expressed by such characters as can be seen and understood by every one; and as man discovers his reason by speech, and brutes their sensations by various sounds, motions, and gestures, so the vast variety and diversity of figures, colours, and consistencies, observable in inanimate creatures, is certainly designed for some wise purpose. It _must be_, in order to manifest these peculiar qualities and excellencies, which could not be so effectually done in any other way, not even by speech, since no language is universal. Thus, the lungs of a fox must be a specific for asthma, _because_ that animal is remarkable for its strong powers of respiration. _Turmerick_ has a brilliant yellow colour, which indicates that it has the power of curing the jaundice; by the same rule, _Poppies_ must relieve diseases of the head; _Agaricus_ those of the bladder; _Cassia fistula_ the affections of the intestines, and _Aristolochia_ the disorders of the uterus: the polished surface and stony hardness which so eminently characterise the seeds of the _Lithospermum Officinale_ (Common Gromwell) were deemed a certain indication of their efficacy in calculous and gravelly disorders; for a similar reason the roots of the _Saxifraga Granulata_ (White Saxifrage) gained reputation in the cure of the same disease; and the _Euphrasia_ (Eye-bright) acquired fame, as an application in complaints of the eye, because it exhibits a black spot in its corolla resembling the pupil. In the curious work of _Chrysostom Magnenus_, we meet with a whimsical account of the _Signature_ of Tobacco. “In the first place,” says he, “the manner in which the flowers adhere to the head of the plant indicates the _Infundibulum Cerebri_, and _Pituitary Gland_. In the next place, the three membranes of which its leaves are composed announce their value to the stomach which has three membranes.”[50] The blood-stone, the _Heliotropium_ of the ancients, from the occasional small specks or points of a blood red colour exhibited on its green surface, is even at this day employed in many parts of England and Scotland, to stop a bleeding from the nose; and nettle-tea continues a popular remedy for the cure of _Urticaria_. It is also asserted that some substances bear the SIGNATURES of the humours, as the petals of the red rose that of the blood, and the roots of rhubarb and the flowers of saffron, that of the bile.[51] I apprehend that John of Gaddesden, in the fourteenth century, celebrated by Chaucer, must have been directed by some remote analogy of this kind, when he ordered the son of Edward the First, who was dangerously ill with the small-pox, to be wrapped in scarlet cloth, as well as all those who attended upon him, or came into his presence, and even the bed and room in which he was laid were covered with the same drapery; and so completely did it answer, say the credulous historians of that day, that the Prince was cured without having so much as a single mark left upon him.