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very limited; the common proverb, too, which is in use, 
when any thing is spoken of disparagingly, corroborates 
this opinion. Shakspeare makes frequent mention of it 
in this sense. “ The figo for thee, then,” says Pistol 
unwittingly to Henry the Fifth. The same expression 
occurs again in the course of the play. We meet with 
it also in Henry the Sixth. Stevens, the commentator 
on his dramas, imagines that “ the fig of Spain,” alluded 
to by this author, and other old poets, referred to “ the 
custom of giving poisoned figs to those who were the 
objects of Spanish or Italian revenge.” Among later 
poets, Thomson names it in his beautiful description of 
autumnal fruits: — 
“ Here, as I steal along the sunny wall, 
Where Autumn basks, with fruits empurpled deep, 
My pleasing theme continual prompts my thought; 
Presents the downy peach ; the shining plum ; 
The ruddy, fragrant nectarine; and, dark 
Beneath his ample leaf, the luscious fig." 
And in allusion to its spreading foliage, Southey appro¬ 
priately entitles it “ the bowery fig.” 
There are many species of the genus ficus, of which the 
celebrated banian or Indian fig is one; but as this forms 
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