diseases. In Euphues 
(p. 61), Lyly writes : “ The torteyse having tasted the 
viper sucketh origanum and is quickly revived.” Mon¬ 
taigne, in his Essays , has an expression so similar, that 
had not these two works been published in the same year, 
one of the authors would have been accused of plagiarism. 
They were probably both equally indebted to Pliny for 
their information. The learned seigneur inquires:— 
“ Why should we say, that it is only for man by knowledge improv’d 
by art and meditation, to distinguish the things commodious for his 
being, and proper for the cure of diseases, to know the virtues of rhu¬ 
barb, and polypody: and when we see the goats of Candie, wounded 
with an arrow, amongst a million of plants, choose out dittanie for 
their cure; and the tortoise, when she has eaten of a viper, immedi¬ 
ately go to look out for origanum to purge her, the dragon to rub, and 
■clear his eyes with fennel,—why do we not say the same, that this is 
knowledge and prudence ? ” 
Drayton, describing tbe universal stampede of living 
creatures towards tbe ark, classes tbe snail- 
paced Tortoise with tbe lively little bedge- 
bog, as if tbeir movements were similar :■— 
