left to conjecture; the oblong spike of its flowers forms, in some degree, a miniature resemblance of the bur of the dock; and from thence it may probably have been derived.

The common burnet, Poterium Sanguisorba, is an indigenous perennial plant of England, and is found growing on chalky lands and heathy commons. We find it was cultivated in our gardens as long back as we can trace any other herb or vegetable with certainty. Gerard says, "it is pleasant to be eaten in sallads, in which it is thought to make the heart merry and glad, as also being put into wine, to which it yeeldeth a certaine grace in the drinking."

Our forefathers seem to have been as anxious to have herbs added to their wine, as the present generation are desirous to obtain it pure.

Coles says, (in 1657,) "Burnet is a friend to the heart, liver, and other principall parts of a man's body: two or three of the stalks with leaves put into a cup of wine, especially French wine, as all know, give a wonderful fine relish to it, and besides is a great means to quicken the spirits, refresh the heart, and make it merry, driving away melancholy.”

It is still accounted cordial and sudorific, and on that account is often put into cool tankards.

We have now several species and many varieties of burnet in our botanical gardens; but it is seldom used for culinary purposes.

91

CABBAGE.-BRASSICA.

Natural order, Cruciferæ. A genus of the Tetradynamia Siliquosa class.

THEOPHRASTUS and the earlier Greek authors called this vegetable 'Papavos, Raphanus, from the seed bearing a resemblance to that of the radish. It was named by later writers Κράμβη, and attice, Κοράμβη, or Κοράμβλη, as it was thought to injure the eye-sight, which is signified by Columella in these words, oculis inimica Coramble; but he afterwards contradicts himself, and states that it is good for dim eyes.

The Roman name, Brassica, came, as is supposed, from præseco, because it was cut off from the stalk: it was also called Caulis in Latin, on account of the goodness of its stalks, and from which the English name Cole, Colwort, or Colewort, is derived. The word Cabbage, by which all the varieties of this plant are now improperly called, means the firm head or ball that is formed by the leaves turn

ing close over each other; from that circumstance we say the cole has cabbaged, the lettuce has cabbaged, or the tailor has cabbaged. "Your tailor, instead of shreds, cabbages whole yards of cloth*."

From thence arose the cant word applied to tailors, who formerly worked at the private houses of their customers, where they were often accused of cabbaging; which means the rolling up pieces of cloth, instead of the list and shreds, which they claim as their due.

The Greeks held the cabbage in great esteem, and their fables deduce its origin from the father of their gods; for they inform us, that Jupiter labouring to explain two oracles which contradicted each other, perspired, and from this divine perspiration the colewort sprang.

The inference to be drawn from this fable is, that they considered it a plant which had been brought to its state of perfection by cultivation and the sweat of the brow.

The most ancient Greek authors mention three kinds of cole, the crisped or ruffed, which they called Selinas or Selinoides, from its

* Arbuthnot's History of John Bull.

resemblance to parsley; the second was called Lea, and the third Corambe *.

This vegetable was so highly regarded by the ancients, that Chrysippus and Dieuches, two physicians, each wrote books on the properties of this plant, as well as Pythagoras and Cato, the latter of whom in later times amply set forth the praises of this pot-herb.

It is related, that the ancient Romans, having expelled physicians out of their territories, preserved their health for six hundred years, and soothed their infirmities by using and applying this vegetable as their only medicine in every disease.

The verse of Columella informs us that he considered it a universal pot-herb.

"That herb, which o'er the whole terrestrial globe Doth flourish, and in great abundance yields

To low plebeian, and the haughty king,

In winter, cabbage; and green sprouts in spring."

Pliny, in speaking of the spring sprouts of cole, says, "Pleasant and sweet as these crops were thought by other men, yet Apicius (that notable glutton) loathed them, and by his example Drusus Cæsar held them in no

* Plin. book xx. c. 19.