fpite of the fine things that the orator might advance in his favour; but the result of the business did equal honour to the abilities of the one, and the feelings of the other. For the orator's addrefs to the Conqueror of the World is, in my humble opinion, as great a master-piece of oratory as the world has ever produced. But between the general abilities of the two men, comparison is at an end. Demofthenes was only an orator and politician; whereas Cicero was a man of almost universal talents; and though he has been ridiculed by Juvenal as a bad poet; his defence of Archias the poet, fhews, that at least he understood the noble principles of the art, as well as any man of the age in which he lived.

LETTER

LETTER XLII.

ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS.

Pacifer huic dederat florem Cylenius album,
Moly vocant fuperi, nigrâ radice tenetur.

SIR,

IT

OVID.

T has been a moat point with the learned, that no internal medicines were given at the time of the Trojan war. I am not quite certain, however, that the instance I am now giving, does not in fome measure contradict the affertion: read the fequel, and judge for yourself. I have been full in my remarks on the botanical knowledge of Virgil: and perhaps this is one of the few sciences, in which he was fuperior to his great mafter. However, Homer, tho' he treats but little concerning the properties of herbs, whenever he does, his defcription is accurate. Turn to the 10th Book of the Odyffey, where Ulyffes, going to the palace of Circe, to seek after his loft friends,

met

met the God Mercury, in disguise, who gave him an antidote against the medical cups of the celebrated enchantrefs.

πόςε φσρμακον,

ριζη μὲν μελαν εσκε, γαλακ[ι δε ἔσκελον ἄνθος.

Μῶλυ δε μιν καλέεσι θεοί.

"He (viz. Mercury) gave an herb, the root was black, but the flower was like milk: the Gods call it Moly. This herb is a fpecies of the Allium, or Garlic. I have feen this herb likewife, I believe, in the botanical garden at Kew; the flower was literally white as milk, the root I never faw; but was informed that it was black, and ftill retains the claffical name of the Homeric Moly. It is mentioned. by feveral Greek authors, and I believe by Galen : it is little used in modern prescription. I have seen fome account of it in fome old medical difpenfary, compofed about the time of the witching days of bigot James, where it is advised as a fccific against witchcraft. Pray do you know any think of the efficacy of the herb? Is it a carminative, or anywife calculated to relieve thofe nervous or hypocondraical

difeafes,

difeafes, which were fuppofed to proceed from the effect of magic? You would laugh at the long notes of fome learned commentators on this paffage : but let us advert a little to the original text. Here we are told, that the Goddess Circe gave her φαρμακα or drugs in the bread that her guefts eat, and in the wine which they drank; and that this, together with the operation of her wand, transformed them into brutes. Let us abstract the veil of poetry, and confider the matter in the ftile of common fenfe-Circe was a beautiful woman, and a noted demi-rep of antiquity, refided on a pleasant island, and captivated by her personal charms; and if she gave any drug, I fhould fufpect, that like the fair Helen, fhe exhibited some nepenthe or opiate in her wine, which made the drinkers, in fome measure, forget themselves and their former state; and this, together with pleasure and fenfuality, might authorize the metaphorical expreffion of their being transformed into brutes. As an humourous proof of the virtue of the herb alluded to, I remember an anecdote, of what is called in this part of the world, a white witch, that is, an antiwitch, or a good wizard, who counteracts the power

of

of the bad or malevolent ones. This man, a novel gerins in his capacity of an exorcist, used to mix up a dofe of garlic and fome other factid herbs, with this defign; that he concluded, that the Devil himself could not stand the flink of the herbs, that he had prepared for his repast; and therefore that he would be obliged to quit his patient nolens volens. I cannot say, but that I wish that the faid King James and the Majority of his Lords and Commons, had taken a plentiful dose of the magical antidote; which, in all probability, would have made them so fick and forry, that they would not have had time to pass an act whereby half the old women in the kingdom were liable to undergo a violent death, under the abfurd idea of exerting an inconceivable influence.

LETTER