Once, twice—hah! it flies amiss!”—Scott.
Old herbalists had great faith in the Dandelion as a wonderful help to consumptive people. More recently, in the county of Donegal, an old woman skilled in simples has treated her patients for “heart fever,” or dyspepsia, as follows:—She measures the sufferer three times round the waist with a ribbon, to the outer edge of which is fastened a green thread. If the patient be mistaken in supposing himself affected with heart fever, this green thread will remain in its place, but should he really have the disorder, it is found that the green thread has left the edge of the ribbon and lies curled up in the centre. At the third measuring, the simpler prays for a blessing. She next hands the patient nine leaves of “heart fever grass,” or Dandelion, gathered by herself, directing him to cut three leaves on three successive mornings.——Hurdis, in his poem of ‘The Village Curate,’ fantastically compares the sparkling undergraduate and the staid divine to the Dandelion in the two stages of its existence:—
“Dandelion this,
A college youth, that flashes for a day
All gold: anon he doffs his gaudy suit,
Touched by the magic hand of some grave bishop,
And all at once becomes a reverend divine—how sleek.
* * * * * * * *
But let me tell you, in the pompous globe
Which rounds the Dandelion’s head, is couched