ers have a good and speedy
effect and good success and that I may always be permitted
with the favour of your majesty to gather you into my hands
and to glean your fruits. So shall I give thanks to you in
the name of that majesty which ordained your birth."

[Illustration: FROM A SAXON HERBAL
(Harl. 1585, folio 19_a_)]

FOOTNOTES:

[2] Nec non et si quos saecularis scientiae libros nobis ignotos
adepturi sitis, ut sunt de medicinalibus, quorum copia est aliqua apud
nos, sed tamen segmenta ultra marina quae in eis scripta comperimus,
ignota nobis sunt et difficilia ad adipiscendum.--Bonifac.,
_Epistolae_, p. 102.

[3] A catalogue of the books of that foundation cited by Wanley
(Hickes, _Thesaur._ Vol. II. Praef. ad Catalogum) contains the entry
"Medicinale Anglicum," and the MS. described above has on a fly-leaf
the now almost illegible inscription "Medicinale Anglicum." There is
unfortunately no record as to the books which, on the dissolution of
the monasteries, may possibly have found their way from Glastonbury to
the royal library.

[4] This chapter consists of prescriptions containing drugs such as a
resident in Syria would recommend. It is interesting to find this
illustration of Asser's statement, that he had seen and read the
letters which the Patriarch of Jerusalem sent with presents to the
king. From Asser also we learn that King Alfred kept a book in which
he himself entered "little flowers culled on every side from all sorts
of masters." "Flosculos undecunque collectos a quibus libet magistris
et in corpore unius libelli mixtim quamvis sicut tunc suppetebat
redigere."--ASSER, p. 57.

[5] The stories of miraculous cures by famous Anglo-Saxon bishops and
abbots are for the most part too well known to be worth quoting, but
the unfair treatment of the leech is perhaps nowhere more clearly
shown than in Bede's tale of St. John of Beverley curing a boy with a
diseased head. Although the leech effected the cure, the success was
attributed to the bishop's benediction, and the story ends, "the youth
became of a clear countenance, ready in speech and with hair
beautifully wavy."

[6] A small but striking instance of Saxon knowledge, or rather close
observation, of plants is to be found in the following description of
wolf's teazle in the _Herbarium of Apuleius_:--"This wort hath leaves
reversed and thorny and it hath in its midst a round and thorny knob,
and that is brown-headed in