NIGHTSHADE VII.

VI NIGHTSHADE

Among further plants associated with his Satanic majesty may be enumerated the garden fennel, or love-in-a-mist, to which the name of "devil-in-a-bush" has been applied, while the fruit of the deadly nightshade is commonly designated "devil's berries."

One of the names of the deadly nightshade is belladonna which reminds us of its Italian appellation, and "several of our commonest plant names are obtained from the Low German or Dutch, as, for instance, buckwheat (Polygonum fagopyrum), from the Dutch bockweit."

" A Buckinghamshire name with children for the deadly nightshade (Atropa belladonna) is the naughty-man's cherry, an illustration of which we may quote from Curtis's "Flora Londinensis":"On Keep Hill, near High Wycombe, where we observed it, there chanced to be a little boy.

The deadly nightshade is a plant of ill omen, and Gerarde describing it says, "if you will follow my counsel, deal not with the same in any case, and banish it from your gardens, and the use of it also, being a plant so furious and deadly; for it bringeth such as have eaten thereof into a dead sleep, wherein many have died."

Iron .......................... Magnesia, Warm Water. Henbane........................\ Hemlock........................ Emetics and Castor Oil; Nightshade.....................

The treatment in the case of poisoning by Henbane, Hemlock, Nightshade, and Foxglove, is much the same as that for opium.

One point in this letter is especially worth our consideration, for it suggests a condition that springs up like deadly nightshade from a poisonous soil.

Inwardly taken, are simples, or compounds; simples, as poppy, nymphea, violets, roses, lettuce, mandrake, henbane, nightshade or solanum, saffron, hemp-seed, nutmegs, willows, with their seeds, juice, decoctions, distilled waters, &c. Compounds are syrups, or opiates, syrup of poppy, violets, verbasco, which are commonly taken with distilled waters.

Here eglantine embalmed the air, Hawthorn and hazel mingled there; The primrose pale and violet flower, Found in each cliff a narrow bower; Foxglove and nightshade, side by side, Emblems of punishment and pride, Grouped their dark hues with every stain, The weather-beaten crags retain.

All that, in a happier field and a purer air, would expand into virtue and germinate into usefulness, is thus concerted into henbane and deadly nightshade.

The timid snow-drop, the modest violet, the languid primrose, the coy lily, the flaunting tulip, the smart marigold, the lowly blushing daisy, the proud foxglove, the deadly nightshade, the sleepy poppy, and the sweet solitary eglantine, are all types.

It was the deadly nightshade, and a handful of the berries spelt death.

XXXIII In one of the tin cups Beatrice pressed the juice from the nightshade, obtaining perhaps a tablespoonful of black liquor.

Take saffron and goldthread, white poplar and rue, They've cured the dyspepsia wherever they grew; Use clover and nightshade, and drink wintergreen, They'll cure the worst cancer that ever was seen.

It is absurd to denounce it as belonging to the poisonous nightshade tribe, when the potato and the tomato also appertain to that perilous domestic circle.

Stinking'st of the stinking kind, Filth of the mouth and fog of the mind, Africa, that brags her foyson, Breeds no such prodigious poison, Henbane, nightshade, both together, Hemlock, aconite Nay, rather, Plant divine, of rarest virtue; Blisters on the tongue would hurt you.

The envy of the literary man too often crowns his gray hairs with a chaplet of nightshade, and pours its dark poison into the latest cup of existence.

Enchanter's nightshade.

Deadly nightshade.

Enchanter's nightshade.

Deadly nightshade.

Deadly nightshade.

DEADLY NIGHTSHADE.