_Poyson_, even within our Memory, as already noted.

To conclude, and after all that has been said of Plants and _Salleting_,
formerly in great esteem, (but since obsolete and quite rejected); What
if the exalted Juice of the ancient _Silphium_ should come in, and
challenge the Precedency? It is a [43]Plant formerly so highly priz'd,
and rare for the richness of its Taste and other Vertues; that as it was
dedicated to _Apollo_, and hung up in his Temple at _Delphi_; So we read
of one single Root brought to the Emperor _Nero_ for an extraordinary
Present; and the Drug so esteem'd, that the _Romans_ had long before
amass'd a quantity of it, and kept it in the Treasury, till _Julius
Cæsar_ rob'd it, and took this away, as a thing of mighty value: In
a word, it was of that Account; that as a sacred Plant, those of the
_Cyrenaic Africa_, honour'd the very Figure of it, by stamping it on
the Reverse of their [44]Coin; and when they would commend a thing for
its worth to the Skies, [Greek: Bat-ou silphion], grew into a Proverb:
_Battus_ having been the Founder of the City _Cyrene_, near which it
only grew. 'Tis indeed contested among the Learned _Botanosophists_,
whether this Plant was not the same with _Laserpitium_, and the Laser it
yields, the odoriferous [45]_Benzoin_? But doubtless had we the true and
genuine _Silphium_ (for it appears to have been often sophisticated, and
a spurious sort brought into _Italy_) it would soon recover its pristine
Reputation, and that it was not celebrated so for nothing extraordinary;
since bessides its Medicinal Vertue; it was a wonderful Corroborater of
the Stomach, a Restorer of lost Appetite, and Masculine Vigour, _&c._
and that they made use of it almost in every thing they eat.

But should we now really tell the World, that this precious Juice is,
by many, thought to be no other than the [46]_Faetid Assa_ our nicer
_Sallet-Eaters_ (who yet bestow as odious an Epithet on the vulgar