1535, in which is the following passage on henbane: 'This herb is called insana, wood, for the use thereof is perilous; for if it be eate or dranke, hit bredeth woodenes, or slowe likenes of slepe; therefore this herbe is called comonly Mirilidni, for it taketh away wytte and reason.'

John Bauhin, in his Historia Plantarum,' says: Hyoscyamus was called herba insana.' Dioscorides also, in his 'Materia Medica,' notices henbane as causing madness. In the 2nd book of The Brevyary of Health,' named the Extravagantas,' by Andrew Boord, of Physicke Doctor, 1557, there is the following:-' Of frantickness, hyostianum is a kind of frantickness, and it doth take the name of a Greek word hyostianus, the which in English is named henbane, for whosoever doth eate of henbane, or of an herbe named dwale, shall fall into a frantickness or a fantastical mind.'

times printed abroad, in the infancy of the typographic art, and translated into the English, French, Dutch, and Spanish languages. The English version was made by John Trevisa, a Cornish man, and Vicar of Barkley in Gloucestershire, at the request of his patron Thomas Lord Barkley, in the year 1398, and originally printed by Wynkyn de Worde; for there is no evidence that it came from Caxton's press in English, though it has been so asserted. The next edition was printed in 1535, by Thomas Berthelette, in folio.' Fuller, in his Worthies of England,' includes John Trevisa, who, he says, was born at Carodock, in the county of Cornwall; he translated the Bible into English, which is as much better than Wycliffe's as worse than Tyndal's. This Trevisa died a thorough old man, about the year 1400.'

Dr. William Turner states that the black henbane
is of the worst kind, and will make men mad and

fall into a deep sleep, and therefore it ought not to
be used.

Dr. Bulleyn, in his Book of Simples,' says of henbane: That if it be used either in sallet or in potage then doth it bring frenzie and madnesse, but whoso useth more than four leaves shall be in danger to sleepe without waking.' Other writers say that hemlock was meant by Shakspere, but we are not told whether the common hemlock (Conium maculatum) or water hemlock (Enanthe crocata); both are poisonous. The latter has large roots like those of parsnips, for which they have been taken, and fatal consequences have followed eating it; intoxication, giddiness, loss of senses, and death.*

* Burton in his 'Anatomy of Melancholy,' speaks of mandrake roots, as mala insana.

In some of our recent botanical journals it is stated that the Atropa belladonna (deadly nightshade, or dwale) is the plant alluded to, the leaves and berries of which contain a deadly poison. If the insane root is the same plant the juice of which was given by Duncan to intoxicate the Danish soldiers, we must, according to Hollinshed, decide on the muckelwort, for he tells us in his chronicles of Scotland that it was the juice of those berries that the Scots mixed with their ale and bread, sending it thus spiced and confectioned in great abundance unto their enemies, after taking which they fell into a fast, dead sleepe, that in manner it was impossible to wake them, and the Danes were in that state for the most part slain by the soldiers under Macbeth.'

CHAPTER XIV.

KING RICHARD II.*

IN Act ii. Scene 4, a captain, in reply to the Earl of Salisbury, says :

"Tis thought the king is dead, we will not stay;
The bay-trees in our country all are wither'd,
And meteors fright the fixed stars of heaven:
The pale-faced moon looks bloody on the earth,
And lean-look'd prophets whisper fearful change;
Rich men look sad, and ruffians dance and leap,—
The one, in fear to lose what they enjoy,
The other, to enjoy by rage and war:
These signs forerun the death of kings.—

Farewell; our countrymen are gone and fled,

As well assur'd Richard their king is dead.

[Exit.

to

Bay-tree (Laurus vulgaris). This well-known tree grows in many parts of England. Dr. W. Turner Dr.W.Turner

says: The tree in England is no great tree, but it
thriveth there many parts better, and is lustier than
in Germany.' Gerarde tells us that the bay groweth
green both winter and summer. Evelyn, in his
'Discourse on Forest Trees,' calls the bay 'a noble
and fragrant tree,' and amongst other things it has
of old been observed that the bay is ominous of
some funest accident, if that be so accounted which
Suetonius (in Galba') affirms to have happened
before the death of the monster Nero, when these
trees generally withered to the very roots in a very
mild winter; and much later, that in the year 1629,
when at Padua, preceding a great pestilence, almost
all the bay-trees about that famous university grew
sick and perished.

Westmacott, in his Scripture Herbal,' speaking of the virtues and uses of the bay, says: 'The old naturalists say the bay-tree has a property not to be hurt by lightning, and that it defends a man near it, not only from the violence thereof, but also from the malignity of the devil and witches, and therefore, say they, the cock resorts thereto in tempests.'

超

nobilis).

CHAPTER XV.

HENRY IV. IST PART.*

IN this play are named Fern seed, Spear grass (Achillea Ptarmica), Blackberry

(Rubus discolor), Camomile (Anthemis

In Act ii. Scene 2, Gadshill says to Chamberlain:

She will, she will; justice has liquored her. We steal as in a castle, cock sure. We have the receipt of fern-seed, we walk invisible.

Chamberlain. Nay, I think rather you are more beholding to the night than to fern-seed for your walking invisible.

Fern is of the cryptogamic class of plants. The seeds are produced on the back of the leaves or fronds, and are very small. Philemon Holland, in his translation of Pliny's Natural History,' Book 27, Chap. 9, says: Of ferne be two kinds, and they bear neither flower nor seede. Some of the

*First printed in 1598. 4to.