"The juice of the soapwort," says Miss Pratt, "is one of those vegetable substances which, by making a lather with water, will cleanse linen, and remove grease as effectually as soap. It grows more generally in the neighbourhood of villages than in any other situation, as if providence had placed it there especially for the service of the cottager; yet it is very little used, either from ignorance of its properties, or because it would require some cultivation to render it sufficiently plentiful for household purposes. It needs the addition of ashes to make it a good soap for washing linen; but it is of much service to the shepherds on the Alps, who wash their flocks, previously to shearing them, with soapsuds made by boiling this plant in water. The large fruit of the horse-chestnut has similar cleansing properties, and may be used by cutting it into small pieces, or scraping it into water. It has even been suggested that if the nuts were reduced to powder, and made into balls, with some unctuous substance, they would answer all the purposes of our manufactured soap; and yet numbers of poor people see these nuts lying decaying in their neighbourhood, and have no idea of making them of any service." On the Continent, however, the peasantry are wiser, and not only provide themselves with chestnuts for soap, but gather the beech-leaves to stuff their mattresses. Returning to the Caryophyllaceæ, we may add that some of the plants of this order have poisonous qualities, which are due to the principle called _saponine_ existing in many of the species of Saponaria, Silene, Lychnis, and Dianthus. According to Lindley, the order includes no less than 53 genera, and 1055 species. They inhabit chiefly temperate and cold regions, and are ranked in three sub-orders,--Alsineæ, Sileneæ, and Mollugineæ. THE EGLANTINE AND THE CONVOLVULUS. What plant do our poets mean by the eglantine? What by the woodbine? Are they one and the same, or are they different? We cannot answer those questions until we have referred to three or four passages in which they are introduced. And, first, let us take an example from Spenser:-- "And over him, art striving to compare With nature, did an arbour green dispread, Framèd of wanton ivy, flowering fair, Through which the fragrant eglantine did spread His pricking arms, entrailed with roses red, Which dainty odours round about them threw, And all within with flowers was garnishèd, That when wild Zephyrus amongst them blew, Did breathe out bounteous smells, and painted colours shew." And now from Milton:-- "Through the sweetbriar, or the vine, Or the twisted eglantine." The following is from Sir Walter Scott:-- "On the hill Let the white heath-bell flourish still, Cherish the tulip, prune the vine, But freely let the woodbine twine, And leave untrimmed the eglantine." From Burns:--