Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 6.djvu/15

 12 S. VI. JAN., 1920.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

Northumberland, and cost 2,000 guineas., .In 1906 a majority of the Dublin Corporation .voted its removal for the following reasons : -(1) it is a statue of an English monarch ; >(2) he is represented as " a Roman High- lander "; (3) that it was the work of a Dutchman. The statue is still there. On jthe front of the pedestal :

Georgio III.

M. B. F. et H. Regi

Optimo principi

Hugo Percy Northumbrise comes

Hibernise pro Rex

Pro sua in ci\ r. Dubl.

Benevolentia.

A.D. MT>CCLXIV.

P. H. C. On back of pedestal :

Hugoni Percy Northumb. comiti

Granti animi Hoc qualecunque.

Bank of Ireland, Dublin. White marble ^statue by John Bacon, occupies the position of the throne in the old Irish House of Lords, erected at the expense of the Governors and Company of the Bank at a cost of 2,OOOZ.

Charlotte. Bust in Trinity House.

J. ABDAGH. 49 Nansen Road, Lavender Hill, S.W. 11.

"EBYNGO" AND " EBUCA." My old friend and correspondent the late Canon Ellacombe will be remembered chiefly as a horticulturist and botanist ; but he was also a man of classical erudition beyond ordinary. It is strange, therefore, that he should have missed the significance of Falstaffs allusion to " eringoes " when he met Mrs. Ford and Mrs. Page in Windsor Park :

" Let the sky rain potatoes ; let it thunder to the tune of Green Sleeves, hail kissing comfits .and snow eringoes." ' Merry Wives,' v. 5.

In his ' Plant-Lore of Shakespeare,' Canon Ellacombe, after noting that Gerard ex- plained " eringoes " as the candied roots of ceeds :
 * the sea holly (Eryngium maritimum), pro-

" I am inclined to think that the vegetable Falstaff wished for was the globe artichoke, which is a near relative of the eryngium, was a "favourite diet in Shakespeare's time, and was reputed to have certain special virtues which are not attributed to the sea holly, but which would more accord with FalstafE's character."

Now, herein the learned Canon not only .makes a slip in botany, for the globe arti- . choke and the sea holly are far from being .nearly akin, the first belonging to the iCompositce or daisy order and the second to

the Umbelliferce or hemlock order ; but he misses the point of Falstaffs mention of " eringoes " in a list of incentives to ama- tiveness. Whether Shakespeare referred to the Virginian potato (Battata Virginianorum) or the Spanish potato (Convolvulus battatas), both were believed to possess aphrodisiac properties ; and for several centuries the eryngo, whereof our native sea holly (Eryngium maritimum) is a familiar species, has borne the same reputation. But it seems certain that it acquired its reputation through being confounded with a cruciferous plant bearing the somewhat similar name of Eruca.

The ' N.E.D.' gives Falstaffs speech above quoted as the earliest occurrence of " eringo " in English literature, the date of the ' Merry Wives ' being 1598. Pliny, in discoursing of erynge sine eryngion (' Nat. Hist.,' lib. xxii. cap. 7), mentions it as an effective remedy against the venom of snakes and other poisons, but has not a word to say about it as an aphrodisiac, nor do I know of any Latin or Greek writer who attributes such properties to this herb. Pliny, however, in the next chapter (xxii. 8) describes a plant called Centum capita with white flowers, which he seems to regard as a species of Eryngion, and repeats what he has heard re- ported about it as "portentous," namely, that if a man find the root it acts as a powerful charm in his favour with women, though Pliny recommends a decoction of the root, not as an aphrodisiac, but as a remedy for a variety of maladies. On'the other hand he writes confidently of Eruca as concitatrix veneris (lib. xix. cap. 8), and allusions to that plant (now known to botanists as Eruca sativa) occur in many authors. Ovid men- tions it in his ' Remedium amoris ' as food to be avoided :

Nee minus erucas aptum est vitare salaces. Martial recommends its use :

Concitat ad Venerem tardos eruca maritos. Columella says it should be sown near the effigy of Priapus in gardens.

It seems to me that Shakespeare, in mak- ing Falstaff call for it to " snow eringoes," referred only to the root as a charm, not as an aphrodisiac decoction ; but a confusion of Eryngo with Eruca certainly had taken place before the close of the sixteenth century, and the reputed properties of Eruca came, through mistaking the name, to be assigned to Eryngo. Nor is there any cause for supposing that this made the slightest difference in the effect of the drug, the prescription being in each case empirical or quack.

HEBBEBT MAXWELL. Monreith.