But it is not only for its domestic uses that this beautiful tree has been celebrated. The poets in all times and nations have done it honour. It appeared among the coronals of the heathen deities; and with us it garlands the despairing lover. So Shakspeare's Desdemona died singing of it; and so the Willow growing "across the brook" helped on poor Ophelia's fate.

But I will not dwell upon the Willow of the heathen

farther, but refer again to the poetical passages in the book of Job and the prophets, which I have already quoted.

In more than one page of a former part of my little book I have mentioned that, as the palm is not attainable in this country to celebrate the entrance of Christ into Jerusalem, in Romish times the flowering branches of various Willows, especially the sallow, were used for that purpose; and that the Jews, also, present them in their ceremonies. English boys still parade their sallow flowers, either in their hats or hands, on Palm Sunday.

WORMWOOD.

Absinthium Santonicum Judaicum, }

Artemisia Judaicum,

Wormwood of Judæa.

Linnæan class and order, SYNGENESIA-POLYGAMIA SUPERFLUa.

Natural order, ASTERACEÆ.

WORMWOOD of some kind is found wild in all parts of Europe. The Artemisia Judaica, as its name. implies, is a native of Palestine, and was found by Hasselquist on Mount Tabor. Some have supposed, erroneously, that the Wormwood of Scripture is our southernwood, a plant more fragrant, but less bitter, therefore less fit for the use to which the sacred writers have put it, namely, the comparison of its bitterness with sin and its consequences.

How solemnly Moses invites the people to assemble and take an oath to keep the law, while he is still with them, "lest there should be among you a root that beareth gall and Wormwood!"*

Solomon warns the young man that the strange woman, whose lips are as the droppings of the honeycomb, will have an end bitter as Wormwood.t Jeremiah, denouncing the disobedience of the Jews,

* Deut. xxix. 18.

† Proverbs, v. 3, 4.

threatens them with being condemned to eat Wormwood; and in his Lamentations he makes the faithful to say, "He hath filled me with bitterness, he hath made me drunken with Wormwood."

The prophet Amos, in one of his finest chapters, exhorting the wicked to repentance, especially addresses the corrupt judge who turns "judgement to Wormwood." And who has not in mind the sound of the third trumpet in the Apocalypse, when the star whose name was Wormwood fell and mingled with the waters, so that many men died?

Such are the remarkable passages in which the qualities of Wormwood, rather than the plant itself, are named.

Among the ancients, Wormwood was esteemed as a valuable medicine peculiarly efficacious in epilepsy, and it continued in repute till of late years. The modern Italians indeed still continue to distil a pleasant bitter spirit from it, which they consider an excellent stomachic.

With us it is mostly burnt, on account of the quantity of potash it yields, from which the salt of Wormwood is prepared.

THE END.

LONDON Printed by A. SPOTTISWOODE, New-Street-Square.