Michael ... purged with Euphrasie and Rue, The visual nerve.
that Adam’s eyes should be made clear. (Euphrasie is Eyebright.) Rue was also an antidote to poison, and preserved people from contagion, particularly that of the plague, and was thought to be of great virtue for many disorders. “Some doe rippe up a beade-rowle of the vertues of Rue, as Macer the poet and others” who apparently declared it to be good for almost every ill. Mr Britten remarks: “It was long, and probably still is the custom to strew the dock of the Central Criminal Court at the Old Bailey with Rue. It arose in 1750, when the contagious disease known as jail fever, raged in Newgate to a great extent. It may be remembered that during the trial of the Mannings (1849), the unhappy woman, after one of the speeches of the opposing counsel, gathered up some of the sprigs of Rue which lay before her, and threw them at his head.”
Turner recommends Rue “made hott in the pyll of a pomegranate” for the “ake of the eares.”
[78] “Plant-lore and Garden-craft of Shakespeare,” Canon Ellacombe.
Lavender and Sweet Marjoram march away, Sothernwood and Angelica don’t stay, Plantain, the Thistle, which they blessed call, And useful Wormwood, in their order fall.
I’ll give to him, Who gathers me, more sweetness than he’d dream Without me--more than any lily could. I, that am flowerless, being Southernwood.
Shall I give you honesty, Or lad’s love to wear? Or a wreath less fair to see, Juniper and Rosemary? Flaxenhair?
Rosemary, lest you forget, What was lief and fair, Lad’s love, sweet thro’ fear and fret, Lad’s love, green and living yet, Flaxenhair.
Southernwood has many _sobriquets_, among which are Lads or Boy’s Love, Old Man, and Maiden’s Ruin; the last a corruption of _Armoise du Rône_, Mr Friend says. The French have contracted the same title to _Auronne_ and also call the plant _Bois de St Jean_ and _Citronelle_. Dutch people used to call it _Averonne_ (another form of the French contraction) and the Germans, _Stab-wurtz_. The name _Bois de St Jean_ is given it, because in some parts of France it is one of the plants dedicated to St John the Baptist, and the German title came from their faith in it as a “singular wound-hearb.” Turner considered that the fumes of it being burned, would drive away serpents, and credits it with many valuable properties, chiefly medicinal; and Culpepper calls it “a gallant, mercurial plant, worthy of more esteem than it hath.” It has also been supposed to have great virtue to prevent the hair falling out. In later days Hogg has declared it to have an agreeable, exhilarating smell,” and to be “eminently diaphoretic.” But Thornton, who loves to shatter all favourite herbal notions, remarks that these good results are chiefly because it “operates on the mind of the patient,” and that as a fomentation it is hardly more useful “than cloths wrung out of hot water.” So transitory is good report!