sore eyes, the juice of a leek
squeezed out, and mixed with cream, [221] has been found curative.
Old Tusser tells us, in his _Husbandry for March_:--

"Now leeks are in season, for pottage full good,
That spareth the milch cow, and purgeth the blood,"

and a trite proverb of former times bids us:--

"Eat leeks in Lide [March] and ramsons in May,
Then all the year after physicians can play."

Ramsons, or the Wild Garlic (_Allium ursinum_), is broad leaved,
and grows abundantly on our moist meadow banks, with a strong smell
of onions when crushed or bruised. It is perennial, having egg-shaped
or lance-like leaves, whilst bearing large, pearly-white
blossoms with acute petals. The name is the plural of "Ramse," or
"Ram," which signifies strong-smelling, or rank. And the plant is
also called "Buck Rams," or "Buck Rampe," in allusion to its spadix
or spathe. "The leaves of Ramsons," says Gerard, "are stamped and
eaten with fish, even as we do eat greene sauce made with sorrell."
This is "Bear's Garlic," and the Star Flower of florists.

Leeks were so highly esteemed by the Emperor Nero, that his
subjects gave him the sobriquet of "Porrophagus." He took them
with oil for several days in each month to clear his voice, eating
no bread on those days. _Un remede d'Empereur (Neron) pour se
debarrasser d'un rhume,--et de commere pour attendre le meme but--
fut envelopper un oignon dans une feuille de chou et le faire cuire
sous la cendre; puis l'ecrasser, le reduire en pulpe, le mettre dans
une tasse de lait, ou une decoction chaude de redisse; se coucher; et
se tenir chaudement, au besoin recidiver matin et soir_.

The Scotch leek is more hardy and pungent than that [222] grown in
England. It was formerly a favourite ingredient in the Cock-a-Leekie
soup of Caledonia, which is so graphically described by Sir
Walter Scott, in the _Fortunes of Nigel_.

A "Herby" pie, peculiar to Cornwall, is made of leeks and pilchards,
or of nettles, pepper cress, parsley, mustard, and spinach, with thin
slices of pork. At the bottom of the Squab pie mentioned before was
a Squab, or young Cormorant, "which diffused," says Charles
Kingsley, "through the pie, and through the ambient air, a delicate
odour of mingled guano and polecat." That "lovers live by love, as
larks by leeks," is an old saying; and in the classic story of Pyramus
and Thisbe, reference is made to the beautiful emerald green which
the leaves of the leek