The Ladies Delight

esides the common name of _Arbor Vitae_, a very learned Philosopher and great Divine would have it call'd, _Arbor Scientiae boni & mali_; believing, upon very good grounds, this is the tree which grew in the middle of the garden of _Eden_, and whose fruits were so alluring to our first mother. Others would have it call'd the _Mandrake_ of _Leah_, persuaded it is the same whose juice made the before barren _Rachel_ a joyful mother of children.

The learned _Madame D'Acier_ in her notes upon _Homer_ contends it should be called _Nepenthes_. She gives many reasons why it certainly is that very plant, whose fruits the _Egyptian_ queen recommended to _Helen_, as a certain cure for pain and grief of all sorts, and which She ever after kept by her as her most precious jewel, and made use of as a _Panacaea_ upon all occasions.

The great Dr. _Bentley_ calls it more than once _Machaera Herculis_, having proved out of the fragments of a _Greek_ Poet, that of this tree was made that club with which the h