It was through chewing the beans of Mocha, and becoming stupefied thereby, that unsuspicious goats first drew the attention of Mahomedan monks to the wonderful properties of the Coffee berry. Next, coming down to the first part of the present century, we find that purveyors of medicinal and savoury herbs then wandered over the whole of England in quest of such useful simples as were in constant demand at most houses for the medicine-chest, the store-closet, or the toilet-table. These rustic practitioners of the healing art were known as "green men," who carried with them their portable apparatus for distilling essences, and for preparing their herbal extracts. In token of their having formerly officiated in this capacity, there may yet be seen in London and elsewhere about the country, taverns bearing the curious sign of "The Green Man and (his) Still." It is told of a certain French writer not long since, that whilst complacently describing our British manners [11] customs, he gravely translated this legend of the into "_L'homme vert, et tranquil_." Passing on finally to our own times at the close of the nineteenth century, we are able now-a-days, as has been already said, to avail ourselves of precise chemical research by apparatus far in advance of the untutored herbalist's still. He prepared his medicaments and his fragrant essences, merely as a mechanical art, and without pretending to fathom their method of physical action. But the skilled expert of to-day resolves his herbal simples into their ultimate elements by exact analysis in the laboratory, and has learnt to attach its proper medicinal virtue to each of these curative principles. It has thus come about that Herbal Physic under competent guidance, if pursued with intelligent care, is at length a reliable science of fixed methods, and crowned with sure results. Moreover, in this happy way is at last vindicated the infinite superiority felt instinctively by our forefathers of home-grown herbs over foreign and far-fetched drugs; a superiority long since expressed by Ovid with classic felicity in the passage:-- "AEtas cui facimus _aurea_ nomen, Fructibus arbuteis, et humus quas educat herbis Fortunata fuit."--_Metamorphos., Lib. XV_. "Happy the age, to which we moderns give The name of 'golden,' when men chose to live On woodland fruits; and for their medicines took Herbs from the field, and simples from the brook." or, as epitomised in the time-worn Latin adage:-- "Qui potest mederi _simplicibus_ frustra quaerit composita." "If _simple_ herbs suffice to cure, 'Tis vain to compound drugs endure." In the following pages our leading Herbal Simples [12] are reviewed alphabetically; whilst, to ensure accuracy, the genus and species of each plant are particularised.