istinguish them from the Spanish
Potato, or Convolvulus Battatas, which had been long grown in Europe,
and in the first edition of his "Herbal" is his portrait, showing him
holding a Potato in his hand. They seem to have grown into favour very
slowly, for half a century after their introduction, Waller still spoke
of them as one of the tropical luxuries of the Bermudas--

"With candy'd Plantains and the juicy Pine,
On choicest Melons and sweet Grapes they dine,
And with Potatoes fat their wanton swine."

_The Battel of the Summer Islands._

Potato is a corruption of Batatas or Patatas.

As soon as the Potato arrived in England, it was at once invested with
wonderful restorative powers, and in a long exhaustive note in Steevens'
Shakespeare, Mr. Collins has given all the passages in the early writers
in which the Potato is mentioned, and in every case they have reference
to these supposed virtues. These passages, which are chiefly from the
old dramatists, are curious and interesting in the early history of the
Potato, and as throwing light on the manners of our ancestors; but as in
every instance they are all more or less indelicate, I refrain from
quoting them here.

As a garden plant, we now restrict the Potato to the kitchen garden and
the field, but it belongs to a very large family, the Solanaceae or
Nightshades, of which many members are very ornamental, though as they
chiefly come from the tropical regions, there are very few that can be
treated as entirely hardy plants. One, however, is a very beautiful
climber--the Solanum jasminoides from South America--and quite hardy in
the South of England. Trained against a wall it will soon cover it, and
when once established will bear its handsome trusses of white flowers
with yellow anthers in great profusion during the whole summer. A better
known member of the family is the Petunia, very handsome, but little
better than an annual. The pretty Winter Cherry (_Physalis alkekengi_)
is another member of the family, and so is the Mandrake (_see_
MANDRAKE). The whole tribe is poisonous, or at least to be suspected,
yet it contains a large number of most useful plants, as the Potato,
Tomato, Tobacco, Datura, and Cayenne Pepper.

PRIMROSE.

(1) _Queen._

The Violets, Cowslips, and the Primroses,
Bear to my closet.

_Cymbeline_, act i, sc. 5 (83).

(2) _Que