That vulgar men, which have but skill to read,
May be their own physicians at need;
The better sort are hereby taught, how all
Things springing from earth’s bowels safely shall
By love or hatred (as the Stars dispose)
Each sickness cure, that in the body grows.”
The poet Michael Drayton has drawn the portrait of an ancient simpler, and has given a list of the remedies of which he made the most frequent use; the lines are to be found in his ‘Polyolbion,’ and as they contain examples of herbs selected under the system of the Doctrine of Plant Signatures, they may be appropriately introduced at the conclusion of this chapter:—
“But, absolutely free,
His happy time he spends the works of God to see,
In those so sundry herbs which there in plenty grow,