seed; poppy causeth sleep, cabbage resisteth drunkenness, &c., and that which is more to be admired, that such and such plants should have a peculiar virtue to such particular parts, [4124]as to the head aniseeds, foalfoot, betony, calamint, eye-bright, lavender, bays, roses, rue, sage, marjoram, peony, &c.  For the lungs calamint, liquorice, ennula campana, hyssop, horehound, water germander, &c.  For the heart, borage, bugloss, saffron, balm, basil, rosemary, violet, roses, &c.  For the stomach, wormwood, mints, betony, balm, centaury, sorrel, parslan.  For the liver, darthspine or camaepitis, germander, agrimony, fennel, endive, succory, liverwort, barberries.  For the spleen, maidenhair, finger-fern, dodder of thyme, hop, the rind of ash, betony.  For the kidneys, grumel, parsley, saxifrage, plaintain, mallow.  For the womb, mugwort, pennyroyal, fetherfew, savine, &c.  For the joints, camomile, St. John’s wort, organ, rue, cowslips, centaury the less, &c.  And so to peculiar diseases.  To this of melancholy you shall find a catalogue of herbs proper, and that in every part.  See more in Wecker, Renodeus, Heurnius lib. 2. cap. 19. &c.  I will briefly speak of them, as first of alteratives, which Galen, in his third book of diseased parts, prefers before diminutives, and Trallianus brags, that he hath done more cures on melancholy men [4125]by moistening, than by purging of them.

Borage.] In this catalogue, borage and bugloss may challenge the chiefest place, whether in substance, juice, roots, seeds, flowers, leaves, decoctions, distilled waters, extracts, oils, &c., for such kind of herbs be diversely varied.  Bugloss is hot and moist, and therefore worthily reckoned up amongst those herbs which expel melancholy, and [4126] exhilarate the heart, Galen, lib. 6. cap. 80. de simpl. med. Dioscorides, lib. 4. cap. 123. Pliny much magnifies this plant.  It may be diversely used; as in broth, in [4127]wine, in conserves, syrups, &c.  It is an excellent cordial, and against this malady most frequently prescribed; a herb indeed of such sovereignty, that as Diodorus, lib. 7. bibl. Plinius, lib. 25. cap. 2. et lib. 21. cap. 22. Plutarch, sympos. lib. 1. cap. 1. Dioscorides, lib. 5. cap. 40. Caelius, lib. 19. c. 3. suppose it was that famous Nepenthes of [4128]Homer, which Polydaenna, Thonis’s wife (then king of Thebes in Egypt), sent Helena for a token, of such rare virtue, “that if taken steeped in wine, if wife and children, father and mother, brother and sister, and all thy dearest friends should die before thy face, thou couldst not grieve or shed a tear for them.”

       “Qui semel id patera mistum Nepenthes Iaccho
        Hauserit, hic lachrymam, non si suavissima proles,
        Si germanus ei charus, materque paterque
        Oppetat, ante oculos ferro confossus atroci.”

Helena’s commended bowl to exhilarate the heart, had no other ingredient, as most of our critics conjecture, than this of borage.