ers those whom the mistaken
malign influence of the walnut-tree has smitten: But what is still more
strange, I read in one Paulus a Physician of Denmark, that an handful or
two of small oak buttons, mingled with oats, given to horses which are
black of colour, will in few days eating alter it to a fine dapple-grey,
which he attributes to the vitriol abounding in this tree. To conclude;
and upon serious meditation of the various uses of this and other trees,
we cannot but take notice of the admirable mechanism of vegetables in
general, as in particular in this species; that by the diversity of
percolations and strainers, and by mixtures, as it were of divine
chymistry, various concoctions, &c. the sap should be so green on the
indented leaves, so lustily esculent for our hardier and rustick
constitutions in the fruit; so flat and pallid in the atramental galls;
and haply, so prognostick in the apple; so suberous in the bark (for
even the cork-tree is but a courser oak) so oozie in the tanners pit;
and in that subduction so wonderfully specifick in corroborating the
entrails, and bladder, reins, loins, back, &c. which are all but the
gifts and qualities, with many more, that these robust sons of the earth
afford us; and that in other specifics, even the most despicable and
vulgar elder imparts to us in its rind, leaves, buds, blossoms, berries,
ears, pith, bark, &c. Which hint may also carry our remarks upon all the
varieties of shape, leaf, seed, fruit, timber, grain, colour, and all
those other forms {62:1} that philosophers have enumerated; but which
were here too many for us to repeat. In a word, so great and universal
is the benefit and use of this poly-crest, that they have prohibited the
transporting it out of Norway, where there grows abundance. Let us end
with the poet:

When ships for bloody combat we prepare,
Oak affords plank, and arms our men of war;
Maintains our fires, makes ploughs to till the ground,
For use no timber like the oak is found.{62:2}

FOOTNOTES:

{31:1} _Saturn._ lib. II. cap. 16.

{35:1}

(Caerula distinguens inter plaga currere posset
Per tumulos, & convalles, camposque profusa:
Ut nunc esse vides vario distincta lepore
Omnia, que pomis intersita dulcibus ornant
Arbustisque tenent felicibus obsita circum).

_Lucret. l. 5._

{37:1} See what Vossius has written in his Observations on Catullus, p.
204. _Indomitus turbo contorquens flamine_..