PARSLEY.

PARSLEY.Thisis so well known, that it needs no description.Government and virtues.] It is under the dominion of Mercury; is very comfortable to the stomach; helps to provoke urine and women’s courses, to break wind both in the stomach and bowels, and doth a little open the body, but the root much more. It opens obstructions both of liver and spleen, and is therefore accounted one of the five opening roots. Galen commended it against the falling sickness, and to provoke urine mightily; especially if the roots be boiled, and eaten like Parsnips. The seed is effectual to provoke urine and women’s courses, to expel wind, to break the stone, and ease the pains and torments thereof; it is also effectual against the venom of any poisonous creature, and the danger that comes to them that have the lethargy, and is as good against the cough. The distilled water of Parsley is a familiar medicine with nurses to give their children when they are troubled with wind in the stomach or belly which they call the frets; and is also much available to them that are of great years. The leaves of Parsley laid to the eyes that are inflamed with heat, or swollen, doth much help them, if it be used with bread or meal; and being fried with butter, and applied to women’s breasts that are hard through the curdling of their milk, it abates the hardness quickly; and also takes away black and blue marks coming of bruises or falls. The juice thereof dropped into the ears with a little wine, eases the pains. Tragus sets down an excellent medicine to help the jaundice and falling sickness, the dropsy, and stone in the kidneys, in this manner: Take of the seed of Parsley, Fennel, Annise and Carraways, of each an ounce; of the roots of Parsley, Burnet, Saxifrage, and Carraways, of each an ounce and an half; let the seeds be bruised, and the roots washed and cut small; let them lie all night to steep in a bottle of white wine, and in the morning be boiled in a close earthen vessel until a third part or more be wasted; which being strained and cleared, take four ounces thereof morning and evening first and last, abstaining from drink after it for three hours. This opens obstructions of the liver and spleen, and expels the dropsy and jaundice by urine.PARSLEY PIERT, OR PARSLEY BREAK STONE.Descript.]Theroot, although it be very small and thready, yet it continues many years, from which arise many leaves lying along on the ground, each standing upon a long small foot-stalk, the leaves as broad as a man’s nail, very deeply dented on theedges, somewhat like a parsley-leaf, but of a very dusky green colour. The stalks are very weak and slender, about three or four fingers in length, set so full of leaves that they can hardly be seen, either having no foot-stalk at all, or but very short; the flowers are so small they can hardly be seen, and the seed as small as may be.Place.] It is a common herb throughout the nation, and rejoices in barren, sandy, moist places. It may be found plentifully about Hampstead Heath, Hyde Park, and in Tothill-fields.Time.] It may be found all the Summer-time, even from the beginning of April to the end of October.Government and virtues.] Its operation is very prevalent to provoke urine, and to break the stone. It is a very good sallad herb. It were good the gentry would pickle it up as they pickle up Samphire for their use all the Winter. I cannot teach them how to do it; yet this I can tell them, it is a very wholesome herb. They may also keep the herb dry, or in a syrup, if they please. You may take a dram of the powder of it in white wine; it would bring away gravel from the kidneys insensibly, and without pain. It also helps the stranguary.PARSNIPS.Thegarden kind thereof is so well known (the root being commonly eaten) that I shall not trouble you with any description of it. But the wild kind being of more physical use, I shall in this place describe it unto you.Descript.] The wild Parsnip differs little from the garden, but grows not so fair and large, nor hath so many leaves, and the root is shorter, more woody, and not so fit to be eaten, and therefore more medicinal.Place.] The name of the first shews the place of its growth. The other grows wild in divers places, as in the marshes in Rochester, and elsewhere, and flowers in July; the seed being ripe about the beginning of August, the second year after its sowing; for if they do flower the first year, the country people call them Madneps.Government and virtues.] The garden Parsnips are under Venus. The garden Parsnip nourishes much, and is good and wholesome nourishment, but a little windy, whereby it is thought to procure bodily lust; but it fastens the body much, if much need. It is conducible to the stomach and reins, and provokes urine. But the wild Parsnips hath a cutting, attenuating, cleansing, and opening quality therein. It resists and helps the bitings of serpents, eases the pains and stitches in the sides, and dissolves wind both in the stomach and bowels, which is the cholic, and provokes urine. The root is often used, but the seed much more. The wild being better than the tame, shews Dame Nature to be the best physician.COW PARSNIPS.Descript.]Thisgrows with three or four large, spread winged, rough leaves, lying often on the ground, or else raised a little from it, with long, round, hairy foot-stalks under them, parted usually into five divisions, the two couples standing each against the other; and one at the end, and each leaf, being almost round, yet somewhat deeply cut in on the edges in some leaves, and not so deep in others, of a whitish green colour, smelling somewhat strongly; among which rises up a round, crusted, hairy stalk, two or three feet high, with a few joints and leaves thereon, and branched at the top, where stand large umbels of white, and sometimes reddish flowers, and after them flat, whitish, thin, winged seed, two always joined together. The root is long and white, with two or three long strings growing down into the ground, smelling likewise strongly and unpleasant.Place.] It grows in moist meadows, andthe borders and corners of fields, and near ditches, through this land.Time.] It flowers in July, and seeds in August.Government and virtues.] Mercury hath the dominion over them. The seed thereof, as Galen saith, is of a sharp and cutting quality, and therefore is a fit medicine for a cough and shortness of breath, the falling sickness and jaundice. The root is available to all the purposes aforesaid, and is also of great use to take away the hard skin that grows on a fistula, if it be but scraped upon it. The seed hereof being drank, cleanses the belly from tough phlegmatic matter therein, eases them that are liver-grown, women’s passions of the mother, as well being drank as the smoke thereof received, and likewise raises such as are fallen into a deep sleep, or have the lethargy, by burning it under their nose. The seed and root boiled in oil, and the head rubbed therewith, helps not only those that are fallen into a frenzy, but also the lethargy or drowsy evil, and those that have been long troubled with the head-ache, if it be likewise used with Rue. It helps also the running scab and shingles. The juice of the flowers dropped into the ears that run and are full of matter, cleanses and heals them.THE PEACH TREE.Descript.]A peachtree grows not so great as the Apricot tree, yet spreads branches reasonable well, from whence spring smaller reddish twigs, whereon are set long and narrow green leaves dented about the edges. The blossoms are greater than the plumb, and of a light purple colour; the fruit round, and sometimes as big as a reasonable Pippin, others smaller, as also differing in colour and taste, as russet, red, or yellow, waterish or firm, with a frize or cotton all over, with a cleft therein like an Apricot, and a rugged, furrowed, great stone within it, and a bitter kernel within the stone. It sooner waxes old, and decays, than the Apricot, by much.Place.] They are nursed in gardens and orchards through this land.Time.] They flower in the Spring, and fructify in Autumn.Government and virtues.] Lady Venus owns this tree, and by it opposes the ill effects of Mars, and indeed for children and young people, nothing is better to purge choler and the jaundice, than the leaves or flowers of this tree being made into a syrup or conserve. Let such as delight to please their lust regard the fruit; but such as have lost their health, and their children’s, let them regard what I say, they may safely give two spoonfuls of the syrup at a time; it is as gentle as Venus herself. The leaves of peaches bruised and laid on the belly, kill worms, and so they do also being boiled in ale and drank, and open the belly likewise; and, being dried, is a far safer medicine to discuss humours. The powder of them strewed upon fresh bleeding wounds stays their bleeding, and closes them up. The flowers steeped all night in a little wine standing warm, strained forth in the morning, and drank fasting, doth gently open the belly, and move it downward. A syrup made of them, as the syrup of roses is made, works more forcibly than that of roses, for it provokes vomiting, and spends waterish and hydropic humours by the continuance thereof. The flowers made into a conserve, work the same effect. The liquor that dropped from the tree, being wounded, is given in the decoction of Coltsfoot, to those that are troubled with a cough or shortness of breath, by adding thereunto some sweet wine, and putting some saffron also therein. It is good for those that are hoarse, or have lost their voice; helps all defects of the lungs, and those that vomit and spit blood. Two drams hereof given in the juice of lemons, or of radish, is good for them that are troubled with the stone,the kernels of the stones do wonderfully ease the pains and wringings of the belly through wind or sharp humours, and help to make an excellent medicine for the stone upon all occasions, in this manner:I take fifty kernels of peach-stones, and one hundred of the kernels of cherry-stones, a handful of elder flowers fresh or dried, and three pints of Muscadel; set them in a close pot into a bed of horse-dung for ten days, after which distil in a glass with a gentle fire, and keep it for your use: You may drink upon occasion three or four ounces at a time. The milk or cream of these kernels being drawn forth with some Vervain water and applied to the forehead and temples, doth much help to procure rest and sleep to sick persons wanting it. The oil drawn from the kernels, the temples being therewith anointed, doth the like. The said oil put into clysters, eases the pains of the wind cholic: and anointed on the lower part of the belly, doth the like, and dropped into the ears, eases pains in them; the juice of the leaves doth the like. Being also anointed on the forehead and temples, it helps the megrim, and all other pains in the head. If the kernels be bruised and boiled in vinegar, until they become thick, and applied to the head, it marvellously procures the hair to grow again upon bald places, or where it is too thin.THE PEAR TREE.PearTrees are so well known, that they need no description.Government and virtues.] The Tree belongs to Venus, and so doth the Apple tree. For their physical use they are best discerned by their taste. All the sweet and luscious sorts, whether manured or wild, do help to move the belly downwards, more or less. Those that are hard and sour, do, on the contrary, bind the belly as much, and the leaves do so also: Those that are moist do in some sort cool, but harsh or wild sorts much more, and are very good in repelling medicines; and if the wild sort be boiled with mushrooms, it makes them less dangerous. The said Pears boiled with a little honey, help much the oppressed stomach, as all sorts of them do, some more, some less: but the harsher sorts do more cool and bind, serving well to be bound to green wounds, to cool and stay the blood, and heal up the green wound without farther trouble, or inflammation, as Galen saith he hath found by experience. The wild Pears do sooner close up the lips of green wounds than others.Schola Selerni advises to drink much wine after Pears, or else (say they) they are as bad as poison; nay, and they curse the tree for it too; but if a poor man find his stomach oppressed by eating Pears, it is but working hard, and it will do as well as drinking wine.PELLITORY OF SPAIN.CommonPellitory of Spain, if it be planted in our gardens, will prosper very well; yet there is one sort growing ordinarily here wild, which I esteem to be little inferior to the other, if at all. I shall not deny you the description of them both.Descript.] Common Pellitory is a very common plant, and will not be kept in our gardens without diligent looking to. The root goes down right into the ground bearing leaves, being long and finely cut upon the stalk, lying on the ground, much larger than the leaves of the Camomile are. At the top it bears one single large flower at a place, having a border of many leaves, white on the upper side, and reddish underneath, with a yellow thrum in the middle, not standing so close as that of Camomile.The other common Pellitory which grows here, hath a root of a sharp biting taste, scarcely discernible by the taste from that before described, from whence arise divers brittle stalks, a yard high and more, with narrow leaves finely dented about theedges, standing one above another up to the tops. The flowers are many and white, standing in tufts like those of Yarrow, with a small yellowish thrum in the middle. The seed is very small.Place.] The last grows in fields by the hedge sides and paths, almost every where.Time.] It flowers at the latter end of June and July.Government and virtues.] It is under the government of Mercury, and I am persuaded it is one of the best purgers of the brain that grows. An ounce of the juice taken in a draught of Muskadel an hour before the fit of the ague comes, it will assuredly drive away the ague at the second or third time taken at the farthest. Either the herb or root dried and chewed in the mouth, purges the brain of phlegmatic humours; thereby not only easing pains in the head and teeth, but also hinders the distilling of the brain upon the lungs and eyes, thereby preventing coughs, phthisicks and consumption, the apoplexy and falling sickness. It is an excellently approved remedy in the lethargy. The powder of the herb or root being snuffed up the nostrils, procures sneezing, and eases the head-ache; being made into an ointment with hog’s grease, it takes away black and blue spots occasioned by blows or falls, and helps both the gout and sciatica.PELLITORY OF THE WALL.Descript.]Itrises with brownish, red, tender, weak, clear, and almost transparent stalks, about two feet high, upon which grow at the joints two leaves somewhat broad and long, of a dark green colour, which afterwards turn brownish, smooth on the edges, but rough and hairy, as the stalks are also. At the joints with the leaves from the middle of the stalk upwards, where it spreads into branches, stand many small, pale, purplish flowers in hairy, rough heads, or husks, after which come small, black, rough seed, which will stick to any cloth or garment that shall touch it. The root is somewhat long, with small fibres thereat, of a dark reddish colour, which abides the Winter, although the stalks and leaves perish and spring every year.Place.] It grows wild generally through the land, about the borders of fields, and by the sides of walls, and among rubbish. It will endure well being brought up in gardens, and planted on the shady side, where it will spring of its own sowing.Time.] It flowers in June and July, and the seed is ripe soon after.Government and virtues.] It is under the dominion of Mercury. The dried herb Pellitory made up into an electuary with honey, or the juices of the herb, or the decoction thereof made up with sugar or honey, is a singular remedy for an old or dry cough, the shortness of breath, and wheezing in the throat. Three ounces of the juice thereof taken at a time, doth wonderfully help stopping of the urine, and to expel the stone or gravel in the kidneys or bladder, and is therefore usually put among other herbs used in clysters to mitigate pains in the back, sides, or bowels, proceeding of wind, stopping of urine, the gravel or stone, as aforesaid. If the bruised herb, sprinkled with some Muskadel, be warmed upon a tile, or in a dish upon a few quick coals in a chafing-dish, and applied to the belly, it works the same effect. The decoction of the herb being drank, eases pains of the mother, and brings down women’s courses: It also eases those griefs that arise from obstructions of the liver, spleen, and reins. The same decoction, with a little honey added thereto, is good to gargle a sore throat. The juice held a while in the mouth, eases pains in the teeth. The distilled water of the herb drank with some sugar, works the same effects, and cleanses the skin from spots, freckles, purples, wheals, sun-burn, morphew, &c. Thejuice dropped into the ears, eases the noise in them, and takes away the pricking and shooting pains therein: The same, or the distilled water, assuages hot and swelling imposthumes, burnings and scaldings by fire or water; as also all other hot tumours and inflammations, or breakings-out, of heat, being bathed often with wet cloths dipped therein: The said juice made into a liniment with ceruss, and oil of roses, and anointed therewith, cleanses foul rotten ulcers, and stays spreading or creeping ulcers, and running scabs or sores in children’s heads; and helps to stay the hair from falling off the head. The said ointment, or the herb applied to the fundament, opens the piles, and eases their pains; and being mixed with goats’ tallow, helps the gout. The juice is very effectual to cleanse fistulas, and to heal them up safely; or the herb itself bruised and applied with a little salt. It is likewise also effectual to heal any green wound; if it be bruised and bound thereto for three days, you shall need no other medicine to heal it further. A poultice made hereof with Mallows, and boiled in wine and wheat bran and bean flour, and some oil put thereto, and applied warm to any bruised sinews, tendon, or muscle, doth in a very short time restore them to their strength, taking away the pains of the bruises, and dissolves the congealed blood coming of blows, or falls from high places.The juice of Pellitory of the Wall clarified and boiled in a syrup with honey, and a spoonful of it drank every morning by such as are subject to the dropsy; if continuing that course, though but once a week, they ever have the dropsy, let them but come to me, and I will cure themgratis.PENNYROYAL.Pennyroyalis so well known unto all, I mean the common kind, that it needs no description.There is a greater kind than the ordinary sort found wild with us, which so abides, being brought into gardens, and differs not from it, but only in the largeness of the leaves and stalks, in rising higher, and not creeping upon the ground so much. The flowers whereof are purple, growing in rundles about the stalks like the other.Place.] The first, which is common in gardens, grows also in many moist and watery places of this land.The second is found wild in effect in divers places by the highways from London to Colchester, and thereabouts, more abundantly than in any other counties, and is also planted in their gardens in Essex.Time.] They flower in the latter end of Summer, about August.Government and virtues.] The herb is under Venus. Dioscorides saith, that Pennyroyal makes thin tough phlegm, warms the coldness of any part whereto it is applied, and digests raw or corrupt matter; Being boiled and drank, it provokes women’s courses, and expels the dead child and after-birth, and stays the disposition to vomit, being taken in water and vinegar mingled together. And being mingled with honey and salt, it voids phlegm out of the lungs, and purges melancholy by the stool. Drank with wine, it helps such as are bitten and stung with venomous beasts, and applied to the nostrils with vinegar, revives those that are fainting and swooning. Being dried and burnt, it strengthens the gums. It is helpful to those that are troubled with the gout, being applied of itself to the place until it was red; and applied in a plaister, it takes away spots or marks in the face; applied with salt, it profits those that are splenetic, or livergrown. The decoction doth help the itch, if washed therewith. The green herb bruised and put into vinegar, cleanses foul ulcers, and takes away the marks of bruises and blows about the eyes, and all discolourings of the faceby fire, yea, and the leprosy, being drank and outwardly applied: Boiled in wine with honey and salt, it helps the tooth-ache. It helps the cold griefs by the joints, taking away the pains, and warms the cold part, being fast bound to the place, after a bathing or sweating in a hot house. Pliny adds, that Pennyroyal and Mints together, help faintings, being put into vinegar, and smelled unto, or put into the nostrils or mouth. It eases head-aches, pains of the breast and belly, and gnawings of the stomach; applied with honey, salt, and vinegar, it helps cramps or convulsions of the sinews: Boiled in milk, and drank, it is effectual for the cough, and for ulcers and sores in the mouth; drank in wine it provokes women’s courses, and expels the dead child, and after-birth. Matthiolus saith, The decoction thereof being drank, helps the jaundice and dropsy, all pains of the head and sinews that come of a cold cause, and clears the eye-sight. It helps the lethargy, and applied with barley-meal, helps burnings; and put into the ears, eases the pains of them.MALE AND FEMALE PEONY.Descript.]MalePeony rises up with brownish stalks, whereon grow green and reddish leaves, upon a stalk without any particular division in the leaf at all. The flowers stand at the top of the stalks, consisting of five or six broad leaves, of a fair purplish red colour, with many yellow threads in the middle standing about the head, which after rises up to be the seed vessels, divided into two, three, or four crooked pods like horns, which being full ripe, open and turn themselves down backwards, shewing with them divers round, black, shining seeds, having also many crimson grains, intermixed with black, whereby it makes a very pretty shew. The roots are great, thick and long, spreading and running down deep in the ground.The ordinary Female Peony hath as many stalks, and more leaves on them than the Male; the leaves not so large, but nicked on the edges, some with great and deep, others with small cuts and divisions, of a dead green colour. The flowers are of a strong heady scent, usually smaller, and of a more purple colour than the Male, with yellow thrums about the head, as the Male hath. The seed vessels are like horns, as in the Male, but smaller, the seed is black, but less shining. The root consists of many short tuberous clogs, fastened at the end of long strings, and all from the heads of the roots, which is thick and short, and of the like scent with the Male.Place and Time.] They grow in gardens, and flower usually about May.Government and virtues.] It is an herb of the Sun, and under the Lion. Physicians say, Male Peony roots are best; but Dr. Reason told me Male Peony was best for men, and Female Peony for women, and he desires to be judged by his brother Dr. Experience. The roots are held to be of more virtue than the seed; next the flowers; and, last of all, the leaves. The roots of the Male Peony, fresh gathered, having been found by experience to cure the falling sickness; but the surest way is, besides hanging it about the neck, by which children have been cured, to take the root of the Male Peony washed clean, and stamped somewhat small, and laid to infuse in sack for 24 hours at the least, afterwards strain it, and take it first and last, morning and evening, a good draught for sundry days together, before and after a full moon: and this will also cure old persons, if the disease be not grown too old, and past cure, especially if there be a due and orderly preparation of the body with posset-drink made of Betony, &c. The root is also effectual for women that are not sufficiently cleansed after child-birth, and such as are troubled with the mother; for which likewisethe black seed beaten to powder, and given in wine, is also available. The black seed also taken before bed-time, and in the morning, is very effectual for such as in their sleep are troubled with the disease called Ephialtes, or Incubus, but we do commonly call it the Night-mare: a disease which melancholy persons are subject unto: It is also good against melancholy dreams. The distilled water or syrup made of the flowers, works the same effects that the root and seed do, although more weakly. The Female’s is often used for the purpose aforesaid, by reason the Male is so scarce a plant, that it is possessed by few, and those great lovers of rarities in this kind.PEPPERWORT, OR DITTANDER.Descript.]Ourcommon Pepperwort sends forth somewhat long and broad leaves, of a light blueish green colour, finely dented about the edges, and pointed at the ends, standing upon round hard stalks, three or four feet high, spreading many branches on all sides, and having many small white flowers at the tops of them, after which follow small seeds in small heads. The root is slender, running much under ground, and shooting up again in many places, and both leaves and roots are very hot and sharp of taste, like pepper, for which cause it took the name.Place.] It grows naturally in many places of this land, as at Clare in Essex; also near unto Exeter in Devonshire; upon Rochester common in Kent; in Lancashire, and divers other places; but usually kept in gardens.Time.] It flowers in the end of June, and in July.Government and virtues.] Here is another martial herb for you, make much of it. Pliny and Paulus Ægineta say, that Pepperwort is very successful for the sciatica, or any other gout or pain in the joints, or any other inveterate grief: The leaves hereof to be bruised, and mixed with old hog’s grease, and applied to the place, and to continue thereon four hours in men, and two hours in women, the place being afterwards bathed with wine and oil mixed together, and then wrapped up with wool or skins, after they have sweat a little. It also amends the deformities or discolourings of the skin, and helps to take away marks, scars, and scabs, or the foul marks of burning with fire or iron. The juice hereof is by some used to be given in ale to drink, to women with child, to procure them a speedy delivery in travail.PERIWINKLE.Descript.]Thecommon sort hereof hath many branches trailing or running upon the ground, shooting out small fibres at the joints as it runs, taking thereby hold in the ground, and rooteth in divers places. At the joints of these branches stand two small, dark-green, shining leaves, somewhat like bay leaves, but smaller, and with them come forth also the flowers (one at a joint) standing upon a tender foot-stalk, being somewhat long and hollow, parted at the brims, sometimes into four, sometimes into five leaves: The most ordinary sorts are of a pale blue colour; some are pure white, some of a dark reddish purple colour. The root is little bigger than a rush, bushing in the ground, and creeping with his branches far about, whereby it quickly possesses a great compass, and is therefore most usually planted under hedges where it may have room to run.Place.] Those with the pale blue, and those with the white flowers, grow in woods and orchards, by the hedge-sides, in divers places of this land; but those with the purple flowers, in gardens only.Time.] They flower in March and April.Government and virtues.] Venus owns this herb, and saith, That the leaves eaten by man and wife together, cause love betweenthem. The Periwinkle is a great binder, stays bleeding both at mouth and nose, if some of the leaves be chewed. The French used it to stay women’s courses. Dioscorides, Galen, and Ægineta, commend it against the lasks and fluxes of the belly to be drank in wine.ST. PETER’S WORT.IfSuperstition had not been the father of Tradition, as well as Ignorance the Mother of Devotion, this herb, (as well as St. John’s Wort) hath found some other name to be known by; but we may say of our forefathers, as St. Paul of the Athenians,I perceive in many things you are too superstitious. Yet seeing it is come to pass, that custom having got in possession, pleads prescription for the name, I shall let it pass, and come to the description of the herb, which take as follows.Descript.] It rises up with square upright stalks for the most part, some greater and higher than St. John’s Wort (and good reason too, St. Peter being the greater apostle, (ask the Pope else;) for though God would have the saints equal, the Pope is of another opinion,) but brown in the same manner, having two leaves at every joint, somewhat like, but larger, than St. John’s Wort, and a little rounder pointed, with few or no holes to be seen thereon, and having sometimes some smaller leaves rising from the bosom of the greater, and sometimes a little hairy also. At the tops of two stalks stand many star-like flowers, with yellow threads in the middle, very like those of St. John’s Wort, insomuch that this is hardly discerned from it, but only by the largeness and height, the seed being alike also in both. The root abides long, sending forth new shoots every year.Place.] It grows in many groves, and small low woods, in divers places of this land, as in Kent, Huntingdon, Cambridge, and Northamptonshire; as also near water-courses in other places.Time.] It flowers in June and July, and the seed is ripe in August.Government and virtues.] There is not a straw to choose between this and St. John’s Wort, only St. Peter must have it, lest he should want pot herbs; It is of the same property of St. John’s Wort, but somewhat weaker, and therefore more seldom used. Two drams of the seed taken at a time in honied water, purges choleric humours, (as saith Dioscorides, Pliny, and Galen,) and thereby helps those that are troubled with the sciatica. The leaves are used as St. John’s Wort, to help those places of the body that have been burnt with fire.PIMPERNEL.Descript.]CommonPimpernel hath divers weak square stalks lying on the ground, beset all with two small and almost round leaves at every joint, one against another, very like Chickweed, but hath no foot-stalks; for the leaves, as it were, compase the stalk. The flowers stand singly each by themselves at them and the stalk, consisting of five small round-pointed leaves, of a pale red colour, tending to an orange, with so many threads in the middle, in whose places succeed smooth round heads, wherein is contained small seed. The root is small and fibrous, perishing every year.Place.] It grows almost every where as well in the meadows and corn-fields, as by the way-sides, and in gardens, arising of itself.Time.] It flowers from May until April, and the seed ripens in the mean time, and falls.Government and virtues.] It is a gallant solar herb, of a cleansing attractive quality, whereby it draws forth thorns or splinters, or other such like things gotten into the flesh; and put up into the nostrils, purgesthe head; and Galen saith also, they have a drying faculty, whereby they are good to solder the lips of wounds, and to cleanse foul ulcers. The distilled water or juice is much esteemed by French dames to cleanse the skin from any roughness and deformity, or discolouring thereof; being boiled in wine and given to drink, it is a good remedy against the plague, and other pestilential fevers, if the party after taking it be warm in his bed, and sweat for two hours after, and use the same for twice at least. It helps also all stingings and bitings of venomous beasts, or mad dogs, being used inwardly, and applied outwardly. The same also opens obstructions of the liver, and is very available against the infirmities of the reins: It provokes urine, and helps to expel the stone and gravel out of the kidneys and bladder, and helps much in all inward pains and ulcers. The decoction, or distilled water, is no less effectual to be applied to all wounds that are fresh and green, or old, filthy, fretting, and running ulcers, which it very effectually cures in a short space. A little mixed with the juice, and dropped into the eyes, cleanses them from cloudy mists, or thick films which grow over them, and hinder the sight. It helps the tooth-ache, being dropped into the ear on a contrary side of the pain. It is also effectual to ease the pains of the hæmorrhoids or piles.GROUND PINE, OR CHAMEPITYS.Descript.]Ourcommon Ground Pine grows low, seldom rising above a hand’s breadth high, shooting forth divers small branches, set with slender, small, long, narrow, greyish, or whitish leaves, somewhat hairy, and divided into three parts, many bushing together at a joint, some growing scatteringly upon the stalks, smelling somewhat strong, like unto rozin: The flowers are small, and of a pale yellow colour, growing from the joint of the stalk all along among the leaves; after which come small and round husks. The root is small and woody, perishing every year.Place.] It grows more plentifully in Kent than any other county of this land, as namely, in many places on this side Dartford, along to Southfleet, Chatham, and Rochester, and upon Chatham down, hard by the Beacon, and half a mile from Rochester, in a field near a house called Selesys.Time.] It flowers and gives seed in the Summer months.Government and virtues.] Mars owns the herb. The decoction of Ground Pine drank, doth wonderfully prevail against the stranguary, or any inward pains arising from the diseases of the reins and urine, and is especially good for all obstructions of the liver and spleen, and gently opens the body; for which purpose they were wont in former times to make pills with the powder thereof, and the pulp of figs. It marvellously helps all the diseases of the mother, inwardly or outwardly applied, procuring women’s courses, and expelling the dead child and after-birth; yea, it is so powerful upon those feminine parts, that it is utterly forbidden for women with child, for it will cause abortion or delivery before the time. The decoction of the herb in wine taken inwardly, or applied outwardly, or both, for some time together, is also effectual in all pains and diseases of the joints, as gouts, cramps, palsies, sciatica, and aches; for which purpose the pills made with powder of Ground Pine, and of Hermodactyls with Venice Turpentine are very effectual. The pills also, continued for some time, are special good for those that have the dropsy, jaundice, and for griping pains of the joints, belly, or inward parts. It helps also all diseases of the brain, proceeding of cold and phlegmatic humours and distillations, as also for the falling sickness. It is a special remedy for the poisonof the aconites, and other poisonous herbs, as also against the stinging of any venomous creature. It is a good remedy for a cold cough, especially in the beginning. For all the purposes aforesaid, the herb being tunned up in new drink and drank, is almost as effectual, but far more acceptable to weak and dainty stomachs. The distilled water of the herb hath the same effects, but more weakly. The conserve of the flowers doth the like, which Matthiolus much commends against the palsy. The green herb, or the decoction thereof, being applied, dissolves the hardness of women’s breasts, and all other hard swellings in any other part of the body. The green herb also applied, or the juice thereof with some honey, not only cleanses putrid, stinking, foul, and malignant ulcers and sores of all sorts, but heals and solders up the lips of green wounds in any part also. Let pregnant women forbear, for it works violently upon the feminine part.PLANTAIN.Thisgrows usually in meadows and fields, and by path sides, and is so well known, that it needs no description.Time.] It is in its beauty about June, and the seed ripens shortly after.Government and virtues.] It is true, Misaldus and others, yea, almost all astrology-physicians, hold this to be an herb of Mars, because it cures the diseases of the head and privities, which are under the houses of Mars, Aries, and Scorpio: The truth is, it is under the command of Venus, and cures the head by antipathy to Mars, and the privities by sympathy to Venus; neither is there hardly a martial disease but it cures.The juice of Plantain clarified and drank for divers days together, either of itself, or in other drink, prevails wonderfully against all torments or excoriations in the intestines or bowels, helps the distillations of rheum from the head, and stays all manner of fluxes, even women’s courses, when they flow too abundantly. It is good to stay spitting of blood and other bleedings at the mouth, or the making of foul and bloody water, by reason of any ulcer in the reins or bladder, and also stays the too free bleeding of wounds. It is held an especial remedy for those that are troubled with the phthisic, or consumption of the lungs, or ulcers of the lungs, or coughs that come of heat. The decoction or powder of the roots or seeds, is much more binding for all the purposes aforesaid than the leaves. Dioscorides saith, that three roots boiled in wine and taken, helps the tertain agues, and for the quartan agues, (but letting the number pass as fabulous) I conceive the decoction of divers roots may be effectual. The herb (but especially the seed) is held to be profitable against the dropsy, the falling-sickness, the yellow jaundice, and stoppings of the liver and reins. The roots of Plantain, and Pellitory of Spain, beaten into powder, and put into the hollow teeth, takes away the pains of them. The clarified juice, or distilled water, dropped into the eyes, cools the inflammations in them, and takes away the pin and web; and dropped into the ears, eases the pains in them, and heals and removes the heat. The same also with the juice of Houseleek is profitable against all inflammations and breakings out of the skin, and against burnings and scaldings by fire and water. The juice or decoction made either of itself, or other things of the like nature, is of much use and good effect for old and hollow ulcers that are hard to be cured, and for cankers and sores in the mouth or privy parts of man or woman; and helps also the pains of the piles in the fundament. The juice mixed with oil of roses, and the temples and forehead anointed therewith, eases the pains of the head proceeding from heat, and helps lunatic and frantic persons very much; as also thebiting of serpents, or a mad dog. The same also is profitably applied to all hot gouts in the feet or hands, especially in the beginning. It is also good to be applied where any bone is out of joint, to hinder inflammations, swellings, and pains that presently rise thereupon. The powder of the dried leaves taken in drink, kills worms of the belly; and boiled in wine, kills worms that breed in old and foul ulcers. One part of Plantain water, and two parts of the brine of powdered beef, boiled together and clarified, is a most sure remedy to heal all spreading scabs or itch in the head and body, all manner of tetters, ringworms, the shingles, and all other running and fretting sores. Briefly, the Plantains are singularly good wound herbs, to heal fresh or old wounds or sores, either inward or outward.PLUMS.Areso well known that they need no description.Government and virtues.] All Plums are under Venus, and are like women, some better, and some worse. As there is great diversity of kinds, so there is in the operation of Plums, for some that are sweet moisten the stomach, and make the belly soluble; those that are sour quench thirst more, and bind the belly; the moist and waterish do sooner corrupt in the stomach, but the firm do nourish more, and offend less. The dried fruit sold by the grocers under the names of Damask Prunes, do somewhat loosen the belly, and being stewed, are often used, both in health and sickness, to relish the mouth and stomach, to procure appetite, and a little to open the body, allay choler, and cool the stomach. Plum-tree leaves boiled in wine, are good to wash and gargle the mouth and throat, to dry the flux of rheum coming to the palate, gums, or almonds of the ear. The gum of the tree is good to break the stone. The gum or leaves boiled in vinegar, and applied, kills tetters and ringworms. Matthiolus saith, The oil preserved out of the kernels of the stones, as oil of almonds is made, is good against the inflamed piles, the tumours or swellings of ulcers, hoarseness of the voice, roughness of the tongue and throat, and likewise the pains in the ears. And that five ounces of the said oil taken with one ounce of muskadel, drives forth the stone, and helps the cholic.POLYPODY OF THE OAK.Descript.]Thisis a small herb consisting of nothing but roots and leaves, bearing neither stalk, flower, nor seed, as it is thought. It hath three or four leaves rising from the root, every one single by itself, of about a hand length, are winged, consisting of many small narrow leaves cut into the middle rib, standing on each side of the stalk, large below, and smaller up to the top, not dented nor notched at the edges at all, as the male fern hath, of sad green colour, and smooth on the upper side, but on the other side somewhat rough by reason of some yellowish flowers set thereon. The root is smaller than one’s little finger, lying aslope, or creeping along under the upper crust of the earth, brownish on the outside and greenish within, of a sweetish harshness in taste, set with certain rough knags on each side thereof, having also much mossiness or yellow hairiness upon it, and some fibres underneath it, whereby it is nourished.Place.] It grows as well upon old rotten stumps, or trunks of trees, as oak, beech, hazel, willow, or any other, as in the woods under them, and upon old mud walls, as also in mossy, stony, and gravelly places near unto wood. That which grows upon oak is accounted the best; but the quantity thereof is scarce sufficient for the common use.Time.] It being always green, may be gathered for use at any time.Government and virtues.] Polypodium of the Oak, that which grows upon the earth is best; it is an herb of Saturn, to purge melancholy; if the humour be otherwise, chuse your Polypodium accordingly. Meuse (who is called the Physician’s Evangelist for the certainty of his medicines, and the truth of his opinion) saith, That it dries up thin humours, digests thick and tough, and purges burnt choler, and especially tough and thick phlegm, and thin phlegm also, even from the joints, and therefore good for those that are troubled with melancholy, or quartan agues, especially if it be taken in whey or honied water, or in barley-water, or the broth of a chicken with Epithymum, or with Beets and Mallows. It is good for the hardness of the spleen, and for pricking or stitches in the sides, as also for the cholic: Some use to put to it some Fennel seeds, or Annis seeds, or Ginger, to correct that loathing it brings to the stomach, which is more than needs, it being a safe and gentle medicine, fit for all persons, which daily experience confirms; and an ounce of it may be given at a time in a decoction, if there be not Sena, or some other strong purger put with it. A dram or two of the powder of the dried roots, taken fasting in a cup of honied water, works gently, and for the purposes aforesaid. The distilled water both of roots and leaves, is much commended for the quartan ague, to be taken for many days together, as also against melancholy, or fearful and troublesome sleeps or dreams; and with some sugar-candy dissolved therein, is good against the cough, shortness of breath, and wheezings, and those distillations of thin rheum upon the lungs, which cause phthisicks, and oftentimes consumptions. The fresh roots beaten small, or the powder of the dried roots mixed with honey, and applied to the member that is out of joint, doth much help it; and applied also to the nose, cures the disease called Polypus, which is a piece of flesh growing therein, which in time stops the passage of breath through that nostril; and it helps those clefts or chops that come between the fingers or toes.THE POPLAR TREE.Thereare two sorts of Poplars, which are most familiar with us, viz. the Black and White, both which I shall here describe unto you.Descript.] The White Poplar grows great, and reasonably high, covered with thick, smooth, white bark, especially the branches; having long leaves cut into several divisions almost like a vine leaf, but not of so deep a green on the upper side, and hoary white underneath, of a reasonable good scent, the whole form representing the form of Coltsfoot. The catkins which it brings forth before the leaves, are long, and of a faint reddish colour, which fall away, bearing seldom good seed with them. The wood hereof is smooth, soft, and white, very finely waved, whereby it is much esteemed.The Black Poplar grows higher and straighter than the White, with a greyish bark, bearing broad green leaves, somewhat like ivy leaves, not cut in on the edges like the White, but whole and dented, ending in a point, and not white underneath, hanging by slender long foot stalks, which with the air are continually shaken, like as the Aspen leaves are. The catkins hereof are greater than those of the White, composed of many round green berries, as if they were set together in a long cluster, containing much downy matter, which being ripe, is blown away with the wind. The clammy buds hereof, before they spread into leaves, are gathered to make Unguentum and Populneum, and are of a yellowish green colour, and somewhat small, sweet, butstrong. The wood is smooth, tough, and white, and easy to be cloven. On both these trees grows a sweet kind of musk, which in former times was used to put into sweet ointments.Place.] They grow in moist woods, and by water-sides in sundry places of this land; yet the White is not so frequent as the other.Time.] Their time is likewise expressed before: The catkins coming forth before the leaves in the end of Summer.Government and virtues.] Saturn hath dominion over both. White Poplar, saith Galen, is of a cleansing property: The weight of an ounce in powder, of the bark thereof, being drank, saith Dioscorides, is a remedy for those that are troubled with the sciatica, or the stranguary. The juice of the leaves dropped warm into the ears, eases the pains in them. The young clammy buds or eyes, before they break out into leaves, bruised, and a little honey put to them, is a good medicine for a dull sight. The Black Poplar is held to be more cooling than the White, and therefore the leaves bruised with vinegar and applied, help the gout. The seed drank in vinegar, is held good against the falling-sickness. The water that drops from the hollow places of this tree, takes away warts, pushes, wheals, and other the like breakings-out of the body. The young Black Poplar buds, saith Matthiolus, are much used by women to beautify their hair, bruising them with fresh butter, straining them after they have been kept for some time in the sun. The ointment called Populneon, which is made of this Poplar, is singularly good for all heat and inflammations in any part of the body, and tempers the heat of wounds. It is much used to dry up the milk of women’s breasts when they have weaned their children.POPPY.Ofthis I shall describe three kinds,viz.the White and Black of the Garden, and the Erratic Wild Poppy, or Corn Rose.Descript.] The White Poppy hath at first four or five whitish green leaves lying upon the ground, which rise with the stalk, compassing it at the bottom of them, and are very large, much cut or torn on the edges, and dented also besides: The stalk, which is usually four or five feet high, hath sometimes no branches at the top, and usually but two or three at most, bearing every one but one head wrapped up in a thin skin, which bows down before it is ready to blow, and then rising, and being broken, the flowers within it spreading itself open, and consisting of four very large, white, round leaves, with many whitish round threads in the middle, set about a small, round, green head, having a crown, or star-like cover at the head thereof, which growing ripe, becomes as large as a great apple, wherein are contained a great number of small round seeds, in several partitions or divisions next unto the shell, the middle thereof remaining hollow, and empty. The whole plant, both leaves, stalks, and heads, while they are fresh, young, and green, yield a milk when they are broken, of an unpleasant bitter taste, almost ready to provoke casting, and of a strong heady smell, which being condensed, is called Opium. The root is white and woody, perishing as soon as it hath given ripe seed.The Black Poppy little differs from the former, until it bears its flower, which is somewhat less, and of a black purplish colour, but without any purple spots in the bottom of the leaf. The head of the seed is much less than the former, and opens itself a little round about the top, under the crown, so that the seed, which is very black, will fall out, if one turn the head thereof downward.The wild Poppy, or Corn Rose, hath long and narrow leaves, very much cut in on theedges into many divisions, of a light green colour, sometimes hairy withal. The stalk is blackish and hairy also, but not so tall as the garden kind, having some such like leaves thereon to grow below, parted into three or four branches sometimes, whereon grow small hairy heads bowing down before the skin break, wherein the flower is inclosed, which when it is fully blown open, is of a fair yellowish red or crimson colour, and in some much paler, without any spot in the bottom of the leaves, having many black soft threads in the middle, compassing a small green head, which when it is ripe, is not bigger than one’s little finger’s end, wherein is contained much black seeds smaller than that of the garden. The root perishes every year, and springs again of its own sowing. Of this kind there is one lesser in all parts thereof, and differs in nothing else.Place.] The garden kinds do not naturally grow wild in any place, but all are sown in gardens where they grow.The Wild Poppy or Corn Rose, is plentifully enough, and many times too much so in the corn fields of all counties through this land, and also on ditch banks, and by hedge sides. The smaller wild kind is also found in corn fields, and also in some other places, but not so plentifully as the former.Time.] The garden kinds are usually sown in the spring, which then flower about the end of May, and somewhat earlier, if they spring of their own sowing.The wild kind flower usually from May until July, and the seed of them is ripe soon after the flowering.Government and virtues.] The herb is Lunar, and of the juice of it is made opium; only for lucre of money they cheat you, and tell you it is a kind of tear, or some such like thing, that drops from Poppies when they weep, and that is somewhere beyond the seas, I know not where beyond the Moon. The garden Poppy heads with seeds made into a syrup, is frequently, and to good effect used to procure rest, and sleep, in the sick and weak, and to stay catarrhs and defluxions of thin rheums from the head into the stomach and lungs, causing a continual cough, the fore-runner of a consumption; it helps also hoarseness of the throat, and when one have lost their voice, which the oil of the seed doth likewise. The black seed boiled in wine, and drank, is said also to dry the flux of the belly, and women’s courses. The empty shells, or poppy heads, are usually boiled in water, and given to procure rest and sleep: so doth the leaves in the same manner; as also if the head and temples be bathed with the decoction warm, or with the oil of Poppies, the green leaves or the heads bruised and applied with a little vinegar, or made into a poultice with barley-meal or hog’s grease, cools and tempers all inflammations, as also the disease called St. Anthony’s fire. It is generally used in treacle and mithridate, and in all other medicines that are made to procure rest and sleep, and to ease pains in the head as well as in other parts. It is also used to cool inflammations, agues, or frenzies, or to stay defluxions which cause a cough, or consumptions, and also other fluxes of the belly or women’s courses; it is also put into hollow teeth, to ease the pain, and hath been found by experience to ease the pains of the gout.The Wild Poppy, or Corn Rose (as Matthiolus saith) is good to prevent the falling-sickness. The syrup made with the flower, is with good effect given to those that have the pleurisy; and the dried flowers also, either boiled in water, or made into powder and drank, either in the distilled water of them, or some other drink, works the like effect. The distilled water of the flowers is held to be of much good use against surfeits, being drank evening and morning;It is also more cooling than any of the other Poppies, and therefore cannot but be as effectual in hot agues, frenzies, and other inflammations either inward or outward. Galen saith, The seed is dangerous to be used inwardly.PURSLAIN.GardenPurslain (being used as a sallad herb) is so well known that it needs no description; I shall therefore only speak of its virtues as follows.Government and virtues.] ’Tis an herb of the Moon. It is good to cool any heat in the liver, blood, reins, and stomach, and in hot agues nothing better: It stays hot and choleric fluxes of the belly, women’s courses, the whites, and gonorrhæa, or running of the reins, the distillation from the head, and pains therein proceeding from heat, want of sleep, or the frenzy. The seed is more effectual than the herb, and is of singular good use to cool the heat and sharpness of urine, venereous dreams, and the like; insomuch that the over frequent use hereof extinguishes the heat and virtue of natural procreation. The seed bruised and boiled in wine, and given to children, expels the worms. The juice of the herb is held as effectual to all the purposes aforesaid; as also to stay vomitings, and taken with some sugar or honey, helps an old and dry cough, shortness of breath, and the phthisick, and stays immoderate thirst. The distilled water of the herb is used by many (as the more pleasing) with a little sugar to work the same effects. The juice also is singularly good in the inflammations and ulcers in the secret parts of man or woman, as also the bowels and hæmorrhoids, when they are ulcerous, or excoriations in them. The herb bruised and applied to the forehead and temples, allays excessive heat therein, that hinders rest and sleep; and applied to the eyes, takes away the redness and inflammation in them, and those other parts where pushes, wheals, pimples, St. Anthony’s fire and the like, break forth; if a little vinegar be put to it, and laid to the neck, with as much of galls and linseed together, it takes away the pains therein, and the crick in the neck. The juice is used with oil of roses for the same causes, or for blasting by lightning, and burnings by gunpowder, or for women’s sore breasts, and to allay the heat in all other sores or hurts; applied also to the navels of children that stick forth, it helps them; it is also good for sore mouths and gums that are swollen, and to fasten loose teeth. Camerarius saith, the distilled water used by some, took away the pain of their teeth, when all other remedies failed, and the thickened juice made into pills with the powder of gum Tragicanth and Arabic, being taken, prevails much to help those that make bloody water. Applied to the gout it eases pains thereof, and helps the hardness of the sinews, if it come not of the cramp, or a cold cause.PRIMROSES.Theyare so well known, that they need no description. Of the leaves of Primroses is made as fine a salve to heal wounds as any that I know; you shall be taught to make salves of any herb at the latter end of the book: make this as you are taught there, and do not (you that have any ingenuity in you) see your poor neighbours go with wounded limbs when an halfpenny cost will heal them.PRIVET.Descript.]Ourcommon Privet is carried up with many slender branches to a reasonable height and breadth, to cover arbours, bowers and banquetting houses, and brought, wrought, and cut into so many forms, of men, horses, birds, &c. which though at first supported, grows afterwards strong of itself. It bears long and narrowgreen leaves by the couples, and sweet smelling white flowers in tufts at the end of the branches, which turn into small black berries that have a purplish juice with them, and some seeds that are flat on the one side, with a hole or dent therein.Place.] It grows in this land, in divers woods.Time.] Our Privet flowers in June and July, the berries are ripe in August and September.Government and virtues.] The Moon is lady of this. It is little used in physic with us in these times, more than in lotions, to wash sores and sore mouths, and to cool inflammations, and dry up fluxes. Yet Matthiolus saith, it serves all the uses for which Cypress, or the East Privet, is appointed by Dioscorides and Galen. He further saith, That the oil that is made of the flowers of Privet infused therein, and set in the Sun, is singularly good for the inflammations of wounds, and for the headache, coming of a hot cause. There is a sweet water also distilled from the flowers, that is good for all those diseases that need cooling and drying, and therefore helps all fluxes of the belly or stomach, bloody-fluxes, and women’s courses, being either drank or applied; as all those that void blood at the mouth, or any other place, and for distillations of rheum in the eyes, especially if it be used with them.QUEEN OF THE MEADOWS, MEADOW SWEET, OR MEAD SWEET.Descript.]Thestalks of these are reddish, rising to be three feet high, sometimes four or five feet, having at the joints thereof large winged leaves, standing one above another at distances, consisting of many and somewhat broad leaves, set on each side of a middle rib, being hard, rough, or rugged, crumpled much like unto elm leaves, having also some smaller leaves with them (as Agrimony hath) somewhat deeply dented about the edges, of a sad green colour on the upper side, and greyish underneath, of a pretty sharp scent and taste, somewhat like unto the Burnet, and a leaf hereof put into a cup of claret wine, gives also a fine relish to it. At the tops of the stalks and branches stand many tufts of small white flowers thrust thick together, which smell much sweeter than the leaves; and in their places, being fallen, come crooked and cornered seed. The root is somewhat woody, and blackish on the outside, and brownish within, with divers great strings, and lesser fibres set thereat, of a strong scent, but nothing so pleasant as the flowers and leaves, and perishes not, but abides many years, shooting forth a-new every Spring.Place.] It grows in moist meadows that lie mostly wet, or near the courses of water.Time.] It flowers in some places or other all the three Summer months, that is, June, July, and August, and the seed is ripe soon after.Government and virtues.] Venus claims dominion over the herb. It is used to stay all manner of bleedings, fluxes, vomitings, and women’s courses, also their whites: It is said to alter and take away the fits of the quartan agues, and to make a merry heart, for which purpose some use the flowers, and some the leaves. It helps speedily those that are troubled with the cholic; being boiled in wine, and with a little honey, taken warm, it opens the belly; but boiled in red wine, and drank, it stays the flux of the belly. Outwardly applied, it helps old ulcers that are cankerous, or hollow fistulous, for which it is by many much commended, as also for the sores in the mouth or secret parts. The leaves when they are full grown, being laid on the skin, will, in a short time, raise blisters thereon, as Tragus saith. The water thereof helps the heat and inflammation in the eyes.THE QUINCE TREE.Descript.]Theordinary Quince Tree grows often to the height and bigness of a reasonable apple tree, but more usually lower, and crooked, with a rough bark, spreading arms, and branches far abroad. The leaves are somewhat like those of the apple tree, but thicker, broader, and full of veins, and whiter on the under side, not dented at all about the edges. The flowers are large and white, sometimes dashed over with a blush. The fruit that follows is yellow, being near ripe, and covered with a white freeze, or cotton; thick set on the younger, and growing less as they grow to be thorough ripe, bunched out oftentimes in some places, some being like an apple, and some a pear, of a strong heady scent, and not durable to keep, and is sour, harsh, and of an unpleasant taste to eat fresh; but being scalded, roasted, baked, or preserved, becomes more pleasant.Place and Time.] It best likes to grow near ponds and water sides, and is frequent through this land: and flowers not until the leaves be come forth. The fruit is ripe in September or October.Government and virtues.] Old Saturn owns the Tree. Quinces when they are green, help all sorts of fluxes in men or women, and choleric lasks, casting, and whatever needs astriction, more than any way prepared by fire; yet the syrup of the juice, or the conserve, are much conducible, much of the binding quality being consumed by the fire; if a little vinegar be added, it stirs up the languishing appetite, and the stomach given to casting; some spices being added, comforts and strengthens the decaying and fainting spirits, and helps the liver oppressed, that it cannot perfect the digestion, or corrects choler and phlegm. If you would have them purging, put honey to them instead of sugar; and if more laxative, for choler, Rhubarb; for phlegm, Turbith; for watery humours, Scammony; but if more forcible to bind, use the unripe Quinces, with roses and acacia, hypocistis, and some torrified rhubarb. To take the crude juice of Quinces, is held a preservative against the force of deadly poison; for it hath been found most certainly true, that the very smell of a Quince hath taken away all the strength of the poison of white Hellebore. If there be need of any outwardly binding and cooling of hot fluxes, the oil of Quinces, or other medicines that may be made thereof, are very available to anoint the belly or other parts therewith; it likewise strengthens the stomach and belly, and the sinews that are loosened by sharp humours falling on them, and restrains immoderate sweatings. The muscilage taken from the seeds of Quinces, and boiled in a little water, is very good to cool the heat and heal the sore breasts of women. The same, with a little sugar, is good to lenify the harshness and hoarseness of the throat, and roughness of the tongue. The cotton or down of Quinces boiled and applied to plague sores, heals them up: and laid as a plaister, made up with wax, it brings hair to them that are bald, and keeps it from falling, if it be ready to shed.RADDISH, OR HORSE-RADDISH.Thegarden Raddish is so well known, that it needs no description.Descript.] The Horse-Raddish hath its first leaves, that rise before Winter, about a foot and a half long, very much cut in or torn on the edges into many parts, of a dark green colour, with a great rib in the middle; after these have been up a while, others follow, which are greater, rougher, broader and longer, whole and not divided at first, but only somewhat rougher dented about the edges; the stalks when it bears flowers (which is seldom) is great, rising up with some few lesser leaves thereon, to three or four feet high, spreading at the top many small branches of whitish flowers, made of four leaves a-piece; after which come small pods, like those of Shepherd’s Purse, but seldom with any seed in them. The root is great, long, white and rugged, shooting up divers heads of leaves, which may be parted for increase, but it doth not creep in the ground, nor run above ground, and is of a strong, sharp, and bitter taste almost like mustard.Place.] It is found wild in some places, but is chiefly planted in gardens, and joys in moist and shadowy places.Time.] It seldom flowers, but when it doth, it is in July.Government and virtues.] They are both under Mars. The juice of Horse-raddish given to drink, is held to be very effectual for the scurvy. It kills the worms in children, being drank, and also laid upon the belly. The root bruised and laid to the place grieved with the sciatica, joint-ache, or the hard swellings of the liver and spleen, doth wonderfully help them all. The distilled water of the herb and root is more familiar to be taken with a little sugar for all the purposes aforesaid.Garden Raddishes are in wantonness by the gentry eaten as a sallad, but they breed but scurvy humours in the stomach, and corrupt the blood, and then send for a physician as fast as you can; this is one cause which makes the owners of such nice palates so unhealthful; yet for such as are troubled with the gravel, stone, or stoppage of urine, they are good physic, if the body be strong that takes them; you may make the juice of the roots into a syrup if you please, for that use: they purge by urine exceedingly.RAGWORT.Itis called also St. James’-wort, and Stagger-wort, and Stammer-wort, and Segrum.Descript.] The greater common Ragwort hath many large and long, dark green leaves lying on the ground, very much rent and torn on the sides in many places: from among which rise up sometimes but one, and sometimes two or three square or crested blackish or brownish stalks, three or four feet high, sometimes branched, bearing divers such-like leaves upon them, at several distances upon the top, where it branches forth into many stalks bearing yellow flowers, consisting of divers leaves, set as a pale or border, with a dark yellow thrum in the middle, which do abide a great while, but at last are turned into down, and with the small blackish grey seed, are carried away with the wind. The root is made of many fibres, whereby it is firmly fastened into the ground, and abides many years.There is another sort thereof differs from the former only in this, that it rises not so high; the leaves are not so finely jagged, nor of so dark a green colour, but rather somewhat whitish, soft and woolly, and the flowers usually paler.Place.] They grow, both of them, wild in pastures, and untilled grounds in many places, and oftentimes both in one field.Time.] They flower in June and July, and the seed is ripe in August.Government and virtues.] Ragwort is under the command of Dame Venus, and cleanses, digests, and discusses. The decoction of the herb is good to wash the mouth or throat that hath ulcers or sores therein: and for swellings, hardness, or imposthumes, for it thoroughly cleanses and heals them; as also the quinsy, and the king’s evil. It helps to stay catarrhs, thin rheums, and defluxions from the head into the eyes, nose, or lungs. The juice is found by experience to be singularly good to heal green wounds, and to cleanse and heal all old and filthy ulcers in the privities, and in other parts of the body, as also inward wounds and ulcers; stays the malignity of fretting and running cankers, and hollowfistulas, not suffering them to spread farther. It is also much commended to help aches and pains either in the fleshy part, or in the nerves and sinews, as also the sciatica, or pain of the hips or knuckle-bone, to bathe the places with the decoction of the herb, or to anoint them with an ointment made of the herb bruised and boiled in old hog’s suet, with some Mastick and Olibanum in powder added unto it after it is strained forth. In Sussex we call it Ragweed.

Thisis so well known, that it needs no description.

Government and virtues.] It is under the dominion of Mercury; is very comfortable to the stomach; helps to provoke urine and women’s courses, to break wind both in the stomach and bowels, and doth a little open the body, but the root much more. It opens obstructions both of liver and spleen, and is therefore accounted one of the five opening roots. Galen commended it against the falling sickness, and to provoke urine mightily; especially if the roots be boiled, and eaten like Parsnips. The seed is effectual to provoke urine and women’s courses, to expel wind, to break the stone, and ease the pains and torments thereof; it is also effectual against the venom of any poisonous creature, and the danger that comes to them that have the lethargy, and is as good against the cough. The distilled water of Parsley is a familiar medicine with nurses to give their children when they are troubled with wind in the stomach or belly which they call the frets; and is also much available to them that are of great years. The leaves of Parsley laid to the eyes that are inflamed with heat, or swollen, doth much help them, if it be used with bread or meal; and being fried with butter, and applied to women’s breasts that are hard through the curdling of their milk, it abates the hardness quickly; and also takes away black and blue marks coming of bruises or falls. The juice thereof dropped into the ears with a little wine, eases the pains. Tragus sets down an excellent medicine to help the jaundice and falling sickness, the dropsy, and stone in the kidneys, in this manner: Take of the seed of Parsley, Fennel, Annise and Carraways, of each an ounce; of the roots of Parsley, Burnet, Saxifrage, and Carraways, of each an ounce and an half; let the seeds be bruised, and the roots washed and cut small; let them lie all night to steep in a bottle of white wine, and in the morning be boiled in a close earthen vessel until a third part or more be wasted; which being strained and cleared, take four ounces thereof morning and evening first and last, abstaining from drink after it for three hours. This opens obstructions of the liver and spleen, and expels the dropsy and jaundice by urine.

Descript.]Theroot, although it be very small and thready, yet it continues many years, from which arise many leaves lying along on the ground, each standing upon a long small foot-stalk, the leaves as broad as a man’s nail, very deeply dented on theedges, somewhat like a parsley-leaf, but of a very dusky green colour. The stalks are very weak and slender, about three or four fingers in length, set so full of leaves that they can hardly be seen, either having no foot-stalk at all, or but very short; the flowers are so small they can hardly be seen, and the seed as small as may be.

Place.] It is a common herb throughout the nation, and rejoices in barren, sandy, moist places. It may be found plentifully about Hampstead Heath, Hyde Park, and in Tothill-fields.

Time.] It may be found all the Summer-time, even from the beginning of April to the end of October.

Government and virtues.] Its operation is very prevalent to provoke urine, and to break the stone. It is a very good sallad herb. It were good the gentry would pickle it up as they pickle up Samphire for their use all the Winter. I cannot teach them how to do it; yet this I can tell them, it is a very wholesome herb. They may also keep the herb dry, or in a syrup, if they please. You may take a dram of the powder of it in white wine; it would bring away gravel from the kidneys insensibly, and without pain. It also helps the stranguary.

Thegarden kind thereof is so well known (the root being commonly eaten) that I shall not trouble you with any description of it. But the wild kind being of more physical use, I shall in this place describe it unto you.

Descript.] The wild Parsnip differs little from the garden, but grows not so fair and large, nor hath so many leaves, and the root is shorter, more woody, and not so fit to be eaten, and therefore more medicinal.

Place.] The name of the first shews the place of its growth. The other grows wild in divers places, as in the marshes in Rochester, and elsewhere, and flowers in July; the seed being ripe about the beginning of August, the second year after its sowing; for if they do flower the first year, the country people call them Madneps.

Government and virtues.] The garden Parsnips are under Venus. The garden Parsnip nourishes much, and is good and wholesome nourishment, but a little windy, whereby it is thought to procure bodily lust; but it fastens the body much, if much need. It is conducible to the stomach and reins, and provokes urine. But the wild Parsnips hath a cutting, attenuating, cleansing, and opening quality therein. It resists and helps the bitings of serpents, eases the pains and stitches in the sides, and dissolves wind both in the stomach and bowels, which is the cholic, and provokes urine. The root is often used, but the seed much more. The wild being better than the tame, shews Dame Nature to be the best physician.

Descript.]Thisgrows with three or four large, spread winged, rough leaves, lying often on the ground, or else raised a little from it, with long, round, hairy foot-stalks under them, parted usually into five divisions, the two couples standing each against the other; and one at the end, and each leaf, being almost round, yet somewhat deeply cut in on the edges in some leaves, and not so deep in others, of a whitish green colour, smelling somewhat strongly; among which rises up a round, crusted, hairy stalk, two or three feet high, with a few joints and leaves thereon, and branched at the top, where stand large umbels of white, and sometimes reddish flowers, and after them flat, whitish, thin, winged seed, two always joined together. The root is long and white, with two or three long strings growing down into the ground, smelling likewise strongly and unpleasant.

Place.] It grows in moist meadows, andthe borders and corners of fields, and near ditches, through this land.

Time.] It flowers in July, and seeds in August.

Government and virtues.] Mercury hath the dominion over them. The seed thereof, as Galen saith, is of a sharp and cutting quality, and therefore is a fit medicine for a cough and shortness of breath, the falling sickness and jaundice. The root is available to all the purposes aforesaid, and is also of great use to take away the hard skin that grows on a fistula, if it be but scraped upon it. The seed hereof being drank, cleanses the belly from tough phlegmatic matter therein, eases them that are liver-grown, women’s passions of the mother, as well being drank as the smoke thereof received, and likewise raises such as are fallen into a deep sleep, or have the lethargy, by burning it under their nose. The seed and root boiled in oil, and the head rubbed therewith, helps not only those that are fallen into a frenzy, but also the lethargy or drowsy evil, and those that have been long troubled with the head-ache, if it be likewise used with Rue. It helps also the running scab and shingles. The juice of the flowers dropped into the ears that run and are full of matter, cleanses and heals them.

Descript.]A peachtree grows not so great as the Apricot tree, yet spreads branches reasonable well, from whence spring smaller reddish twigs, whereon are set long and narrow green leaves dented about the edges. The blossoms are greater than the plumb, and of a light purple colour; the fruit round, and sometimes as big as a reasonable Pippin, others smaller, as also differing in colour and taste, as russet, red, or yellow, waterish or firm, with a frize or cotton all over, with a cleft therein like an Apricot, and a rugged, furrowed, great stone within it, and a bitter kernel within the stone. It sooner waxes old, and decays, than the Apricot, by much.

Place.] They are nursed in gardens and orchards through this land.

Time.] They flower in the Spring, and fructify in Autumn.

Government and virtues.] Lady Venus owns this tree, and by it opposes the ill effects of Mars, and indeed for children and young people, nothing is better to purge choler and the jaundice, than the leaves or flowers of this tree being made into a syrup or conserve. Let such as delight to please their lust regard the fruit; but such as have lost their health, and their children’s, let them regard what I say, they may safely give two spoonfuls of the syrup at a time; it is as gentle as Venus herself. The leaves of peaches bruised and laid on the belly, kill worms, and so they do also being boiled in ale and drank, and open the belly likewise; and, being dried, is a far safer medicine to discuss humours. The powder of them strewed upon fresh bleeding wounds stays their bleeding, and closes them up. The flowers steeped all night in a little wine standing warm, strained forth in the morning, and drank fasting, doth gently open the belly, and move it downward. A syrup made of them, as the syrup of roses is made, works more forcibly than that of roses, for it provokes vomiting, and spends waterish and hydropic humours by the continuance thereof. The flowers made into a conserve, work the same effect. The liquor that dropped from the tree, being wounded, is given in the decoction of Coltsfoot, to those that are troubled with a cough or shortness of breath, by adding thereunto some sweet wine, and putting some saffron also therein. It is good for those that are hoarse, or have lost their voice; helps all defects of the lungs, and those that vomit and spit blood. Two drams hereof given in the juice of lemons, or of radish, is good for them that are troubled with the stone,the kernels of the stones do wonderfully ease the pains and wringings of the belly through wind or sharp humours, and help to make an excellent medicine for the stone upon all occasions, in this manner:I take fifty kernels of peach-stones, and one hundred of the kernels of cherry-stones, a handful of elder flowers fresh or dried, and three pints of Muscadel; set them in a close pot into a bed of horse-dung for ten days, after which distil in a glass with a gentle fire, and keep it for your use: You may drink upon occasion three or four ounces at a time. The milk or cream of these kernels being drawn forth with some Vervain water and applied to the forehead and temples, doth much help to procure rest and sleep to sick persons wanting it. The oil drawn from the kernels, the temples being therewith anointed, doth the like. The said oil put into clysters, eases the pains of the wind cholic: and anointed on the lower part of the belly, doth the like, and dropped into the ears, eases pains in them; the juice of the leaves doth the like. Being also anointed on the forehead and temples, it helps the megrim, and all other pains in the head. If the kernels be bruised and boiled in vinegar, until they become thick, and applied to the head, it marvellously procures the hair to grow again upon bald places, or where it is too thin.

PearTrees are so well known, that they need no description.

Government and virtues.] The Tree belongs to Venus, and so doth the Apple tree. For their physical use they are best discerned by their taste. All the sweet and luscious sorts, whether manured or wild, do help to move the belly downwards, more or less. Those that are hard and sour, do, on the contrary, bind the belly as much, and the leaves do so also: Those that are moist do in some sort cool, but harsh or wild sorts much more, and are very good in repelling medicines; and if the wild sort be boiled with mushrooms, it makes them less dangerous. The said Pears boiled with a little honey, help much the oppressed stomach, as all sorts of them do, some more, some less: but the harsher sorts do more cool and bind, serving well to be bound to green wounds, to cool and stay the blood, and heal up the green wound without farther trouble, or inflammation, as Galen saith he hath found by experience. The wild Pears do sooner close up the lips of green wounds than others.

Schola Selerni advises to drink much wine after Pears, or else (say they) they are as bad as poison; nay, and they curse the tree for it too; but if a poor man find his stomach oppressed by eating Pears, it is but working hard, and it will do as well as drinking wine.

CommonPellitory of Spain, if it be planted in our gardens, will prosper very well; yet there is one sort growing ordinarily here wild, which I esteem to be little inferior to the other, if at all. I shall not deny you the description of them both.

Descript.] Common Pellitory is a very common plant, and will not be kept in our gardens without diligent looking to. The root goes down right into the ground bearing leaves, being long and finely cut upon the stalk, lying on the ground, much larger than the leaves of the Camomile are. At the top it bears one single large flower at a place, having a border of many leaves, white on the upper side, and reddish underneath, with a yellow thrum in the middle, not standing so close as that of Camomile.

The other common Pellitory which grows here, hath a root of a sharp biting taste, scarcely discernible by the taste from that before described, from whence arise divers brittle stalks, a yard high and more, with narrow leaves finely dented about theedges, standing one above another up to the tops. The flowers are many and white, standing in tufts like those of Yarrow, with a small yellowish thrum in the middle. The seed is very small.

Place.] The last grows in fields by the hedge sides and paths, almost every where.

Time.] It flowers at the latter end of June and July.

Government and virtues.] It is under the government of Mercury, and I am persuaded it is one of the best purgers of the brain that grows. An ounce of the juice taken in a draught of Muskadel an hour before the fit of the ague comes, it will assuredly drive away the ague at the second or third time taken at the farthest. Either the herb or root dried and chewed in the mouth, purges the brain of phlegmatic humours; thereby not only easing pains in the head and teeth, but also hinders the distilling of the brain upon the lungs and eyes, thereby preventing coughs, phthisicks and consumption, the apoplexy and falling sickness. It is an excellently approved remedy in the lethargy. The powder of the herb or root being snuffed up the nostrils, procures sneezing, and eases the head-ache; being made into an ointment with hog’s grease, it takes away black and blue spots occasioned by blows or falls, and helps both the gout and sciatica.

Descript.]Itrises with brownish, red, tender, weak, clear, and almost transparent stalks, about two feet high, upon which grow at the joints two leaves somewhat broad and long, of a dark green colour, which afterwards turn brownish, smooth on the edges, but rough and hairy, as the stalks are also. At the joints with the leaves from the middle of the stalk upwards, where it spreads into branches, stand many small, pale, purplish flowers in hairy, rough heads, or husks, after which come small, black, rough seed, which will stick to any cloth or garment that shall touch it. The root is somewhat long, with small fibres thereat, of a dark reddish colour, which abides the Winter, although the stalks and leaves perish and spring every year.

Place.] It grows wild generally through the land, about the borders of fields, and by the sides of walls, and among rubbish. It will endure well being brought up in gardens, and planted on the shady side, where it will spring of its own sowing.

Time.] It flowers in June and July, and the seed is ripe soon after.

Government and virtues.] It is under the dominion of Mercury. The dried herb Pellitory made up into an electuary with honey, or the juices of the herb, or the decoction thereof made up with sugar or honey, is a singular remedy for an old or dry cough, the shortness of breath, and wheezing in the throat. Three ounces of the juice thereof taken at a time, doth wonderfully help stopping of the urine, and to expel the stone or gravel in the kidneys or bladder, and is therefore usually put among other herbs used in clysters to mitigate pains in the back, sides, or bowels, proceeding of wind, stopping of urine, the gravel or stone, as aforesaid. If the bruised herb, sprinkled with some Muskadel, be warmed upon a tile, or in a dish upon a few quick coals in a chafing-dish, and applied to the belly, it works the same effect. The decoction of the herb being drank, eases pains of the mother, and brings down women’s courses: It also eases those griefs that arise from obstructions of the liver, spleen, and reins. The same decoction, with a little honey added thereto, is good to gargle a sore throat. The juice held a while in the mouth, eases pains in the teeth. The distilled water of the herb drank with some sugar, works the same effects, and cleanses the skin from spots, freckles, purples, wheals, sun-burn, morphew, &c. Thejuice dropped into the ears, eases the noise in them, and takes away the pricking and shooting pains therein: The same, or the distilled water, assuages hot and swelling imposthumes, burnings and scaldings by fire or water; as also all other hot tumours and inflammations, or breakings-out, of heat, being bathed often with wet cloths dipped therein: The said juice made into a liniment with ceruss, and oil of roses, and anointed therewith, cleanses foul rotten ulcers, and stays spreading or creeping ulcers, and running scabs or sores in children’s heads; and helps to stay the hair from falling off the head. The said ointment, or the herb applied to the fundament, opens the piles, and eases their pains; and being mixed with goats’ tallow, helps the gout. The juice is very effectual to cleanse fistulas, and to heal them up safely; or the herb itself bruised and applied with a little salt. It is likewise also effectual to heal any green wound; if it be bruised and bound thereto for three days, you shall need no other medicine to heal it further. A poultice made hereof with Mallows, and boiled in wine and wheat bran and bean flour, and some oil put thereto, and applied warm to any bruised sinews, tendon, or muscle, doth in a very short time restore them to their strength, taking away the pains of the bruises, and dissolves the congealed blood coming of blows, or falls from high places.

The juice of Pellitory of the Wall clarified and boiled in a syrup with honey, and a spoonful of it drank every morning by such as are subject to the dropsy; if continuing that course, though but once a week, they ever have the dropsy, let them but come to me, and I will cure themgratis.

Pennyroyalis so well known unto all, I mean the common kind, that it needs no description.

There is a greater kind than the ordinary sort found wild with us, which so abides, being brought into gardens, and differs not from it, but only in the largeness of the leaves and stalks, in rising higher, and not creeping upon the ground so much. The flowers whereof are purple, growing in rundles about the stalks like the other.

Place.] The first, which is common in gardens, grows also in many moist and watery places of this land.

The second is found wild in effect in divers places by the highways from London to Colchester, and thereabouts, more abundantly than in any other counties, and is also planted in their gardens in Essex.

Time.] They flower in the latter end of Summer, about August.

Government and virtues.] The herb is under Venus. Dioscorides saith, that Pennyroyal makes thin tough phlegm, warms the coldness of any part whereto it is applied, and digests raw or corrupt matter; Being boiled and drank, it provokes women’s courses, and expels the dead child and after-birth, and stays the disposition to vomit, being taken in water and vinegar mingled together. And being mingled with honey and salt, it voids phlegm out of the lungs, and purges melancholy by the stool. Drank with wine, it helps such as are bitten and stung with venomous beasts, and applied to the nostrils with vinegar, revives those that are fainting and swooning. Being dried and burnt, it strengthens the gums. It is helpful to those that are troubled with the gout, being applied of itself to the place until it was red; and applied in a plaister, it takes away spots or marks in the face; applied with salt, it profits those that are splenetic, or livergrown. The decoction doth help the itch, if washed therewith. The green herb bruised and put into vinegar, cleanses foul ulcers, and takes away the marks of bruises and blows about the eyes, and all discolourings of the faceby fire, yea, and the leprosy, being drank and outwardly applied: Boiled in wine with honey and salt, it helps the tooth-ache. It helps the cold griefs by the joints, taking away the pains, and warms the cold part, being fast bound to the place, after a bathing or sweating in a hot house. Pliny adds, that Pennyroyal and Mints together, help faintings, being put into vinegar, and smelled unto, or put into the nostrils or mouth. It eases head-aches, pains of the breast and belly, and gnawings of the stomach; applied with honey, salt, and vinegar, it helps cramps or convulsions of the sinews: Boiled in milk, and drank, it is effectual for the cough, and for ulcers and sores in the mouth; drank in wine it provokes women’s courses, and expels the dead child, and after-birth. Matthiolus saith, The decoction thereof being drank, helps the jaundice and dropsy, all pains of the head and sinews that come of a cold cause, and clears the eye-sight. It helps the lethargy, and applied with barley-meal, helps burnings; and put into the ears, eases the pains of them.

Descript.]MalePeony rises up with brownish stalks, whereon grow green and reddish leaves, upon a stalk without any particular division in the leaf at all. The flowers stand at the top of the stalks, consisting of five or six broad leaves, of a fair purplish red colour, with many yellow threads in the middle standing about the head, which after rises up to be the seed vessels, divided into two, three, or four crooked pods like horns, which being full ripe, open and turn themselves down backwards, shewing with them divers round, black, shining seeds, having also many crimson grains, intermixed with black, whereby it makes a very pretty shew. The roots are great, thick and long, spreading and running down deep in the ground.

The ordinary Female Peony hath as many stalks, and more leaves on them than the Male; the leaves not so large, but nicked on the edges, some with great and deep, others with small cuts and divisions, of a dead green colour. The flowers are of a strong heady scent, usually smaller, and of a more purple colour than the Male, with yellow thrums about the head, as the Male hath. The seed vessels are like horns, as in the Male, but smaller, the seed is black, but less shining. The root consists of many short tuberous clogs, fastened at the end of long strings, and all from the heads of the roots, which is thick and short, and of the like scent with the Male.

Place and Time.] They grow in gardens, and flower usually about May.

Government and virtues.] It is an herb of the Sun, and under the Lion. Physicians say, Male Peony roots are best; but Dr. Reason told me Male Peony was best for men, and Female Peony for women, and he desires to be judged by his brother Dr. Experience. The roots are held to be of more virtue than the seed; next the flowers; and, last of all, the leaves. The roots of the Male Peony, fresh gathered, having been found by experience to cure the falling sickness; but the surest way is, besides hanging it about the neck, by which children have been cured, to take the root of the Male Peony washed clean, and stamped somewhat small, and laid to infuse in sack for 24 hours at the least, afterwards strain it, and take it first and last, morning and evening, a good draught for sundry days together, before and after a full moon: and this will also cure old persons, if the disease be not grown too old, and past cure, especially if there be a due and orderly preparation of the body with posset-drink made of Betony, &c. The root is also effectual for women that are not sufficiently cleansed after child-birth, and such as are troubled with the mother; for which likewisethe black seed beaten to powder, and given in wine, is also available. The black seed also taken before bed-time, and in the morning, is very effectual for such as in their sleep are troubled with the disease called Ephialtes, or Incubus, but we do commonly call it the Night-mare: a disease which melancholy persons are subject unto: It is also good against melancholy dreams. The distilled water or syrup made of the flowers, works the same effects that the root and seed do, although more weakly. The Female’s is often used for the purpose aforesaid, by reason the Male is so scarce a plant, that it is possessed by few, and those great lovers of rarities in this kind.

Descript.]Ourcommon Pepperwort sends forth somewhat long and broad leaves, of a light blueish green colour, finely dented about the edges, and pointed at the ends, standing upon round hard stalks, three or four feet high, spreading many branches on all sides, and having many small white flowers at the tops of them, after which follow small seeds in small heads. The root is slender, running much under ground, and shooting up again in many places, and both leaves and roots are very hot and sharp of taste, like pepper, for which cause it took the name.

Place.] It grows naturally in many places of this land, as at Clare in Essex; also near unto Exeter in Devonshire; upon Rochester common in Kent; in Lancashire, and divers other places; but usually kept in gardens.

Time.] It flowers in the end of June, and in July.

Government and virtues.] Here is another martial herb for you, make much of it. Pliny and Paulus Ægineta say, that Pepperwort is very successful for the sciatica, or any other gout or pain in the joints, or any other inveterate grief: The leaves hereof to be bruised, and mixed with old hog’s grease, and applied to the place, and to continue thereon four hours in men, and two hours in women, the place being afterwards bathed with wine and oil mixed together, and then wrapped up with wool or skins, after they have sweat a little. It also amends the deformities or discolourings of the skin, and helps to take away marks, scars, and scabs, or the foul marks of burning with fire or iron. The juice hereof is by some used to be given in ale to drink, to women with child, to procure them a speedy delivery in travail.

Descript.]Thecommon sort hereof hath many branches trailing or running upon the ground, shooting out small fibres at the joints as it runs, taking thereby hold in the ground, and rooteth in divers places. At the joints of these branches stand two small, dark-green, shining leaves, somewhat like bay leaves, but smaller, and with them come forth also the flowers (one at a joint) standing upon a tender foot-stalk, being somewhat long and hollow, parted at the brims, sometimes into four, sometimes into five leaves: The most ordinary sorts are of a pale blue colour; some are pure white, some of a dark reddish purple colour. The root is little bigger than a rush, bushing in the ground, and creeping with his branches far about, whereby it quickly possesses a great compass, and is therefore most usually planted under hedges where it may have room to run.

Place.] Those with the pale blue, and those with the white flowers, grow in woods and orchards, by the hedge-sides, in divers places of this land; but those with the purple flowers, in gardens only.

Time.] They flower in March and April.

Government and virtues.] Venus owns this herb, and saith, That the leaves eaten by man and wife together, cause love betweenthem. The Periwinkle is a great binder, stays bleeding both at mouth and nose, if some of the leaves be chewed. The French used it to stay women’s courses. Dioscorides, Galen, and Ægineta, commend it against the lasks and fluxes of the belly to be drank in wine.

IfSuperstition had not been the father of Tradition, as well as Ignorance the Mother of Devotion, this herb, (as well as St. John’s Wort) hath found some other name to be known by; but we may say of our forefathers, as St. Paul of the Athenians,I perceive in many things you are too superstitious. Yet seeing it is come to pass, that custom having got in possession, pleads prescription for the name, I shall let it pass, and come to the description of the herb, which take as follows.

Descript.] It rises up with square upright stalks for the most part, some greater and higher than St. John’s Wort (and good reason too, St. Peter being the greater apostle, (ask the Pope else;) for though God would have the saints equal, the Pope is of another opinion,) but brown in the same manner, having two leaves at every joint, somewhat like, but larger, than St. John’s Wort, and a little rounder pointed, with few or no holes to be seen thereon, and having sometimes some smaller leaves rising from the bosom of the greater, and sometimes a little hairy also. At the tops of two stalks stand many star-like flowers, with yellow threads in the middle, very like those of St. John’s Wort, insomuch that this is hardly discerned from it, but only by the largeness and height, the seed being alike also in both. The root abides long, sending forth new shoots every year.

Place.] It grows in many groves, and small low woods, in divers places of this land, as in Kent, Huntingdon, Cambridge, and Northamptonshire; as also near water-courses in other places.

Time.] It flowers in June and July, and the seed is ripe in August.

Government and virtues.] There is not a straw to choose between this and St. John’s Wort, only St. Peter must have it, lest he should want pot herbs; It is of the same property of St. John’s Wort, but somewhat weaker, and therefore more seldom used. Two drams of the seed taken at a time in honied water, purges choleric humours, (as saith Dioscorides, Pliny, and Galen,) and thereby helps those that are troubled with the sciatica. The leaves are used as St. John’s Wort, to help those places of the body that have been burnt with fire.

Descript.]CommonPimpernel hath divers weak square stalks lying on the ground, beset all with two small and almost round leaves at every joint, one against another, very like Chickweed, but hath no foot-stalks; for the leaves, as it were, compase the stalk. The flowers stand singly each by themselves at them and the stalk, consisting of five small round-pointed leaves, of a pale red colour, tending to an orange, with so many threads in the middle, in whose places succeed smooth round heads, wherein is contained small seed. The root is small and fibrous, perishing every year.

Place.] It grows almost every where as well in the meadows and corn-fields, as by the way-sides, and in gardens, arising of itself.

Time.] It flowers from May until April, and the seed ripens in the mean time, and falls.

Government and virtues.] It is a gallant solar herb, of a cleansing attractive quality, whereby it draws forth thorns or splinters, or other such like things gotten into the flesh; and put up into the nostrils, purgesthe head; and Galen saith also, they have a drying faculty, whereby they are good to solder the lips of wounds, and to cleanse foul ulcers. The distilled water or juice is much esteemed by French dames to cleanse the skin from any roughness and deformity, or discolouring thereof; being boiled in wine and given to drink, it is a good remedy against the plague, and other pestilential fevers, if the party after taking it be warm in his bed, and sweat for two hours after, and use the same for twice at least. It helps also all stingings and bitings of venomous beasts, or mad dogs, being used inwardly, and applied outwardly. The same also opens obstructions of the liver, and is very available against the infirmities of the reins: It provokes urine, and helps to expel the stone and gravel out of the kidneys and bladder, and helps much in all inward pains and ulcers. The decoction, or distilled water, is no less effectual to be applied to all wounds that are fresh and green, or old, filthy, fretting, and running ulcers, which it very effectually cures in a short space. A little mixed with the juice, and dropped into the eyes, cleanses them from cloudy mists, or thick films which grow over them, and hinder the sight. It helps the tooth-ache, being dropped into the ear on a contrary side of the pain. It is also effectual to ease the pains of the hæmorrhoids or piles.

Descript.]Ourcommon Ground Pine grows low, seldom rising above a hand’s breadth high, shooting forth divers small branches, set with slender, small, long, narrow, greyish, or whitish leaves, somewhat hairy, and divided into three parts, many bushing together at a joint, some growing scatteringly upon the stalks, smelling somewhat strong, like unto rozin: The flowers are small, and of a pale yellow colour, growing from the joint of the stalk all along among the leaves; after which come small and round husks. The root is small and woody, perishing every year.

Place.] It grows more plentifully in Kent than any other county of this land, as namely, in many places on this side Dartford, along to Southfleet, Chatham, and Rochester, and upon Chatham down, hard by the Beacon, and half a mile from Rochester, in a field near a house called Selesys.

Time.] It flowers and gives seed in the Summer months.

Government and virtues.] Mars owns the herb. The decoction of Ground Pine drank, doth wonderfully prevail against the stranguary, or any inward pains arising from the diseases of the reins and urine, and is especially good for all obstructions of the liver and spleen, and gently opens the body; for which purpose they were wont in former times to make pills with the powder thereof, and the pulp of figs. It marvellously helps all the diseases of the mother, inwardly or outwardly applied, procuring women’s courses, and expelling the dead child and after-birth; yea, it is so powerful upon those feminine parts, that it is utterly forbidden for women with child, for it will cause abortion or delivery before the time. The decoction of the herb in wine taken inwardly, or applied outwardly, or both, for some time together, is also effectual in all pains and diseases of the joints, as gouts, cramps, palsies, sciatica, and aches; for which purpose the pills made with powder of Ground Pine, and of Hermodactyls with Venice Turpentine are very effectual. The pills also, continued for some time, are special good for those that have the dropsy, jaundice, and for griping pains of the joints, belly, or inward parts. It helps also all diseases of the brain, proceeding of cold and phlegmatic humours and distillations, as also for the falling sickness. It is a special remedy for the poisonof the aconites, and other poisonous herbs, as also against the stinging of any venomous creature. It is a good remedy for a cold cough, especially in the beginning. For all the purposes aforesaid, the herb being tunned up in new drink and drank, is almost as effectual, but far more acceptable to weak and dainty stomachs. The distilled water of the herb hath the same effects, but more weakly. The conserve of the flowers doth the like, which Matthiolus much commends against the palsy. The green herb, or the decoction thereof, being applied, dissolves the hardness of women’s breasts, and all other hard swellings in any other part of the body. The green herb also applied, or the juice thereof with some honey, not only cleanses putrid, stinking, foul, and malignant ulcers and sores of all sorts, but heals and solders up the lips of green wounds in any part also. Let pregnant women forbear, for it works violently upon the feminine part.

Thisgrows usually in meadows and fields, and by path sides, and is so well known, that it needs no description.

Time.] It is in its beauty about June, and the seed ripens shortly after.

Government and virtues.] It is true, Misaldus and others, yea, almost all astrology-physicians, hold this to be an herb of Mars, because it cures the diseases of the head and privities, which are under the houses of Mars, Aries, and Scorpio: The truth is, it is under the command of Venus, and cures the head by antipathy to Mars, and the privities by sympathy to Venus; neither is there hardly a martial disease but it cures.

The juice of Plantain clarified and drank for divers days together, either of itself, or in other drink, prevails wonderfully against all torments or excoriations in the intestines or bowels, helps the distillations of rheum from the head, and stays all manner of fluxes, even women’s courses, when they flow too abundantly. It is good to stay spitting of blood and other bleedings at the mouth, or the making of foul and bloody water, by reason of any ulcer in the reins or bladder, and also stays the too free bleeding of wounds. It is held an especial remedy for those that are troubled with the phthisic, or consumption of the lungs, or ulcers of the lungs, or coughs that come of heat. The decoction or powder of the roots or seeds, is much more binding for all the purposes aforesaid than the leaves. Dioscorides saith, that three roots boiled in wine and taken, helps the tertain agues, and for the quartan agues, (but letting the number pass as fabulous) I conceive the decoction of divers roots may be effectual. The herb (but especially the seed) is held to be profitable against the dropsy, the falling-sickness, the yellow jaundice, and stoppings of the liver and reins. The roots of Plantain, and Pellitory of Spain, beaten into powder, and put into the hollow teeth, takes away the pains of them. The clarified juice, or distilled water, dropped into the eyes, cools the inflammations in them, and takes away the pin and web; and dropped into the ears, eases the pains in them, and heals and removes the heat. The same also with the juice of Houseleek is profitable against all inflammations and breakings out of the skin, and against burnings and scaldings by fire and water. The juice or decoction made either of itself, or other things of the like nature, is of much use and good effect for old and hollow ulcers that are hard to be cured, and for cankers and sores in the mouth or privy parts of man or woman; and helps also the pains of the piles in the fundament. The juice mixed with oil of roses, and the temples and forehead anointed therewith, eases the pains of the head proceeding from heat, and helps lunatic and frantic persons very much; as also thebiting of serpents, or a mad dog. The same also is profitably applied to all hot gouts in the feet or hands, especially in the beginning. It is also good to be applied where any bone is out of joint, to hinder inflammations, swellings, and pains that presently rise thereupon. The powder of the dried leaves taken in drink, kills worms of the belly; and boiled in wine, kills worms that breed in old and foul ulcers. One part of Plantain water, and two parts of the brine of powdered beef, boiled together and clarified, is a most sure remedy to heal all spreading scabs or itch in the head and body, all manner of tetters, ringworms, the shingles, and all other running and fretting sores. Briefly, the Plantains are singularly good wound herbs, to heal fresh or old wounds or sores, either inward or outward.

Areso well known that they need no description.

Government and virtues.] All Plums are under Venus, and are like women, some better, and some worse. As there is great diversity of kinds, so there is in the operation of Plums, for some that are sweet moisten the stomach, and make the belly soluble; those that are sour quench thirst more, and bind the belly; the moist and waterish do sooner corrupt in the stomach, but the firm do nourish more, and offend less. The dried fruit sold by the grocers under the names of Damask Prunes, do somewhat loosen the belly, and being stewed, are often used, both in health and sickness, to relish the mouth and stomach, to procure appetite, and a little to open the body, allay choler, and cool the stomach. Plum-tree leaves boiled in wine, are good to wash and gargle the mouth and throat, to dry the flux of rheum coming to the palate, gums, or almonds of the ear. The gum of the tree is good to break the stone. The gum or leaves boiled in vinegar, and applied, kills tetters and ringworms. Matthiolus saith, The oil preserved out of the kernels of the stones, as oil of almonds is made, is good against the inflamed piles, the tumours or swellings of ulcers, hoarseness of the voice, roughness of the tongue and throat, and likewise the pains in the ears. And that five ounces of the said oil taken with one ounce of muskadel, drives forth the stone, and helps the cholic.

Descript.]Thisis a small herb consisting of nothing but roots and leaves, bearing neither stalk, flower, nor seed, as it is thought. It hath three or four leaves rising from the root, every one single by itself, of about a hand length, are winged, consisting of many small narrow leaves cut into the middle rib, standing on each side of the stalk, large below, and smaller up to the top, not dented nor notched at the edges at all, as the male fern hath, of sad green colour, and smooth on the upper side, but on the other side somewhat rough by reason of some yellowish flowers set thereon. The root is smaller than one’s little finger, lying aslope, or creeping along under the upper crust of the earth, brownish on the outside and greenish within, of a sweetish harshness in taste, set with certain rough knags on each side thereof, having also much mossiness or yellow hairiness upon it, and some fibres underneath it, whereby it is nourished.

Place.] It grows as well upon old rotten stumps, or trunks of trees, as oak, beech, hazel, willow, or any other, as in the woods under them, and upon old mud walls, as also in mossy, stony, and gravelly places near unto wood. That which grows upon oak is accounted the best; but the quantity thereof is scarce sufficient for the common use.

Time.] It being always green, may be gathered for use at any time.

Government and virtues.] Polypodium of the Oak, that which grows upon the earth is best; it is an herb of Saturn, to purge melancholy; if the humour be otherwise, chuse your Polypodium accordingly. Meuse (who is called the Physician’s Evangelist for the certainty of his medicines, and the truth of his opinion) saith, That it dries up thin humours, digests thick and tough, and purges burnt choler, and especially tough and thick phlegm, and thin phlegm also, even from the joints, and therefore good for those that are troubled with melancholy, or quartan agues, especially if it be taken in whey or honied water, or in barley-water, or the broth of a chicken with Epithymum, or with Beets and Mallows. It is good for the hardness of the spleen, and for pricking or stitches in the sides, as also for the cholic: Some use to put to it some Fennel seeds, or Annis seeds, or Ginger, to correct that loathing it brings to the stomach, which is more than needs, it being a safe and gentle medicine, fit for all persons, which daily experience confirms; and an ounce of it may be given at a time in a decoction, if there be not Sena, or some other strong purger put with it. A dram or two of the powder of the dried roots, taken fasting in a cup of honied water, works gently, and for the purposes aforesaid. The distilled water both of roots and leaves, is much commended for the quartan ague, to be taken for many days together, as also against melancholy, or fearful and troublesome sleeps or dreams; and with some sugar-candy dissolved therein, is good against the cough, shortness of breath, and wheezings, and those distillations of thin rheum upon the lungs, which cause phthisicks, and oftentimes consumptions. The fresh roots beaten small, or the powder of the dried roots mixed with honey, and applied to the member that is out of joint, doth much help it; and applied also to the nose, cures the disease called Polypus, which is a piece of flesh growing therein, which in time stops the passage of breath through that nostril; and it helps those clefts or chops that come between the fingers or toes.

Thereare two sorts of Poplars, which are most familiar with us, viz. the Black and White, both which I shall here describe unto you.

Descript.] The White Poplar grows great, and reasonably high, covered with thick, smooth, white bark, especially the branches; having long leaves cut into several divisions almost like a vine leaf, but not of so deep a green on the upper side, and hoary white underneath, of a reasonable good scent, the whole form representing the form of Coltsfoot. The catkins which it brings forth before the leaves, are long, and of a faint reddish colour, which fall away, bearing seldom good seed with them. The wood hereof is smooth, soft, and white, very finely waved, whereby it is much esteemed.

The Black Poplar grows higher and straighter than the White, with a greyish bark, bearing broad green leaves, somewhat like ivy leaves, not cut in on the edges like the White, but whole and dented, ending in a point, and not white underneath, hanging by slender long foot stalks, which with the air are continually shaken, like as the Aspen leaves are. The catkins hereof are greater than those of the White, composed of many round green berries, as if they were set together in a long cluster, containing much downy matter, which being ripe, is blown away with the wind. The clammy buds hereof, before they spread into leaves, are gathered to make Unguentum and Populneum, and are of a yellowish green colour, and somewhat small, sweet, butstrong. The wood is smooth, tough, and white, and easy to be cloven. On both these trees grows a sweet kind of musk, which in former times was used to put into sweet ointments.

Place.] They grow in moist woods, and by water-sides in sundry places of this land; yet the White is not so frequent as the other.

Time.] Their time is likewise expressed before: The catkins coming forth before the leaves in the end of Summer.

Government and virtues.] Saturn hath dominion over both. White Poplar, saith Galen, is of a cleansing property: The weight of an ounce in powder, of the bark thereof, being drank, saith Dioscorides, is a remedy for those that are troubled with the sciatica, or the stranguary. The juice of the leaves dropped warm into the ears, eases the pains in them. The young clammy buds or eyes, before they break out into leaves, bruised, and a little honey put to them, is a good medicine for a dull sight. The Black Poplar is held to be more cooling than the White, and therefore the leaves bruised with vinegar and applied, help the gout. The seed drank in vinegar, is held good against the falling-sickness. The water that drops from the hollow places of this tree, takes away warts, pushes, wheals, and other the like breakings-out of the body. The young Black Poplar buds, saith Matthiolus, are much used by women to beautify their hair, bruising them with fresh butter, straining them after they have been kept for some time in the sun. The ointment called Populneon, which is made of this Poplar, is singularly good for all heat and inflammations in any part of the body, and tempers the heat of wounds. It is much used to dry up the milk of women’s breasts when they have weaned their children.

Ofthis I shall describe three kinds,viz.the White and Black of the Garden, and the Erratic Wild Poppy, or Corn Rose.

Descript.] The White Poppy hath at first four or five whitish green leaves lying upon the ground, which rise with the stalk, compassing it at the bottom of them, and are very large, much cut or torn on the edges, and dented also besides: The stalk, which is usually four or five feet high, hath sometimes no branches at the top, and usually but two or three at most, bearing every one but one head wrapped up in a thin skin, which bows down before it is ready to blow, and then rising, and being broken, the flowers within it spreading itself open, and consisting of four very large, white, round leaves, with many whitish round threads in the middle, set about a small, round, green head, having a crown, or star-like cover at the head thereof, which growing ripe, becomes as large as a great apple, wherein are contained a great number of small round seeds, in several partitions or divisions next unto the shell, the middle thereof remaining hollow, and empty. The whole plant, both leaves, stalks, and heads, while they are fresh, young, and green, yield a milk when they are broken, of an unpleasant bitter taste, almost ready to provoke casting, and of a strong heady smell, which being condensed, is called Opium. The root is white and woody, perishing as soon as it hath given ripe seed.

The Black Poppy little differs from the former, until it bears its flower, which is somewhat less, and of a black purplish colour, but without any purple spots in the bottom of the leaf. The head of the seed is much less than the former, and opens itself a little round about the top, under the crown, so that the seed, which is very black, will fall out, if one turn the head thereof downward.

The wild Poppy, or Corn Rose, hath long and narrow leaves, very much cut in on theedges into many divisions, of a light green colour, sometimes hairy withal. The stalk is blackish and hairy also, but not so tall as the garden kind, having some such like leaves thereon to grow below, parted into three or four branches sometimes, whereon grow small hairy heads bowing down before the skin break, wherein the flower is inclosed, which when it is fully blown open, is of a fair yellowish red or crimson colour, and in some much paler, without any spot in the bottom of the leaves, having many black soft threads in the middle, compassing a small green head, which when it is ripe, is not bigger than one’s little finger’s end, wherein is contained much black seeds smaller than that of the garden. The root perishes every year, and springs again of its own sowing. Of this kind there is one lesser in all parts thereof, and differs in nothing else.

Place.] The garden kinds do not naturally grow wild in any place, but all are sown in gardens where they grow.

The Wild Poppy or Corn Rose, is plentifully enough, and many times too much so in the corn fields of all counties through this land, and also on ditch banks, and by hedge sides. The smaller wild kind is also found in corn fields, and also in some other places, but not so plentifully as the former.

Time.] The garden kinds are usually sown in the spring, which then flower about the end of May, and somewhat earlier, if they spring of their own sowing.

The wild kind flower usually from May until July, and the seed of them is ripe soon after the flowering.

Government and virtues.] The herb is Lunar, and of the juice of it is made opium; only for lucre of money they cheat you, and tell you it is a kind of tear, or some such like thing, that drops from Poppies when they weep, and that is somewhere beyond the seas, I know not where beyond the Moon. The garden Poppy heads with seeds made into a syrup, is frequently, and to good effect used to procure rest, and sleep, in the sick and weak, and to stay catarrhs and defluxions of thin rheums from the head into the stomach and lungs, causing a continual cough, the fore-runner of a consumption; it helps also hoarseness of the throat, and when one have lost their voice, which the oil of the seed doth likewise. The black seed boiled in wine, and drank, is said also to dry the flux of the belly, and women’s courses. The empty shells, or poppy heads, are usually boiled in water, and given to procure rest and sleep: so doth the leaves in the same manner; as also if the head and temples be bathed with the decoction warm, or with the oil of Poppies, the green leaves or the heads bruised and applied with a little vinegar, or made into a poultice with barley-meal or hog’s grease, cools and tempers all inflammations, as also the disease called St. Anthony’s fire. It is generally used in treacle and mithridate, and in all other medicines that are made to procure rest and sleep, and to ease pains in the head as well as in other parts. It is also used to cool inflammations, agues, or frenzies, or to stay defluxions which cause a cough, or consumptions, and also other fluxes of the belly or women’s courses; it is also put into hollow teeth, to ease the pain, and hath been found by experience to ease the pains of the gout.

The Wild Poppy, or Corn Rose (as Matthiolus saith) is good to prevent the falling-sickness. The syrup made with the flower, is with good effect given to those that have the pleurisy; and the dried flowers also, either boiled in water, or made into powder and drank, either in the distilled water of them, or some other drink, works the like effect. The distilled water of the flowers is held to be of much good use against surfeits, being drank evening and morning;It is also more cooling than any of the other Poppies, and therefore cannot but be as effectual in hot agues, frenzies, and other inflammations either inward or outward. Galen saith, The seed is dangerous to be used inwardly.

GardenPurslain (being used as a sallad herb) is so well known that it needs no description; I shall therefore only speak of its virtues as follows.

Government and virtues.] ’Tis an herb of the Moon. It is good to cool any heat in the liver, blood, reins, and stomach, and in hot agues nothing better: It stays hot and choleric fluxes of the belly, women’s courses, the whites, and gonorrhæa, or running of the reins, the distillation from the head, and pains therein proceeding from heat, want of sleep, or the frenzy. The seed is more effectual than the herb, and is of singular good use to cool the heat and sharpness of urine, venereous dreams, and the like; insomuch that the over frequent use hereof extinguishes the heat and virtue of natural procreation. The seed bruised and boiled in wine, and given to children, expels the worms. The juice of the herb is held as effectual to all the purposes aforesaid; as also to stay vomitings, and taken with some sugar or honey, helps an old and dry cough, shortness of breath, and the phthisick, and stays immoderate thirst. The distilled water of the herb is used by many (as the more pleasing) with a little sugar to work the same effects. The juice also is singularly good in the inflammations and ulcers in the secret parts of man or woman, as also the bowels and hæmorrhoids, when they are ulcerous, or excoriations in them. The herb bruised and applied to the forehead and temples, allays excessive heat therein, that hinders rest and sleep; and applied to the eyes, takes away the redness and inflammation in them, and those other parts where pushes, wheals, pimples, St. Anthony’s fire and the like, break forth; if a little vinegar be put to it, and laid to the neck, with as much of galls and linseed together, it takes away the pains therein, and the crick in the neck. The juice is used with oil of roses for the same causes, or for blasting by lightning, and burnings by gunpowder, or for women’s sore breasts, and to allay the heat in all other sores or hurts; applied also to the navels of children that stick forth, it helps them; it is also good for sore mouths and gums that are swollen, and to fasten loose teeth. Camerarius saith, the distilled water used by some, took away the pain of their teeth, when all other remedies failed, and the thickened juice made into pills with the powder of gum Tragicanth and Arabic, being taken, prevails much to help those that make bloody water. Applied to the gout it eases pains thereof, and helps the hardness of the sinews, if it come not of the cramp, or a cold cause.

Theyare so well known, that they need no description. Of the leaves of Primroses is made as fine a salve to heal wounds as any that I know; you shall be taught to make salves of any herb at the latter end of the book: make this as you are taught there, and do not (you that have any ingenuity in you) see your poor neighbours go with wounded limbs when an halfpenny cost will heal them.

Descript.]Ourcommon Privet is carried up with many slender branches to a reasonable height and breadth, to cover arbours, bowers and banquetting houses, and brought, wrought, and cut into so many forms, of men, horses, birds, &c. which though at first supported, grows afterwards strong of itself. It bears long and narrowgreen leaves by the couples, and sweet smelling white flowers in tufts at the end of the branches, which turn into small black berries that have a purplish juice with them, and some seeds that are flat on the one side, with a hole or dent therein.

Place.] It grows in this land, in divers woods.

Time.] Our Privet flowers in June and July, the berries are ripe in August and September.

Government and virtues.] The Moon is lady of this. It is little used in physic with us in these times, more than in lotions, to wash sores and sore mouths, and to cool inflammations, and dry up fluxes. Yet Matthiolus saith, it serves all the uses for which Cypress, or the East Privet, is appointed by Dioscorides and Galen. He further saith, That the oil that is made of the flowers of Privet infused therein, and set in the Sun, is singularly good for the inflammations of wounds, and for the headache, coming of a hot cause. There is a sweet water also distilled from the flowers, that is good for all those diseases that need cooling and drying, and therefore helps all fluxes of the belly or stomach, bloody-fluxes, and women’s courses, being either drank or applied; as all those that void blood at the mouth, or any other place, and for distillations of rheum in the eyes, especially if it be used with them.

Descript.]Thestalks of these are reddish, rising to be three feet high, sometimes four or five feet, having at the joints thereof large winged leaves, standing one above another at distances, consisting of many and somewhat broad leaves, set on each side of a middle rib, being hard, rough, or rugged, crumpled much like unto elm leaves, having also some smaller leaves with them (as Agrimony hath) somewhat deeply dented about the edges, of a sad green colour on the upper side, and greyish underneath, of a pretty sharp scent and taste, somewhat like unto the Burnet, and a leaf hereof put into a cup of claret wine, gives also a fine relish to it. At the tops of the stalks and branches stand many tufts of small white flowers thrust thick together, which smell much sweeter than the leaves; and in their places, being fallen, come crooked and cornered seed. The root is somewhat woody, and blackish on the outside, and brownish within, with divers great strings, and lesser fibres set thereat, of a strong scent, but nothing so pleasant as the flowers and leaves, and perishes not, but abides many years, shooting forth a-new every Spring.

Place.] It grows in moist meadows that lie mostly wet, or near the courses of water.

Time.] It flowers in some places or other all the three Summer months, that is, June, July, and August, and the seed is ripe soon after.

Government and virtues.] Venus claims dominion over the herb. It is used to stay all manner of bleedings, fluxes, vomitings, and women’s courses, also their whites: It is said to alter and take away the fits of the quartan agues, and to make a merry heart, for which purpose some use the flowers, and some the leaves. It helps speedily those that are troubled with the cholic; being boiled in wine, and with a little honey, taken warm, it opens the belly; but boiled in red wine, and drank, it stays the flux of the belly. Outwardly applied, it helps old ulcers that are cankerous, or hollow fistulous, for which it is by many much commended, as also for the sores in the mouth or secret parts. The leaves when they are full grown, being laid on the skin, will, in a short time, raise blisters thereon, as Tragus saith. The water thereof helps the heat and inflammation in the eyes.

Descript.]Theordinary Quince Tree grows often to the height and bigness of a reasonable apple tree, but more usually lower, and crooked, with a rough bark, spreading arms, and branches far abroad. The leaves are somewhat like those of the apple tree, but thicker, broader, and full of veins, and whiter on the under side, not dented at all about the edges. The flowers are large and white, sometimes dashed over with a blush. The fruit that follows is yellow, being near ripe, and covered with a white freeze, or cotton; thick set on the younger, and growing less as they grow to be thorough ripe, bunched out oftentimes in some places, some being like an apple, and some a pear, of a strong heady scent, and not durable to keep, and is sour, harsh, and of an unpleasant taste to eat fresh; but being scalded, roasted, baked, or preserved, becomes more pleasant.

Place and Time.] It best likes to grow near ponds and water sides, and is frequent through this land: and flowers not until the leaves be come forth. The fruit is ripe in September or October.

Government and virtues.] Old Saturn owns the Tree. Quinces when they are green, help all sorts of fluxes in men or women, and choleric lasks, casting, and whatever needs astriction, more than any way prepared by fire; yet the syrup of the juice, or the conserve, are much conducible, much of the binding quality being consumed by the fire; if a little vinegar be added, it stirs up the languishing appetite, and the stomach given to casting; some spices being added, comforts and strengthens the decaying and fainting spirits, and helps the liver oppressed, that it cannot perfect the digestion, or corrects choler and phlegm. If you would have them purging, put honey to them instead of sugar; and if more laxative, for choler, Rhubarb; for phlegm, Turbith; for watery humours, Scammony; but if more forcible to bind, use the unripe Quinces, with roses and acacia, hypocistis, and some torrified rhubarb. To take the crude juice of Quinces, is held a preservative against the force of deadly poison; for it hath been found most certainly true, that the very smell of a Quince hath taken away all the strength of the poison of white Hellebore. If there be need of any outwardly binding and cooling of hot fluxes, the oil of Quinces, or other medicines that may be made thereof, are very available to anoint the belly or other parts therewith; it likewise strengthens the stomach and belly, and the sinews that are loosened by sharp humours falling on them, and restrains immoderate sweatings. The muscilage taken from the seeds of Quinces, and boiled in a little water, is very good to cool the heat and heal the sore breasts of women. The same, with a little sugar, is good to lenify the harshness and hoarseness of the throat, and roughness of the tongue. The cotton or down of Quinces boiled and applied to plague sores, heals them up: and laid as a plaister, made up with wax, it brings hair to them that are bald, and keeps it from falling, if it be ready to shed.

Thegarden Raddish is so well known, that it needs no description.

Descript.] The Horse-Raddish hath its first leaves, that rise before Winter, about a foot and a half long, very much cut in or torn on the edges into many parts, of a dark green colour, with a great rib in the middle; after these have been up a while, others follow, which are greater, rougher, broader and longer, whole and not divided at first, but only somewhat rougher dented about the edges; the stalks when it bears flowers (which is seldom) is great, rising up with some few lesser leaves thereon, to three or four feet high, spreading at the top many small branches of whitish flowers, made of four leaves a-piece; after which come small pods, like those of Shepherd’s Purse, but seldom with any seed in them. The root is great, long, white and rugged, shooting up divers heads of leaves, which may be parted for increase, but it doth not creep in the ground, nor run above ground, and is of a strong, sharp, and bitter taste almost like mustard.

Place.] It is found wild in some places, but is chiefly planted in gardens, and joys in moist and shadowy places.

Time.] It seldom flowers, but when it doth, it is in July.

Government and virtues.] They are both under Mars. The juice of Horse-raddish given to drink, is held to be very effectual for the scurvy. It kills the worms in children, being drank, and also laid upon the belly. The root bruised and laid to the place grieved with the sciatica, joint-ache, or the hard swellings of the liver and spleen, doth wonderfully help them all. The distilled water of the herb and root is more familiar to be taken with a little sugar for all the purposes aforesaid.

Garden Raddishes are in wantonness by the gentry eaten as a sallad, but they breed but scurvy humours in the stomach, and corrupt the blood, and then send for a physician as fast as you can; this is one cause which makes the owners of such nice palates so unhealthful; yet for such as are troubled with the gravel, stone, or stoppage of urine, they are good physic, if the body be strong that takes them; you may make the juice of the roots into a syrup if you please, for that use: they purge by urine exceedingly.

Itis called also St. James’-wort, and Stagger-wort, and Stammer-wort, and Segrum.

Descript.] The greater common Ragwort hath many large and long, dark green leaves lying on the ground, very much rent and torn on the sides in many places: from among which rise up sometimes but one, and sometimes two or three square or crested blackish or brownish stalks, three or four feet high, sometimes branched, bearing divers such-like leaves upon them, at several distances upon the top, where it branches forth into many stalks bearing yellow flowers, consisting of divers leaves, set as a pale or border, with a dark yellow thrum in the middle, which do abide a great while, but at last are turned into down, and with the small blackish grey seed, are carried away with the wind. The root is made of many fibres, whereby it is firmly fastened into the ground, and abides many years.

There is another sort thereof differs from the former only in this, that it rises not so high; the leaves are not so finely jagged, nor of so dark a green colour, but rather somewhat whitish, soft and woolly, and the flowers usually paler.

Place.] They grow, both of them, wild in pastures, and untilled grounds in many places, and oftentimes both in one field.

Time.] They flower in June and July, and the seed is ripe in August.

Government and virtues.] Ragwort is under the command of Dame Venus, and cleanses, digests, and discusses. The decoction of the herb is good to wash the mouth or throat that hath ulcers or sores therein: and for swellings, hardness, or imposthumes, for it thoroughly cleanses and heals them; as also the quinsy, and the king’s evil. It helps to stay catarrhs, thin rheums, and defluxions from the head into the eyes, nose, or lungs. The juice is found by experience to be singularly good to heal green wounds, and to cleanse and heal all old and filthy ulcers in the privities, and in other parts of the body, as also inward wounds and ulcers; stays the malignity of fretting and running cankers, and hollowfistulas, not suffering them to spread farther. It is also much commended to help aches and pains either in the fleshy part, or in the nerves and sinews, as also the sciatica, or pain of the hips or knuckle-bone, to bathe the places with the decoction of the herb, or to anoint them with an ointment made of the herb bruised and boiled in old hog’s suet, with some Mastick and Olibanum in powder added unto it after it is strained forth. In Sussex we call it Ragweed.

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