Dov. It is wonders of this kind, and forewarnings of this nature, that natural history offers to the contemplative mind:  in the place of superstitious follies, and unavailing predictions, such as the foretelling of luck from the number or chattering of magpies; and the wonder how red clover changes itself into grass, as many a farmer at this moment believes.

Von Os. Linnaeus himself was a bit of a prophet; as, indeed, thus well he might; for experience and observation amount almost to the power of vatacination.  In his Academic Aménities he says, “Deus, O.M. et Natura nihil frustra creaverit.  Posteros tamen tot inventuros fore utilitates ex muscis arguor, quot ex reliquis vegetabilibus.”

Dov. English it, Von Osdat; thou’rt a scholar.

Von Os. “God and Nature have made nothing in vain.  Posterity may discover as much in mosses, as of utility in other herbs.”

Dov. And, truly, so they may:  one lichen is already used as a blessed medicine in asthma; and another to thicken milk, as a nutritive posset.  And who, enjoying the rich productions of our present state of horticulture, can recur without wonder to the tables of our ancestors?  They knew absolutely nothing of vegetables in a culinary sense; and as for their application in medicine, they had no power unless gathered under planetary influence, “sliver’d in the moon’s eclipse.”

Von Os. When Mercury was culminating, or Mars and Venus had got into the ninth house.

Dov. ’Tis curious to reflect, that at the vast baronial feasts, in the days of the Plantagenets and Tudors, where we read of such onslaught of beeves, muttons, hogs, fowl and fish, the courtly knights and beauteous dames had no other vegetable save bread—­not even a potato!

Von Os.

  “They carved at the meal with their gloves of steel,
  And drank the red wine through the helmet barr’d.”

Dov. And when the cloth was drawn—­

Von Os. Cloth!—­

Dov. They had scarce an apple to give zest to their wine.

Von Os. We read of roasted crabs; and mayhap they had baked acorns and pignuts.

Dov. Ha! ha! ha!—­Caliban’s dainties.  Now we have wholesome vegetables almost for nothing, and pine-apples for a trifle.  Thanks to Mr. Knight—­push the bottle—­here’s to his health in a bumper.

Von Os. Who, walking on Chester walls in those days, and seeing the Brassica oleracea, where it grows in abundance, would have supposed that from it would spring cabbages as big as drums, and cauliflowers as florid as a bishop’s wig?

Dov. Or cautiously chaumbering an acrid sloe, imagine it to be the parent of a green gage?

Von Os. This is the Education of Vegetables.

Dov. The March of Increment!

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