What doth the sap do in the root all the winter that while? Pick straws? 'Tis as rotten as a rotten post." He gives as his own version of what happens to the sap that "when the sun declines from the tropic of cancer, the sap begins to congeal both in root and branch. When he touches the tropic of capricorn and ascends to uswards it begins to wax thin again." One cannot help suspecting that Culpeper knew perfectly well what nonsense he was talking, but that he also realised how remunerative such nonsense was and how much his customers were impressed by it. In his dissertation on wormwood one feels that he was writing with his tongue in his cheek, especially in the conclusion, which is as follows:-- "He that reads this and understands what he reads hath a jewel of more worth than a diamond. He that understands it not is as little fit to give physick. There lies a key in these words, which will unlock (if it be turned by a wise hand) the cabinet of physic. I have delivered it as plain as I durst ... thus shall I live when I am dead. And thus I leave it to the world, not caring a farthing whether they like it or dislike it. The grave equals all men and therefore shall equal me with all princes.... Then the ill tongue of a prating fellow or one that hath more tongue than wit or more proud than honest shall never trouble me. Wisdom is justified of her children. And so much for wormwood." [Illustration: NICHOLAS CULPEPER FROM "THE ENGLISH PHYSICIAN ENLARGED"] Less popular than Culpeper's numerous writings, but far more attractive and altogether of a different stamp, are Coles's two books, _Adam in Eden_ and _The Art of Simpling_. The title of the latter runs thus:-- "The Art of Simpling. An Introduction to the Knowledge and Gathering of Plants. Wherein the Definitions, Divisions, Places, Descriptions, Differences, Names, Vertues, Times of flourishing and gathering, Uses, Temperatures, Signatures and Appropriations of Plants are methodically laid down. London. Printed by J. G. for Nath. Brook at the Angell in Cornhill. 1656." The preface is quaint and so typical of the spirit of the later seventeenth-century herbals that I transcribe a good deal of it:--