HENBANE

This is a common plant, flowering in July; the Hyoscyamtis niger. The expre ed juice ot the leaves evaporated to the consistency of extract has long been used as a sedative or narcotic. It has a peculiar strong and disagreeable odour, and a nauseous bitterish taste. From two to five grains of the extract of henbane are often found equivalent to about one grain of opium, and where the latter disagrees it often produces quiet: in many cases henbane and various forms of opium may be combined. Henbane is apt to produce giddine ; but it does not constipate the bowels, and has rather a diuretic tendency. HENDECASYLLABIC. {Gr.h^ixa..) A verse of eleven syllables. The Latin hendecasyllabic, of which the principal specimens left to us are from the pen of Catullus, consist of a spondee, dactyl, and three trochees — Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atxjue amemus. The Italian heroic verse, and those of England and Germany, when increased by the addition of a final short syllable, are iambic hendecasyllabics. The licence of adding an eleventh syllable (and sometimes also a twelfth) is more frequently admi ible in English dramatic than epic versification. [s. 562]