men than designed by Nature to signify, or point out, any such virtues,
or qualities, as they would make us believe." His views, however, are
somewhat contradictory, inasmuch as he goes on to say that, "the
noxious and malignant plants do, many of them, discover something of
their nature by the sad and melancholick visage of their leaves, flowers,
or fruit. And that I may not leave that head wholly untouched, one
observation I shall add relating to the virtues of plants, in which I think
there is something of truth--that is, that there are of the wise
dispensation of Providence such species of plants produced in every
country as are made proper and convenient for the meat and medicine of
the men and animals that are bred and inhabit therein." Indeed, however
much many of the botanists of bygone centuries might try to discredit
this popular delusion, they do not seem to have been wholly free from its
influence themselves. Some estimate, also, of the prominence which the
doctrine of signatures obtained may be gathered from the frequent
allusions to it in the literature of the period. Thus, to take one
illustration, the euphrasia or eye-bright (Euphrasia officinalis), which
was, and is, supposed to be good for the eye, owing to a black pupil-like
spot in its corolla, is noticed by Milton, who, it may be remembered,
represents the archangel as clearing the vision of our first parents by its
means:--
"Then purged with euphrasy and rue
His visual orbs, for he had much to see."
Spenser speaks of it in the same strain:--"Yet euphrasie may not be left unsung,
That gives dim eyes to wander leagues around."
And Thomson says:--"If she, whom I implore, Urania, deign
With euphrasy to purge away the mists,
Which, humid, dim the mirror of the mind."
With reference to its use in modern times, Anne Pratt[3] tells us how,
"on going into a small shop in Dover, she saw a quantity of the plant
suspended from the ceiling, and was informed that it was gathered and
dried as being good for weak eyes;" and in many of our rural districts I
learn that the same value is still attached to it by the peasantry.
Again, it is interesting to observe how, under a variety of forms, this
piece of superstition has prevailed in different parts of the world. By
virtue of a similar association of ideas, for instance, the gin-seng [4] was