long before the time of Molyneux; generalization. The plants are but till his discovery no one had found it in a truly wild state. We have now given an outline of the more important of Dr. Molyneux's papers relating to the natural history of Ireland. He was the author of several others of smaller importance, as well as of a memoir on the antiquities of Ireland-a subject we have no inclination to discuss. The next contributor to the natural history of Ireland, was Dr. Threlkeld, an observer of far inferior merit to any of the preceding ones, but deserving of notice as being the first who attempted any thing like a complete catalogue of the native plants. Threlkeld was a native of Cumberland, and was born in 1676. He appears to have studied at Glasgow about the year 1688, and he afterwards settled as a dissenting minister in his native county. In a few years his increasing family and narrow income, compelled him to add the practice of medicine to his clerical duties. In the year 1702, he took his degree as doctor of medicine in the University of Edinburgh, and subsequently removed with his family to Dublin, where he still combined the characters of a physician and divine. Threlkeld died in 1728, and was universally regretted, on account of his sincere piety, and great moral worth. Threlkeld was much attached to the study of botany, and he informs us that it was his custom to make excur sions in the vicinity of Dublin during the summer months. "I used," says he, "to perambulate in company of ingenious men, both of the clergy and laity, and to have ocular demonstration of the plants themselves in their native soil, where nature regaled our senses with her glory, and garnishes which makes some resemblance of the paradisaical state. From twelve years' observations, I collected specimens for an Hortus Siccus, and set down the places where they grew; besides, I made enquiries of ingenious men, and now I have reduced our plants into the model you here see." Threlkeld's work on Irish plants is exceedingly imperfect, as it does not contain the descriptions of more than six hundred species of plants--a very small number even in the then state of botanical science. A still graver objection to his work, is the total absence of all method, and, consequently, of all ar ranged in alphabetical order, and the old nomenclature of Bauhin is observed, instead of the improved system of Ray, to which he expresses an unaccountable aversion. He gives the Irish names of the plants, which he obtained from Mr. Heaton's manuscript, and gives copious information respecting their real or supposed uses; and the whole is interspersed with many amusing but shrewd observations, expressed in the quaint style of the age. A few quotations may amuse the reader, and convey some idea of the nature of the work, which contains an abundance of religious and political reflections-the tendency of which is to prove that the author was a thorough Protestant, and a foe to all superstitious observances, but withal a man of sagacity and learning. The following quotation is amusing, but will require some explanation : "Muscus innatus cranio humano, or the moss growing on a dead man's skull frequent in Ireland, where the poor people, who are naturally hospitable, being misled by restless companions, run into war, foolishly thinking to throw off the blessing of the English government. I took some from the Custom-house Quay, imported in large butts from Aghrim." "The unguentum armorium, or weapon salve, is compounded of this; the vanity of which is plain, from one instance of a charlatan recited by Luther. This juggler offered to impart this infallible quoth the Duke, that I may be sure of art to Albert, Duke of Saxony. Well,' it, I will make the trial first upon thee.' So he drew his sword and hacked the fellow, insomuch that neither by the Schemhamphorash, nor by the hanging of the Kamea, (which is a parchment wherein the sacred names are written,) could he be cured. One experiment overthrew all the vanity of the pretender to that uncommunicable attribute of the Deity. I mean perfect infallibility." It may surprise our countrymen to learn, that the moss growing on the skulls of such of them as had suffered a violent death, was greatly in request, as an article of the materiæ medica. The absurd and foolish belief in the sympathetic medicine was formerly prevalent, not merely among the vul gar, but among learned physicians; and the moss growing from the skull of a man who had suffered a violent death, had its place in most of the pharmace pcias of Europe. From this moss an ointment was prepared, which was believed to be an infallible wound salve. The wound was dressed with this ointment, as was the instrument which had caused it, and the cure was left to nature. Preposterous as this folly may appear, we are convinced that indirectly it was the means of saving many a life. The faculty, who, in those days, cured wounds according to art, but not according to reason, were in the habit of filling the wounded part with irritating dressings; and a weak patient would often perish from the tedious suppuration which ensued. By the sympathetic method, the edges of the wound were brought into contact, and the cure was often effected in a few days. Under the head of Tansy we find our author declaiming in good protestant strains against the vanity of fasting, and enforcing the authority of the divine by that of the physician, he warns us that many have irrecoverably ruined their health by this same folly of fasting. "From the tender leaves (of the tansy) or their juice with eggs, are made cakes called a tansy, at the paschal season; but whether it is so advantageous to the stomach as to drive away all the blasts of wind contracted by the idle conceit of eating fish and pulse for forty days at lent, as some say, is what I much doubt of; for I have seen several victims to superstition who have broken a hale constitution by that presumptuous fasting, that neither tansy nor steel could ever repair it. Gospel liberty being subverted by the impious tyranny of corrupt man; for superstition is prejudicial to the souls and bodies of men, Matth. xii. 7. Inquire into the meaning of that text: that God will have mercy rather than sacrifice,' and these tyrannical superstitions will never ensnare the prudent." His observations on the potato are both amusing and interesting, as proving, that before 1726, it was a cominon article of food in Ireland. We give the following example of genuine honest English prejudice : "The potato was first brought out of Virginia into England by Thomas Harriot, an English officer, under Sir Richard Granville, anno domino 1586; from thence it was carried into other countries. This I aver to be true, in opposition to those who bear the world in hand, that we had this plant from the Spaniards and not from the English." So earnest is our author on this subject, that to maintain a different opinion is, he thinks, little short of treason against the state. "Those who would give to the Spaniards the honor of entrencing this useful root called the potato, give me leave to call designing parricides, who stirred up the misled zeal of the people of this kingdom to cast off the English government, which is the greatest mercy they ever enjoyed, to ascribe the honor of the English industry to the effeminate Spaniards, cannot be passed over without a remark, which I hope will offend nobody." Notwithstanding the decision with which this opinion is expressed, and even at the risk of being accused of want of patriotism, we shall endeavour to prove, that the honor of introducing the potato can scarcely belong to the English. In the first place, we have no evidence that it was first imported from North America, because it does not appear that it is a native of that part of the new Continent, or that it was cultivated there by the natives. The native country of the potato is not North America; but in the southern parts of South America, and shortly after the conquest of Peru, Gomara mentions the potato under the name of papas, as being a common article of food to the inhabitants of Quito, and in the Southern parts of Peru. Molina informs us that the potato is found wild in Chili, and that it has been cultivated by the natives from remote times. This statement of Molina has been confirmed, by the recent discovery of wild potatoes in Chili, specimens of which have been forwarded to the Horticultural Society of London. If we have no evidence whatever that the potato was cultivated by the natives of North America till Europeans arrived among them, we have also facts which prove beyond all doubt, that it was introduced into Europe, not by Sir Walter Raleigh, but by the Spaniards. Clusius, a celebrated professor of Botany at Leyden, in a work which he published in 1586, inforins us that the potato was so extensively cultivated in Italy, as to be used not only as food for man, but for cattle. Sir Walter Raleigh returned from Virginia in 1585, only a year before the publication of the work of Clusius, too short a time surely to allow the potato to come into common use in Italy, if it had been first brought into Europe only in the preceding year. We think these observations will serve to refute the hypothesis of Threlkeld, and they can scarcely be considered inappropriate in a discussion concerning the natural history of Ireland. Ah! may it ne'er be thine, sweet boy, to know Its once fresh fountain-kill the hopes that grew Yes! when across me comes the chilling thought, And with all this thy happy look compare, Those soft blue eyes that scarce have known a tear, That open brow, unwrinkled by a care, Heart lightly bounding without check or fear, I feel no learning, manhood, fame, atone For the young spirit's blessed freshness flown. He that increaseth knowledge, increaseth sorrow.-Eccles. ii. 18. And yet to read God's glorious works-explore To summon men to nobler hopes and cares, 'Tis worth long years of agony and fear, But knowledge is not wisdom-if thy mind If learning teach thee not humility, Conscious whate'er thou know'st, how much unknown. To fill the immortal soul, which God alone Can satisfy-far better hadst thou gone Walk humbly with thy Maker-ever look From earth and earth's vain dreams, with stedfast gaze, Fixed on the eternal world. His blessed book Take with thee through the perils of life's maze, Guide to thy feet-a lamp unto thy ways. So shalt thou find, no meteor wildly driven, The light that leads thee on, but "light" indeed " from heaven." A few light clouds stand fixed and calm There is not wind enough to stir How softly o'er yon grassy steep, One beauteous fawn alone is up, Nature into her very frame Silent her children-silent all! Save that the spirit of the glen Oh blessed hour! oh blessed scene! A spell, that not of this dull earth What though no words give utterance Oh blessed scene! oh blessed hour! J. T. B. |