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tells us that the root was chewed as a cure for the tooth-ache, but if kept long in the mouth it destroyed the teeth.

We are not aware that the garden Ranunculus has been used in medicine, and shall not in this place dwell further on the properties of our native species of this family of plants, than to observe that they contain virulent qualities, which affect both men and cattle, particularly sheep; and that it was with one of the kinds of Ranunculus that the ancients poisoned the points of their arrows. Mons. C. Dubois gives us the following pretty moral verses on the dangerous nature of the Ranunculus of our fields, called Butter-cups.

Vois, mon fils, ce bouton charmant

Que Zéphyr berce de son aîle ;
Comme il étale, en s'inclinant,
L'or dont sa corolle étincelle !

Ce joli bouton satiné,

Qui sourit comme l'innocence,
Recèle un suc empoisonné,

Et souvent blesse l'imprudence.

Des pièges d'un monde inconnu
Apprends, mon fils, à te défendre ;
Tel nous montre un front ingénu,

Qui ne cherche qu'à nous surprendre.

IRIS.

Natural Order Ensatæ. Irides, Juss. A Genus of the Triandria Monogynia Class.

Iris, on saffron wings aray'd with dew

Of various colours, through the sun-beams flew.

The various Iris, Juno sends with haste.

VIRGIL.

Then clad in colours of a various dye,
Junonian Iris breeds a new supply.

OVID.

THE ancients named this plant after the attendant of Juno, because its colours are the same as those which the poets and mythological writers have bestowed on the messenger of their goddess. Iris is generally depictured as descending from the rainbow, and her arch is said not to vary more in its colours than the flower that has been honoured by

her name.

Columella observes in his tenth book

Nor Iris, with her glorious rainbow clothed,

So fulgent as the cheerful gardens shine

With their bright offspring, when they're in their bloom. Milton distinguishes these flowers as "Iris, all hues." Every quarter of the world possesses the Iris, and, excepting the Rose, no flower has been

more celebrated by the historian and the poet than this genus of plants, which so greatly embellishes both the land and the waters, and has at various periods contributed so much towards the sustenance, and added to the medicines of man.

Bildad, in his remonstrance with Job, uses this plant as a simile." Can the Rush grow up without mire ? Can the flag grow without water?" Job viii. 11; which was thus versified, in the beginning of the seventeenth century, by G. Sandys:Can Bulrushes but by the river grow?

Can Flags there flourish where no waters flow?

The ancients used the Iris or Flag-flower as the symbol of eloquence; and on this account it was, we presume, placed by the Egyptians on the brow of the Sphinx, as we have seen in the collection of antique statuary at the Louvre, in Paris, where there are three Sphinxes of great magnitude, Nos. 253, 373, and 375, all of which have the Iris flower sculptured on the brow. May not the Egyptians have represented Moses by the Sphinx, and placed the Flag-flower on the temple of this symbolical figure in allusion to the spot from which he was taken, for the daughter of Pharaoh discovered him in an ark of bulrushes "laid in the flags by the river's brink ?" (Exod. ii. 3.)

The History of France informs us that the national escutcheon of that country was strewed

with an indefinite number of Fleurs-de-lis as early as the time of Clovis the First, about the end of the fifth century, previously to which time the emblem of France had been either three toads or three diadems in champ d'argent-others say three crescents, surrounded with a number of bees.

About the middle of the twelfth century, Louis the Seventh of France, having been excommunicated by the Pope, and his kingdom laid under an interdict, was persuaded to take up the cross and join in the romantic expedition of the Crusaders, on which occasion he distinguished himself, as was the custom of those times, by a particular blazon, for which he chose the Iris flower, from that time called Fleur de Louis, Louis's flower, which was first contracted into fleur de Luce, and afterwards into fleur de lis, Lily flower, although it has no affinity to the Lily. The Iris flower soon became celebrated in France as the Fleur de lis, and was not only used in the arms of France, but employed in the decorative embellishments of the crown itself.

The number of fleurs de lis used in emblazoning the arms of France was reduced to three in the reign of Charles the Sixth, about the year 1381, when that monarch added supporters to the shield of France-which arose from the following circumstance. This youthful Prince, whilst hunting in the forest of Senlis, roused an enormous stag, which

would not suffer himself to be taken by the dogs, but being secured in the toils of the net, a collar of copper, gilt, was found fixed around the neck of the animal, with this Latin inscription, "Hoc mihi Cæsar donavit." After this adventure the young king dreamed that he was carried through the air on a winged stag, from which time he added two winged stags for supporters of the arms of France. The north part of the mariner's compass was marked by its immortal author (Flavio Giovia, a native of Amalfi, in Naples) with this beautiful flower, in compliment to France, the Neapolitan monarch being a younger branch of the royal family then (1302) upon the throne of that kingdom.

Edward the Third,

Whose ripe manhood spread our fame so far,
A sage in peace, a demi-god in war :

Who, stern in fight, made echoing Cressy ring,
And mild in conquest, served his captive king,

TICKELL,

added the Fleurs de Luce to the arms of England. Gray calls him

Great Edward, with the Lilies on his brow,
From haughty Gallia torn.

Phillips says

Behold Third Edward's streamers blazing high
On Gallia's hostile ground! his right withheld,
Awakens vengeance: O imprudent Gauls,

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