A remarkable characteristic of the herbarists (as they were called of yore) was a habit of ascribing extraordinary and fabulous properties to the herbs and plants whose merits they descanted upon. Just as the Druids taught the people of their time to call the sacred Mistletoe the “All-heal,” and to look upon it as a panacea for all bodily ailments, so did the herbalists, in the pages of their ponderous tomes, set forth the marvellous virtues of Betony, Agrimony, Angelica, Garlic, Fennel, Sage, Rue, and other favourite medicinal plants. Johannes de Mediolano, a doctor, of the Academy of Salerno, once wrote of Rue, that it diminishes the force of love in man, and, on the contrary, increases the flame in women. When eaten raw, it both clears the sight and the perceptions of the mind, and when cooked it destroys fleas. The English herbalists called it Herb Grace and Serving-men’s Joy, because of the multiplicity of ailments that it was warranted to cure; Mithridates used the herb as a counterpoison to preserve himself against infection; and Gerarde records that Serpents are driven away at the smell of Rue if it be burned, and that “when the Weesell is to fight with the Serpent, shee armeth herselfe by eating Rue against the might of the Serpent.” The virtues of Rue, however, are cast into the shade by those of Sage. Says witty Alphonse Karr--“Rue is nothing in comparison with Sage. Sage preserves the human race; and the _whole school_ of Salerno, after a long enumeration of the virtues of Sage, seriously exclaims: ‘How can it happen that a man who has Sage in his garden yet ends by dying?’” Perhaps this exclamation was the foundation of the English proverb-- “He that eats Sage in May Shall live for aye.”