Basil. 
171 
It has been suggested as the reason for Boccaccio’s selecting 
the basil to shade the terrible relic which Isabella so lovingly- 
preserved, that it might have formerly been the custom in 
Italy to use it in decorating tombs and graves ; but it is more 
probable that the author of the “ Decameron,” obtained the 
allusion to the herb where he got so many of his stories from 
—the East. 
Keats and Barry Cornwall have both contributed, by their 
exquisite poetical rendering of the story, to make it familiar 
to English readers. 
The latter, unlike Boccaccio, does not make the unhappy 
heroine preserve her lover’s head, but his heart, which she has 
enwrapped and embalmed. Keats more closely follows his 
Italian authority, and makes Isabella bury the head under the 
fragrant herb—telling how she 
“ Hung over her sweet basil evermore, 
And moisten’d it with tears unto the core. 
“And so she ever fed it with thin tears, 
Whence thick, and green, and beautiful it grew. 
So that it smelt more balmy than its peers 
Of basil tufts in Florence; for it drew 
Nurture besides, and life, from human fears, 
From the fast-mouldering head there shut from view j 
So that the jewel safely casketed 
Came forth, and in perfumed leaflets spread.” 
Some people have tried to connect the name of this plant 
with the fabulous basilisk, which was supposed to kill with a 
single glance—whence arose the common saying, that “ Hate 
has the eye of a basilisk.” 
Culpepper, in his quaint old “ Herbal,” declares that basil is 
a cure for venomous bites and stings, besides effecting several 
other wonderful things. “Hilarious,” he states, “a French 
physician, affirms upon his own knowledge, that an acquain¬ 
tance of his, by common smelling to it, had a scorpion bred in 
his brain !” 
This veracious botanical, medical, and astrological authority 
furthermore states that “ something is the matter; this herb 
and rue will never grow together—no, nor near one another; 
and we know rue is as great an enemy to poison as any that 
grows.” 
