simply pot-herbs, good for food, such as the mad-apples and the
tomatoes, miscalled "love-apples." Other, of the harmless kinds, are
sweetness and tranquillity itself, as the white mullens, or lady's
fox-gloves, so good for fomentations.

[44] I have found this ladder nowhere else. It is the more
important, because the witches who made these essays at the
risk of passing for poisoners, certainly began with the
weakest, and rose gradually to the strongest. Each step of
power thus gives its relative date, and helps us in this dark
subject to set up a kind of chronology. I shall complete it
in the following chapters, when I come to speak of the
Mandragora and the Datura. I have chiefly followed Pouchet's
_Solanees_ and _Botanique Generale_.

Going higher up, you come on a plant already suspicious, which many
think a poison, a plant which at first seems like honey and afterwards
tastes bitter, reminding one of Jonathan's saying, "I have eaten a
little honey, and therefore shall I die." But this death is
serviceable, a dying away of pain. The "bittersweet" should have been
the first experiment of that bold homoeopathy which rose, little by
little, up to the most dangerous poisons. The slight irritation and
the tingling which it causes might point it out as a remedy for the
prevalent diseases of that time, those, namely, of the skin.

The pretty maiden who found herself woefully adorned with uncouth red
patches, with pimples, or with ringworm, would come crying for such
relief. In the case of an elder woman the hurt would be yet more
painful. The bosom, most delicate thing in nature, with its innermost
vessels forming a matchless flower, becomes, through its injective and
congestive tendencies, the most perfect instrument for causing pain.
Sharp, ruthless, restless are the pains she suffers. Gladly would she
accept all kinds of poison. Instead of bargaining with the Witch, she
only puts her poor hard breast between her hands.

From the bittersweet, too weak for such, we rise to the dark
nightshades, which have rather more effect. For a few days the woman
is soothed. Anon she comes back weeping. "Very well, to-night you may
come again. I will fetch you something, as you wish me; but it will be
a strong poison."

It was a heavy risk for the Witch. At that time they never thought
that poisons could act as remedies, if applied outwardly or taken in
very weak doses. The plants they compou