But now my task is smoothly done,

I can fly, or I can run

Quickly to the green earth's end,

Where the bow'd welkin slow doth bend,

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There is a favourable account of this plant in the history of Siam, vol. 2 of Harris's Voyages, p. 187; and Père le Comte, who like Père Jartoux was a missionary to China, speaks most highly of its virtues. Mr. Bell, however, (of Antermony) in his Travels, p. 353, does not speak of it in such exalted terms. His words are these: "I cannot but take notice, on this occasion, of a famous plant called gingsing, which grows in the province of Leotong. The root of it is so much esteemed for its physical virtues, that it is gathered by people appointed by the Emperor (of China) for this purpose only, and is valued at the rate of about twenty-five pounds sterling the pound weight. It is so rare, that the emperor sent two pounds of it only, in a present to his Czarish majesty. I could never learn from their physicians what specific qualities this plant possessed, only that it was of universal use. I have heard many stories of strange cures performed by it; that persons seemingly dead have by its means been restored to health. I believe indeed it may be a good restorative plant; but if it really has any extraordinary virtues, I could never discover them, though I made many experiments on it at different times.”

And from thence can soar as soon

To the corners of the moon.

I have another account of this plant from a private friend, of the soundest judgment on all subjects, and of particular experience in this, from having, before he retired from his situation as captain of an East India ship, carried much of it to the Chinese market: his account states that the growth of it is not confined to the province of Leotong in China, but that it is found in North America, from whence, before the present war, it was consigned to one or two houses in London, which houses furnished the traders to China with it, and that it was so much in request there, that it yielded a profit of 40 or 50 per cent; that since the war, however, the Americans have carried it to China themselves. This gentleman understands that the plant is in general of a restorative nature, and that it is sought with so much avidity as it is by the Chinese, for the same reason as makes them so fond of eating their famous birdnests, that is, as an aphrodisiac tending to increase pleasure or restore the powers of those who have become debilitated by excess.

My motives for going into so much length on the subject of this plant are these; first, to express my regret, as Père Jartoux has done, that its properties should not be

Mortals, that would follow me,
Love Virtue, she alone is free,

more fully examined by Europeans, and secondly, because, when this treatise was first printed in the year 1805, I thought that this plant answered one of the enigmas stated in the Mask of Comus, a conclusion to which I had been led by the following circumstance. In speaking of the cure of complaints arising from drinking bad water, the same learned physician (Dr. Mead, who is cited in the former note) seemed to have given into a belief of those wonderful powers of music on which the ancient classical writers dwell so much, but which, if taken literally, appear to me to be absolute nonsense. In page 73 he expresses himself thus : "We have a famous testimony in Galen, who tells us that Esculapius used to recover those in whom violent emotions of the mind had induced a hot temperament of body, by melody and songs. Pindar mentions the same thing (he says); and again, in p. 75, he cites the following "Thales of Crete, passage from Plutarch de Musicâ.

when sent for by the Lacedæmonians to remove them from the pestilence, did it by the help of music;" and Dr. Mead then offers his own statements on the bite of the tarantula spider, "which," he says, "is cured by causing the patient to dance to music, and by playing upon the part bitten,

She can teach ye how to climb
Higher than the sphery chime;

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learne l

&c. &c." Not being able to concur with this very physician, either in respect to what he says of the tarantula spider, or in taking the ancient authors whom he quotes, according to their literal statements; and being well satisfied that those ancient authors were in the constant habit of disguising the subjects they treated, under the veil of enigma, I fancied that the gin-sing plant, from its name, as referable to songs or singing, from the botanical appearances of its stalk or leaves, (of which an engraving was added to the treatise,) and from its medical qualities as described by the Chinese travellers, was the substance really intended by the writers quoted by Dr. Mead, and disguisedly alluded to in this Mask of Comus. I am now, however, disposed to think, that instead of the ging-sing plant,the gum lac, at the same time that it answers the other points of the enigma under which Milton has concealed the notice of it, answers likewise what he says of it in regard to

singing and songs, (and two songs are inserted on the subject in the poem,) and lays and carols, and abjuring verse," by a reference to Toud-song, Tarem-song, and Brahm-song at the head of the River Ava, and by a further reference to the country of Laos or Malay perhaps, by the frequent

Or if virtue feeble were,

Heaven itself would stoop to her.

mention of lays, and a still further reference possibly to Syrian, (quasi syren) an island at the mouth of the river of Pegu, all which countries above named produce the gum lac.

It may be added here, also, that when this treatise was first printed, I thought the scene of the poem lay in Andalusia in Spain, an idea to which I had been led by many remarkable coincidences, the principal of which was, that that and the neighbouring province of La Mancha have waters of a very bad quality, and are peculiarly subject to fever and pestilence; agreeably to which it is stated in Fisher's Travels in Spain, vol. ii., p. 223, that in the plains of La Mancha, "la bonne eau est plus chère que le vin même;" and he speaks of Auduxaṛ (upon the Guadalquivir,) as "le siège éternel de fiévres putrides." The scene of the poem, however, is now, I believe, more correctly assigned.