SHAKESPEARE’S GARDEN 
iS8 
and other fruit to this day, as a stimulus before 
dinner, and it was, no doubt, introduced to these 
islands by them, and they seem to have thought it 
the root above all other roots. In Elizabethan times 
marvellous properties were attributed to it as a 
prevention to the bite of serpents and other noxious 
reptiles ; it was thus prepared : 
“ Take a radishe roote and make hym hollo we 
wythin unto the bottome, then take thre unces of 
oyle of roses and an unce of turpentin or more, 
according to the greatnes of the radish, and then 
cover the said radishe and leave it in the hote ashes 
or embers, until it be half consumed, then take it 
out, and anointe your handes with it (“Alexis,” II., 
p. 18). 
