Note 11 — II HISTORICAL DISCOURSE

Page 33, note 1. In his lecture on Boston (published in the volume Natural History of Intellect) Mr. Emerson gives an amusing enumeration of some troubles which seemed so great to the newcomers from the Old World: he mentions their fear of lions, the accident to John Smith from “the most poisonous tail of a fish called a sting-ray,” the circumstance of the overpowering effect of the sweet fern upon the Concord party, and the intoxicating effect of wild grapes eaten by the Norse explorers, and adds: “Nature has never again indulged in these exasperations. It seems to have been the last outrage ever committed by the sting-rays, or by the sweet fern, or by the fox-grapes. They have been of peaceable behavior ever since.”