that by far the best plan is, for a man, if he must travel, to take the broad-day light for his journey, as the night is the season of the powers of darkness, when all sorts of bedevilment are abroad, although he is not candid enough to attribute half the wonderful things seen in those witching hours to late suppers and schnapps.

CHAPTER XVI.

"I must fill up this Osier cage of our's
With baleful weeds, and precious-juiced flowers.

Oh, mickle is the powerful grace that lies
In herbs, plants, stones, and their true qualities.
ROMEO AND JULIET, Act ii., Scene 2

OF THE MANDRAGORA.

We pass over Dr. Bräuner's chapter upon the flying dragons, which is only an uninteresting description of the aurora borealis, shooting stars, and other similar meteoric phenomena, and proceed to that which contains his description of the Mandragora, or, as it is called in

German, the Allraunen, or Galgenmannlein, literally, gallows dwarfs, and in this chapter we must take considerable liberties with them. This root was largely used as a means of sorcery, either for obtaining wealth by unsanctified means, or removing the curse of sterility, or, in short, to procure good fortune of any kind. Johannes Rint, in his work upon the Universal Folly of Mankind, states that the word was originally Rhun, or Alruhn, an old German word formerly in use, although both these, as well as that of Allraun, are now obsolete. It was so termed, as being supposed to be invested with the gift of telling things to come.

This root, called in Latin by botanists Mandragora, is affirmed by Zorn, in Botonologia, page 420, to be a root of excellent virtues. It is supposed to be generated by the droppings from the corpse of a malefactor left to swing to and fro on the gallows, whence its name of Galgen-mannlein, which people in former times were wont to give large sums for, and with it worship the Devil to a great extent, for which we have the authority of Bartholinus, cent. 2, History of Anatomy, chap. 51st; of Theophrastus Paracelsus on Long Life, book 3, chap. 4; and of Delrio in his Disquisition upon Magic, chap. 2, quest. 6, sec. 4.

Its figure resembles that of a man, and it has broad leaves with yellow flowers. The digging it up was supposed to be attended with no ordinary peril; for, on being torn from the ground, it shrieked and howled fearfully, so that the man, who was venturesome enough to procure it in this fashion, died on the spot. To avoid this catastrophe, the following precautions were necessary :-The person must, on a Friday, before the sun was risen, stop his ears carefully either with cotton, wax, or pitch; (we apprehend that this last substance would give Tom the barber some trouble) and, on reaching the spot where it grew, make the sign of the cross over it it was then to be carefully dug round, so as not to leave the smallest fibre in the ground. After this it was to be tied with a thread to a dog's tail, and the person was to run before the dog, holding a piece of bread in his hand. As the dog ran after the bread, with the root dangling at his tail, the shrieks of the root would have such a powerful effect upon him, that he would fall suddenly dead to the ground. The unfortunate dog having been thus converted into a scape-goat, the noxious powers of the root were so far destroyed as to allow it to be

*It is part of the duties of this functionary in India to clean the ears of his customers.

handled with safety. It was then washed in wine, wrapped up in red and white silk, and afterwards put, rolled up in white linen, into a wooden box for four weeks, leaving only the head uncovered. These ceremonies being duly observed, it would then answer any question put to it, and frequently declare things future. We have then an account of the same, given word for word from the Jewish historian Josephus; but, as it does not differ in any material particular from the foregoing, we omit it, referring the curious in these points to his 7th book, and 23rd chapter.

Erasmus Franciscus, at page 489 of his Hellish Proteus, writes, that the Devil having entered into a Mandragora root, it was, by order of the Mayor, put into the pulpit, there to await his arrival. Meanwhile, the root made many vows and protestations, which were heard by several people, although the speaker was unseen. On the Mayor's entering the pulpit it immediately became dumb, and he passed sentence upon it, that it should be buried by the hangman's hands under the gallows, to which the root, like a good and obedient devil as it was, submitted without a murmur.

Israel Fronschmidt, at page 626, gives us a very detailed account of these allraunen: we