grows so well in this country, and is so often
found away from cultivation, that it may almost
be considered naturalised. It originally came
from Lapland, and is now grown largely both
in England and in France, for the benefit of the
confectioner. It is an umbelliferous plant, and
flourishes by the side of streams, and in moist
shady places. The root consists of thick fleshy
fibres, sending forth several very large compound
leaves of a lightish green colour. Among these
arises a long jointed stalk about four or five feet
high, set with clasping leaves at the joints,
according to the habit of the family. Towards the
top the stem breaks into many branches, each
terminated by a compound umbel, the rays of
which are angular, and support globular heads
of whitish flowers. The stalks were at one time
blanched and used as celery; but they are now
chiefly preserved in sugar, and eaten as a sweetmeat.
The aromatic flavour of angelica recommends
it strongly to many palates; indeed, the
names by which it is known are very significant
of its appreciation. Archangelica, Evangelica,
and Pseudangelica, are the three genuine
distinctions given to different plants of the same
family. In Lapland it is much esteemed, and
is supposed to have anti-pestilential powers. In
that country it is chewed after the manner of
tobacco, and the Norwegians mix it with their
bread.

Besides the angelica, we have a sweetmeat
prepared from a very common sea-side
plant, known to all who frequent our English
coast in the summer-time—the sea holly,
Eryngium Maritenum, easily recognised by its stiff
sharp-pointed prickly leaves of bluish green;
or, as botanists say, glaucous colour. The
flowers are in heads of a pale blue colour. It
is very abundant on the eastern coast of
England. The long tough creeping root has a
pungent, aromatic, sweetish taste, which
peculiarity is taken advantage of by the confectioner,
who boils and candies them, and thus prepares
a pleasant variety for the table. At Colchester,
in Essex, there still exists an establishment
where, more than two centuries ago, the
experiment was first made by one Robert Buxton,
an apothecary. The celebrated Dutch physician
Boerhaave used to recommend the root
of the sea holly in medicine as a restorative and
stimulant. It is not necessary, however, to
seek for the rare and costly preparations of the
confectioner to indulge our taste for botanical
research.

The little pink and white sugar-plums, so
welcome in the nursery, contain each in its sugar
case a miniature fruit, not a seed, as is commonly
thought. Caraway is the entire fruit of the
Carum Carui, a plant which abounds in various
parts of Europe, and is cultivated in the gardens
of this country. It belongs to the family
Umbelliferæ, and has a long fleshy root, which
is eaten as a vegetable in many parts of the
Continent, and is little inferior to the parsnip.
The peculiar warm aromatic oil contained in the
little fruits recommend them for the purposes
of flavouring various preparations of sugar.
Indeed, when we begin to think of the different
forms in which we partake of this product of
the Western world from our childhood to old
age, and the multitudinous flavours imparted to
it by the aid of the confectioner, we shall trace
nearly all of them to Nature's laboratory. There
are the endless variety of lozenges tasting of
peppermint, a British wild plant, Mentha
Peperita, yielding an oil in its leaves known to us
all; ginger, the most potent and useful of all
our spices, the roots of the Zingiber Officinale;
cinnamon, the bark of a plant growing in the
East Indies, Laurus Cinnamonum; cloves, which
are the unopened buds of a myrtle-like plant, the
Caryophyllus Aromaticus; and numberless other
spices equally agreeable.

Then there are all the jellies, creams, and
cakes, many of which are mere vehicles for the
introduction of aromatic spices, interesting not
only to the palate but to the botanist. Nutmegs,
the seeds of a plant belonging to the Bay family,
Myristica Moschata, with the curious outer shell,
or arillus, as it is called, constituting the well-
known and fragrant mace. Allspice, or Pimento
Lenis, the fruits of a small tree growing in the
West Indies, known as Eugenia Pimento; the
buds of some plants, as of the cassia; the seeds
of others, as the anise seed, the cardamon seed;
and the leaves of many more, as the laurel,
Prunus Lauroærasus, and the common bay-tree,
Laurus Nobilis, are frequent additions to our
best confectionary.

MANORS AND MANNERS.

To pay my rent punctually to my landlord, if
I could, if I simply leased my house and garden,
or to see that the annual shillings were duly
delivered over to the steward of the manor, for
the lord's use, if I were a copyholder in the
country, with a few acres of meadow land, and
may be a reach of fell or a belt of copse by way of
boundary, constituted about the sum of my
knowledge on the subject of rents and holdings. To
be sure, I had heard, in a hazy kind of way, such
terms as quit-rent, and heriot, and soccage,and the
lord's fines, and I knew that there was something
dreadful in a "rack-rent;" but I did not quite
comprehend what; and when people tried to
explain, it was generally so mixed up with poor-
rate, and so many things that I did not understand
—being only a poor ignorant personage
with no head for figures—that I was never much
the wiser for the glossary. But the other day I
met with a quaint old book, written by the
learned Thomas Blount, and in this I read of
some of the strange rights and customs by which
our forefathers held their manors in times long
past. His book is called Fragmenta Antiquitatis,
or Ancient Tenures of Land and Jocular
Customs of Manors; and is edited, annotated, and
enlarged by Hercules Malebysse Beckwith and
his father, with not half so grand a name; and
out of the queer pot-pourri that it all is, I
propose to pick some of the best bits, and hand
them round for the edification of the company.