Chapter VIII: Part I: The Plant-Lore of Shakespeare (5)

In all these passages, except the last, the reference is to rope made from Hemp, and not to the Hemp plant, and it is very probable that Shakespeare never saw the plant. It was introduced into England long before his time, and largely cultivated, but only in few parts of England, and chiefly in the eastern counties. I do not find that it was cultivated in gardens in his time, but it is a plant well deserving a place in any garden, and is especially suitable from its height and regular growth, for the central plant of a flower-bed. It is supposed to be a native of India, and seems capable of cultivation in almost any climate.[122:1]

The name has a curious history. "The Greek +kannabis+, and Latin _cannabis_, are both identical with the Sanscrit _kanam_, as well as with the German _hanf_, and the English _hemp_. More directly from _cannabis_ comes canvas, made up of hemp or flax, and canvass, to discuss: _i.e._, sift a question; metaphorically from the use of hempen sieves or sifters."--BIRDWOOD'S _Handbook to the Indian Court_, p. 23.

FOOTNOTES:

[122:1] In Shakespeare's time the vulgar name for Hemp was Neckweed, and there is a curious account of it under that name by William Bullein, in "The Booke of Compounds," f. 68.

HERB OF GRACE, _see_ RUE.

HOLLY.

_Song._

Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green Holly:
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then, heigh-ho, the Holly!
This life is most jolly.

_As You Like It_, act ii, sc. 7 (180).

From this single notice of the Holly in Shakespeare, and from the slight account of it in Gerard, we might conclude that the plant was not the favourite in the sixteenth century that it is in the nineteenth; but this would be a mistake. The Holly entered largely into the old Christmas carols.

"Christmastide
Comes in like a bride,
With Holly and Ivy clad"--

and it was from the earliest times used for the decoration of houses and churches at Christmas. It does not, however, derive its name from this circumstance, though it was anciently spelt "holy," or called the "holy tree," for the name comes from a very different source, and is identical with "holm," which, indeed, was its name in the time of Gerard and Parkinson, and is still its name in some parts of England, though it has almost lost its other old name of Hulver,[123:1] except in the eastern counties, where the word is still in use. But as an ornamental tree it does not seem to have been much valued, though in the next century Evelyn is loud in the praises of this "incomparable tree," and admired it both for its beauty and its use. It is certainly the handsomest of our native evergreens, and is said to be finer in England than in any other country; and as seen growing in its wild habitats in our forests, as it may be seen in the New Forest and the Forest of Dean, it stands without a rival, equally beautiful in summer and in winter; in summer its bright glossy leaves shining out distinctly in the midst of any surrounding greenery, while as "the Holly that outdares cold winter's ire" (Browne), it is the very emblem of bright cheerfulness, with its foliage uninjured in the most severe weather, and its rich coral berries, sometimes borne in the greatest profusion, delighting us with their brilliancy and beauty. And as a garden shrub, the Holly still holds its own, after all the fine exotic shrubs that have been introduced into our gardens during the present century. It can be grown as a single shrub, or it may be clipped, and will then form the best and the most impregnable hedge that can be grown. No other plant will compare with it as a hedge plant, if it be only properly attended to, and we can understand Evelyn's pride in his "glorious and refreshing object," a Holly hedge 160ft. in length, 7ft. in height, and 5ft. in diameter, which he could show in his "poor gardens at any time of the year, glittering with its armed and vernished leaves," and "blushing with their natural corale." Nor need we be confined to plain green in such a hedge. The Holly runs into a great many varieties, with the leaves of all shapes and sizes, and blotched and variegated in different fashions and colours. All of these seem to be comparatively modern. In the time of Gerard and Parkinson there seems to have been only the one typical species, and perhaps the Hedgehog Holly.

I may finish the notice of the Holly by quoting two most remarkable uses of the tree mentioned by Parkinson: "With the flowers of Holly, saith Pliny from Pythagoras, water is made ice; and againe, a staffe of the tree throwne at any beast, although it fall short by his defect that threw it, will flye to him, as he lyeth still, by the speciall property of the tree." He may well add--"This I here relate that you may understand the fond and vain conceit of those times, which I would to God we were not in these dayes tainted withal."

FOOTNOTES:

[123:1] "_Hulwur_-tre (huluyr), hulmus, hulcus aut huscus."--_Promptorium Parvulorum._

HOLY THISTLE.

_Margaret._

Get you some of this distilled Carduus Benedictus, and lay it
to your heart; it is the only thing for a qualm.

_Hero._

There thou prickest her with a Thistle.

_Beatrice._

Benedictus! Why Benedictus? You have some moral in this
Benedictus.

_Margaret._

Moral! No, by my troth, I have no moral meaning: I meant plain
Holy Thistle.

_Much Ado About Nothing_, act iii, sc. 4 (73).

The _Carduus benedictus_, or Blessed Thistle, is a handsome annual from the South of Europe, and obtained its name from its high reputation as a heal-all, being supposed even to cure the plague, which was the highest praise that could be given to a medicine in those days. It is mentioned in all the treatises on the Plague, and especially by Thomas Brasbridge, who, in 1578, published his "Poore Mans Jewell, that is to say, a Treatise of the Pestilence: vnto which is annexed a declaration of the vertues of the Hearbes Carduus Benedictus and Angelica." This little book Shakespeare may have seen; it speaks of the virtues of the "distilled" leaves: it says, "it helpeth the hart," "expelleth all poyson taken in at the mouth and other corruption that doth hurt and annoye the hart," and that "the juyce of it is outwardly applied to the bodie" ("lay it to your heart"), and concludes, "therefore I counsell all them that have Gardens to nourish it, that they may have it always to their own use, and the use of their neighbours that lacke it." The plant has long lost this high character.

HONEYSTALKS, _see_ CLOVER.

HONEYSUCKLE.

(1) _Hero._

And bid her steal into the pleached bower
Where Honeysuckles, ripen'd by the sun,
Forbid the sun to enter.

_Much Ado About Nothing_, act iii, sc. 1 (7).

(2) _Ursula._

So angle we for Beatrice; who even now
Is couched in the Woodbine coverture.

_Ibid._ (29).

(3) _Titania._

Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms.
So doth the Woodbine the sweet Honeysuckle
Gently entwist; the Female Ivy so
Enrings the barky fingers of the Elm.

_Midsummer Night's Dream_, act iv, sc. 1 (47).

(4) _Hostess._

O thou Honeysuckle villain.

_2nd Henry IV_, act ii, sc. 1 (52).

(5) _Oberon._

I know a bank where the wild Thyme blows,
Where Oxlips and the nodding Violet grows,
Quite over-canopied with luscious Woodbine.

_Midsummer Night's Dream_, act ii, sc. 1 (249).

I have joined together here the Woodbine and the Honeysuckle, because there can be little doubt that in Shakespeare's time the two names belonged to the same plant,[126:1] and that the Woodbine was (where the two names were at all discriminated, as in No. 3), applied to the plant generally, and Honeysuckle to the flower. This seems very clear by comparing together Nos. 1 and 2. In earlier writings the name was applied very loosely to almost any creeping or climbing plant. In an Anglo-Saxon Vocabulary of the eleventh century it is applied to the Wild Clematis ("Viticella--Weoden-binde"); while in Archbishop Ælfric's "Vocabulary" of the tenth century it is applied to the Hedera nigra, which may be either the Common or the Ground Ivy ("Hedera nigra--Wude-binde"); and in the Herbarium and Leechdom books of the twelfth century it is applied to the Capparis or Caper-plant, by which, however (as Mr. Cockayne considers), the Convolvulus Sepium is meant. After Shakespeare's time again the words began to be used confusedly. Milton does not seem to have been very clear in the matter. In "Paradise Lost" he makes our first parents "wind the Woodbine round this arbour" (perhaps he had Shakespeare's arbour in his mind); and in "Comus" he tells us of--

"A bank
With ivy-canopied, and interwove
With flaunting Honeysuckle."[126:2]

While in "Lycidas" he tells of--

"The Musk Rose and the well-attired Woodbine."

And we can scarcely suppose that he would apply two such contrary epithets as "flaunting" and "well-attired" to the same plant. And now the name, as of old, is used with great uncertainty, and I have heard it applied to many plants, and especially to the small sweet-scented Clematis (_C. flammula_).

But with the Honeysuckle there is no such difficulty. The name is an old one, and in its earliest use was no doubt indifferently applied to many sweet-scented flowers (the Primrose amongst them); but it was soon attached exclusively to our own sweet Honeysuckle of the woods and hedges. We have two native species (Lonicera periclymenum and L. xylosteum), and there are about eighty exotic species, but none of them sweeter or prettier than our own, which, besides its fragrant flowers, has pretty, fleshy, red fruit.

The Honeysuckle has ever been the emblem of firm and fast affection--as it climbs round any tree or bush, that is near it, not only clinging to it faster than Ivy, but keeping its hold so tight as to leave its mark in deep furrows on the tree that has supported it. The old writers are fond of alluding to this. Bullein in "The Book of Simples," 1562, says very prettily, "Oh, how swete and pleasant is Wood-binde, in woodes or arbours, after a tender, soft rain: and how friendly doe this herbe, if I maie so name it, imbrace the bodies, armes, and branches of trees, with his long winding stalkes, and tender leaves, openyng or spreading forthe his swete Lillis, like ladie's fingers, em[=o]g the thornes or bushes," and there is no doubt from the context that he is here referring to the Honeysuckle. Chaucer gives the crown of Woodbine to those who were constant in love--

"And tho that weare chaplets on their hede
Of fresh Woodbine, be such as never were
To love untrue in word, thought, ne dede,
But aye stedfast; ne for pleasaunce ne fere,
Though that they should their hertes al to-tere,
Would never flit, but ever were stedfast
Till that there lives there asunder brast."

_The Flower and the Leaf._

The two last lines well describe the fast union between the Honeysuckle and its mated tree.

FOOTNOTES:

[126:1]

"Woodbines of sweet honey full."

BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER, _Tragedy of Valentinian_.

[126:2] Milton probably took the idea from Theocritus--

"Ivy reaches up and climbs,
Gilded with blossom-dust about its lip;
Round which a Woodbine wreathes itself, and flaunts
Her saffron fruitage."--_Idyll_ i. (_Calverley_).

HYSSOP.

_Iago._

'Tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus. Our bodies are our
gardens, to the which our wills are gardeners; so that if
we will plant Nettles or sow Lettuce, set Hyssop, and weed
up Thyme, supply it with one gender of herbs or distract
it with many, either to have it sterile with idleness,
or maimed with industry, why, the power and corrigible
authority of this lies in our wills.

_Othello_, act i, sc. 3 (322).

We should scarcely expect such a lesson of wisdom drawn from the simple herb-garden in the mouth of the greatest knave and villain in the whole range of Shakespeare's writings. It was the preaching of a deep hypocrite, and while we hate the preacher we thank him for his lesson.[128:1]

The Hyssop (_Hyssopus officinalis_) is not a British plant, but it was held in high esteem in Shakespeare's time. Spenser spoke of it as--

"Sharp Isope good for green wounds remedies"--

and Gerard grew in his garden five or six different species or varieties. He does not tell us where his plants came from, and perhaps he did not know. It comes chiefly from Austria and Siberia; yet Greene in his "Philomela," 1615, speaks of "the Hyssop growing in America, that is liked of strangers for the smell, and hated of the inhabitants for the operation, being as prejudicial to the one as delightsome to the other." It is now very little cultivated, for it is not a plant of much beauty, and its medicinal properties are not much esteemed; yet it is a plant that must always have an interest to readers of the Bible; for there it comes before us as the plant of purification, as the plant of which the study was not beneath the wisdom of Solomon, and especially as the plant that added to the cruelties of the Crucifixion. Whether the Hyssop of Scripture is the Hyssopus officinalis is still a question, but at the present time the most modern research has decided that it is.

FOOTNOTES:

[128:1] It seems likely from the following passage from Lily's "Euphues, the anatomy of wit," 1617, that the plants were not named at random by Iago, but that there was some connection between them. "Good gardeners, in their curious knots, mixe Isope with Time, as aiders the one with the others; the one being dry, the other moist." The gardeners of the sixteenth century had a firm belief in the sympathies and antipathies of plants.

INSANE ROOT.

_Banquo._

Were such things here as we do speak about?
Or have we eaten on the Insane Root
That takes the reason prisoner?

_Macbeth_, act i, sc. 3 (83).

It is very possible that Shakespeare had no particular plant in view, but simply referred to any of the many narcotic plants which, when given in excess, would "take the reason prisoner." The critics have suggested many plants--the Hemlock, the Henbane, the Belladonna, the Mandrake, &c., each one strengthening his opinion from coeval writers. In this uncertainty I should incline to the Henbane from the following description by Gerard and Lyte. "This herbe is called . . . of Apuleia-Mania" (Lyte). "Henbane is called . . . of Pythagoras, Zoroaster, and Apuleius, Insana" (Gerard).

IVY.

(1) _Titania._

The female Ivy so
Enrings the barky fingers of the Elm.

_Midsummer Night's Dream_, act iv, sc. 1 (48).

(2) _Prospero._

That now he was
The Ivy which had hid my princely trunk
And suck'd my verdure out on't.

_Tempest_, act i, sc. 2 (85).

(3) _Adriana._

If ought possess thee from me, it is dross,
Usurping Ivy, Brier, or idle Moss.

_Comedy of Errors_, act ii, sc. 2 (179).

(4) _Shepherd._

They have scared away two of my best sheep, which I fear the
wolf will sooner find than the master; if anywhere I have
them 'tis by the seaside browsing of Ivy.[130:1]

_Winter's Tale_, act iii, sc. 3 (66).

(5) _Perithores._

His head's yellow,
Hard hayr'd, and curl'd, thicke twin'd like Ivy tops,
Not to undoe with thunder.

_Two Noble Kinsmen_, act iv, sc. 2 (115).

The rich evergreen of "the Ivy never sear" (Milton) recommended it to the Romans to be joined with the Bay in the chaplets of poets--

"Hanc sine tempora circum
Inter victrices Hederam tibi serpere lauros."--VIRGIL.

"Seu condis amabile carmen
Prima feres Hederæ victricis præmia."--HORACE.

And in mediæval times it was used with Holly for Christmas decorations, so that Bullein called it "the womens Christmas Herbe." But the old writers always assumed a curious rivalry between the two--

"Holly and Ivy made a great party
Who should have the mastery
In lands where they go."

And there is a well-known carol of the time of Henry VI., which tells of the contest between the two, and of the mastery of the Holly; it is in eight stanzas, of which I extract the last four--

"Holly he hath berries as red as any Rose,
The foresters, the hunters, keep them from the does;
Ivy she hath berries as black as any Sloe,
There come the owls and eat them as they go;
Holly he hath birds, a full fair flock,
The nightingale, the popinjay, the gentle laverock;
Good Ivy, say to us, what birds hast thou?
None but the owlet that cries 'How, how!'"

Thus the Ivy was not allowed the same honour inside the houses of our ancestors as the Holly, but it held its place outside the houses as a sign of good cheer to be had within. The custom is now extinct, but formerly an Ivy bush (called a tod of Ivy) was universally hung out in front of taverns in England, as it still is in Brittany and Normandy. Hence arose two proverbs--"Good wine needs no bush," _i.e._, the reputation is sufficiently good without further advertisement; and "An owl in an Ivy bush," as "perhaps denoting originally the union of wisdom or prudence with conviviality, as 'Be merry and wise.'"--NARES.

The Ivy was a plant as much admired by our grandfathers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries as it is now by us. Spenser was evidently fond of it--

"And nigh thereto a little chappel stoode
Which being all with Yvy overspread
Deckt all the roofe, and shadowing the rode
Seem'd like a grove faire branched over hed."

_F. Q._, vi, v, 25.

In another place he speaks of it as--

"Wanton Yvie, flouring fayre."--_F. Q._, ii, v, 29.

And in another place--

"Amongst the rest the clambering Ivie grew
Knitting his wanton armes with grasping hold,
Least that the Poplar happely should rew
Her brother's strokes, whose boughs she doth enfold
With her lythe twigs till they the top survew,
And paint with pallid greene her buds of gold."

VIRGIL'S _Gnat_.

Chaucer describes it as--

"The erbe Ivie that groweth in our yard that mery is."

And in the same poem he prettily describes it as--

"The pallid Ivie building his own bowre."

As a wild plant, the Ivy is found in Europe, Asia, and Africa, but not in America, and wherever it is found it loves to cover old walls and buildings, and trees of every sort, with its close and rich drapery and clusters of black fruit,[132:1] and where it once establishes itself it is always beautiful, but not always harmless. Both on trees and buildings it requires very close watching. It will very soon destroy soft-wooded trees, such as the Poplar and the Ash, by its tight embrace, not by sucking out the sap, but by preventing the outward growth of the shoots, and checking--and at length preventing--the flow of sap; and in buildings it is no doubt beneficial as long as it is closely watched and kept in place, but if allowed to drive its roots into joints, or to grow under roofs, the swelling roots and branches will soon displace any masonry, and cause immense mischief.

We have only one species of Ivy in England, and there are only two real species recognized by present botanists, but there are infinite varieties, and many of them very beautiful. These variegated Ivies were known to the Greeks and Romans, and were highly prized by them, one especially with white fruit (at present not known) was the type of beauty. No higher praise could be given to a beauty than that she was "Hedera formosior alba." These varieties are scarcely mentioned by Gerard and Parkinson, and probably were not much valued; they are now in greater repute, and nothing will surpass them for rapidly and effectually covering any bare spaces.

I need scarcely add that the Ivy is so completely hardy that it will grow in any aspect and in any soil; that its flowers are the staple food of bees in the late autumn; and that all the varieties grow easily from cuttings at almost any time of the year.

FOOTNOTES:

[130:1] Sheep feeding on Ivy--

"My sheep have Honeysuckle bloom for pasture; Ivy grows
In multitudes around them, and blossoms like the Rose."

THEOCRITUS, _Idyll_ v. (_Calverley_).

[132:1]

"The Ivy-mesh
Shading the Ethiop berries."--KEATS, _Endymion_.

KECKSIES.

_Burgundy._

And nothing teems
But hateful Docks, rough Thistles, Kecksies, Burs,
Losing both beauty and utility.

_Henry V_, act v, sc. 2 (51).

Kecksies or Kecks are the dried and withered stems of the Hemlock, and the name is occasionally applied to the living plant. It seems also to have been used for any dry weeds--

"All the wyves of Tottenham came to se that syght,
With Wyspes, and Kexis, and ryschys ther lyght,
To fech hom ther husbandes, that wer tham trouth plyght."

"The Tournament of Tottenham," in
RITSON'S _Ancient Songs and Ballads_.

KNOT-GRASS.

_Lysander._

Get you gone, you dwarf;
You minimus, of hindering Knot-grass made;
You bead, you Acorn.

_Midsummer Night's Dream_, act iii, sc. 2 (328).

The Knot-grass is the Polygonum aviculare, a British weed, low, straggling, and many-jointed, hence its name of Knot-grass. There is no doubt that this is the plant meant, and its connection with a dwarf is explained by the belief, probably derived from some unrecorded character detected by the "doctrine of signatures," that the growth of children could be stopped by a diet of Knot-grass. Steevens quotes Beaumont and Fletcher to this effect, and this will probably explain the epithet "hindering." But there may be another explanation. Johnston tells us that in the north, "being difficult to cut in the harvest time, or to pull in the process of weeding, it has obtained the sobriquet of the Deil's-lingels." From this it may well be called "hindering," just as the Ononis, from the same habit of catching the plough and harrow, has obtained the prettier name of "Rest-harrow."

But though Shakespeare's Knot-grass is undoubtedly the Polygonum, yet the name was also given to another plant, for this cannot be the plant mentioned by Milton--

"The chewing flocks
Had ta'en their supper on the savoury herb
Of Knot-grass dew-besprent."--_Comus._

In this case it must be one of the pasture Grasses, and may be Agrostis stolonifera, as it is said to be in Aubrey's "Natural History of Wilts" (Dr. Prior).

LADY-SMOCKS.

_Song of Spring._

And Lady-smocks all silver-white,
And Cuckoo-buds of yellow hue,
Do paint the meadows with delight.

_Love's Labour's Lost_, act v, sc. 2 (905).

Lady-smocks are the flowers of Cardamine pratensis, the pretty early meadow flower of which children are so fond, and of which the popularity is shown by its many names: Lady-smocks, Cuckoo-flower,[134:1] Meadow Cress, Pinks, Spinks, Bog-spinks, and May-flower, and "in Northfolke, Canterbury Bells." The origin of the name is not very clear. It is generally explained from the resemblance of the flowers to smocks hung out to dry, but the resemblance seems to me rather far-fetched. According to another explanation, "the Lady-smock, a corruption of Our Lady's-smock, is so called from its first flowering about Lady-tide. It is a pretty purplish white, tetradynamous plant, which blows from Lady-tide till the end of May, and which during the latter end of April covers the moist meadows with its silvery-white, which looks at a distance like a white sheet spread over the fields."--_Circle of the Seasons._ Those who adopt this view called the plant Our Lady's-smock, but I cannot find that name in any old writers. Drayton, coeval with Shakespeare, says--

"Some to grace the show,
Of Lady-smocks most white do rob each neighbouring mead,
Wherewith their loose locks most curiously they braid."

And Isaac Walton, in the next century, drew that pleasant picture of himself sitting quietly by the waterside--"looking down the meadows I could see here a boy gathering Lilies and Lady-smocks, and there a girl cropping Culverkeys and Cowslips."[134:2]

There is a double variety of the Lady-smock which makes a handsome garden plant, and there is a remarkable botanical curiosity connected with the plant which should be noticed. The plant often produces in the autumn small plants upon the leaves, and by the means of these little parasites the plant is increased, and even if the leaves are detached from the plant, and laid upon moist congenial soil, young plants will be produced. This is a process that is well known to gardeners in the propagation of Begonias, and it is familiar to us in the proliferous Ferns, where young plants are produced on the surface or tips of the fronds; and Dr. Masters records "the same condition as a teratological occurrence in the leaves of Hyacinthus Pouzolsii, Drosera intermedia, Arabis pumila, Chelidonum majus, Chirita Sinensis, Epicia bicolor, Zamia, &c."--_Vegetable Teratology_, p. 170.

FOOTNOTES:

[134:1] "Ladies-smock.--A kind of water cresses, of whose virtue it partakes; and it is otherwise called Cuckoo-flower."--PHILLIPS, _World of Words_, 1696.

[134:2] Culverkeys is mentioned in Dennis' "Secrets of Angling" as a meadow flower: "pale Ganderglas, and azor Culverkayes." It is also mentioned by Aubrey, in his "Natural History of Wilts;" but the name is found in no other writer, and is now extinct. It is difficult to say what plant is meant; many have been suggested: the Columbine, the Meadow Orchis, the Bluebell, &c. I think it must be the Meadow Geranium, which is certainly "azor" almost beyond any other British plant. "Culver" is a dove or pigeon, and "keyes" or "kayes" are the seeds of a plant, and the seeds of the Geranium were all likened to the claws of birds, so that our British species is called G. columbinum.

LARK'S HEELS.

Larks heels trim.

_Two Noble Kinsmen_, Introd. song.

Lark's heels is one of the many names of the Garden Delphinium, otherwise called Larkspur, Larksclaw, Larkstoes.

LAUREL.

(1) _Clarence._

To whom the heavens in thy nativity
Adjudged an Olive branch and Laurel crown
As likely to be blest in peace and war.

_3rd Henry VI_, act iv, sc. 6 (33).

(2) _Titus._

Cometh Andronicus bound with Laurel boughs.

_Titus Andronicus_, act i, sc. 1 (74).

(3) _Cleopatra._

Upon your sword
Sit Laurel victory.

_Antony and Cleopatra_, act i, sc. 3 (99).

(4) _Ulysses._

Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, Laurels.

_Troilus and Cressida_, act i, sc. 3 (107).

This is one of the plants which Shakespeare borrowed from the classical writers; it is not the Laurel of our day, which was not introduced till after his death,[136:1] but the Laurea Apollinis, the Laurea Delphica--

"The Laurel meed of mightie conquerors
And poet's sage,"--SPENSER;

that is, the Bay. This is the tree mentioned by Gower--

"This Daphne into a Lorer tre
Was turned, whiche is ever grene,
In token, as yet it may be sene,
That she shalle dwelle a maiden stille."

_Conf. Aman._ lib. terc.

There can be little doubt that the Laurel of Chaucer also was the Bay, the--

"Fresh grene Laurer tree
That gave so passing a delicious smelle
According to the Eglantere ful welle."

He also spoke of it as the emblem of enduring freshness--

"Myn herte and al my lymes be as grene
As Laurer, through the yeer is for to seene."

_The Marchaundes Tale._

The Laurel in Lyte's "Herbal" (the Lauriel or Lourye) seems to be the Daphne Laureola. But unconsciously Chaucer and Shakespeare spoke with more botanical accuracy than we do, the Bay being a true Laurel, while the Laurel is a Cherry (_see_ BAY).

FOOTNOTES:

[136:1] The first Laurel grown in Europe was grown by Clusius in 1576.

LAVENDER.

_Perdita._

Here's flowers for you;
Hot Lavender, Mints, Savory, Marjoram.

_Winter's Tale_, act iv, sc. 4 (103).

The mention of Lavender always recalls Walton's pleasant picture of "an honest ale-house, where we shall find a cleanly room, Lavender in the windows, and twenty ballads stuck against the wall, and my hostess, I may tell you, is both cleanly and handsome and civil." Whether it is from this familiar, old-fashioned picture, or from some inherent charm in the plant, it is hard to say, but it is certain that the smell of Lavender is always associated with cleanliness and freshness.[137:1]

It is not a British plant, but is a native of the South of Europe in dry and barren places, and it was introduced into England in the sixteenth century, but it probably was not a common plant in Shakespeare's time, for though it is mentioned by Spenser as "the Lavender still gray" ("Muiopotmos"), and by Gerard as growing in his garden, it is not mentioned by Bacon in his list of sweet-smelling plants. The fine aromatic smell is found in all parts of the shrub, but the essential oil is only produced from the flowers. As a garden plant it is found in every garden, but its growth as an extensive field crop is chiefly confined to the neighbourhood of Mitcham and Carshalton in Surrey; and there at the time of the picking of the flowers, and still more in the later autumn when the old woody plants are burned, the air for a long distance is strongly and most pleasantly impregnated with the delicate perfume.

FOOTNOTES:

[137:1] The very name suggests this association. Lavender is the English form of the Latin name, Lavendula; "lavendula autem dicta quoniam magnum vectigal Genevensibus mercatoribus præbet quotannis in Africam eam ferentibus, ubi lavandis fovendisque corporibus Lybes ea utuntur, nec nisi decocto ejus abluti, mane domo egrediuntur."--_Stephani Libellus de re Hortensi_, 1536, p. 54. The old form of our "laundress" was "a Lavendre."

LEATHERCOAT, _see_ APPLE.

LEEK.

(1) _Thisbe._

His eyes were green as Leeks.

_Midsummer Night's Dream_, act v, sc. 1 (342).

(2) _Pistol._

Tell him I'll knock his Leek about his pate upon Saint Davy's
Day.

_Henry V_, act iv, sc. 1 (54).

(3) _Fluellen._

If your majesties is remembered of it, the Welshmen did good
service in a garden where Leeks did grow, wearing Leeks in
their Monmouth caps; which your majesty knows to this hour
is an honourable badge of the service; and I do believe your
majesty takes no scorn to wear the Leek upon Saint Tavy's
Day.

_Ibid._, act iv, sc. 7 (101).

(4)

In act v, sc. 1, is the encounter between Fluellen and Pistol,
when he makes the bully eat the Leek; this causes such
frequent mention of the Leek that it would be necessary to
extract the whole scene, which, therefore, I will simply
refer to in this way.

We can scarcely understand the very high value that was placed on Leeks in olden times. By the Egyptians the plant was almost considered sacred, "Porrum et cæpe nefas violare et frangere morsu" (Juvenal); we know how Leeks were relished in Egypt by the Israelites; and among the Greeks they "appear to have constituted so important a part in ancient gardens, that the term +prasia+, or a bed, derived its name from +prason+, the Greek word for Onion," or Leek[138:1] (Daubeny); while among the Anglo-Saxons it was very much the same. The name is pure Anglo-Saxon, and originally meant any vegetable; then it was restricted to any bulbous vegetable, before it was finally further restricted to our Leek; and "its importance was considered so much above that of any other vegetable, that _leac-tun_, the Leek-garden, became the common name of the kitchen garden, and _leac-ward_, the Leek-keeper, was used to designate the gardener" (Wright). The plant in those days gave its name to the Broad Leek which is our present Leek, the Yne Leek or Onion, the Garleek (Garlick), and others of the same tribe, while it was applied to other plants of very different families, as the Hollow Leek (_Corydalis cava_), and the House Leek (_Sempervivum tectorum_).

It seems to have been considered the hardiest of all flowers. In the account of the Great Frost of 1608, "this one infallible token" is given in proof of its severity. "The Leek whose courage hath ever been so undaunted that he hath borne up his lusty head in all storms, and could never be compelled to shrink for hail, snow, frost, or showers, is now by the violence and cruelty of this weather beaten unto the earth, being rotted, dead, disgraced, and trod upon."

Its popularity still continues among the Welsh, by whom it is still, I believe, very largely cultivated; but it does not seem to have been much valued in England in Shakespeare's time, for Gerard has but little to say of its virtues, but much of its "hurts." "It hateth the body, ingendreth naughty blood, causeth troublesome and terrible dreames, offendeth the eyes, dulleth the sight, &c." Nor does Parkinson give a much more favourable account. "Our dainty eye now refuseth them wholly, in all sorts except the poorest; they are used with us sometimes in Lent to make pottage, and is a great and generall feeding in Wales with the vulgar gentlemen." It was even used as the proverbial expression of worthlessness, as in the "Roumaunt of the Rose," where the author says, speaking of "Phiciciens and Advocates"--

"For by her wille, without leese,
Everi man shulde be seke,
And though they die, they settle not a Leke."

And by Chaucer--

"And other suche, deare ynough a Leeke."

_Prologue of the Chanoune's Tale._

"The beste song that ever was made
Ys not worth a Leky's blade,
But men will tend ther tille."

_The Child of Bristowe._

FOOTNOTES:

[138:1] For a testimony of the high value placed on the Leek by the Greeks see a poem on +Môly+, in "Anonymi Carmen de Herbis" in the "Poetæ Bucolici et didactici."

LEMON.

_Biron._

A Lemon.

_Longaville._

Stuck with Cloves.

_Love's Labour's Lost_, act v, sc. 2 (654).

_See_ ORANGE AND CLOVES.

LETTUCE.

_Iago._

If we will plant Nettles or sow Lettuce. (_See_ HYSSOP.)

_Othello_, act i, sc. 3 (324).

This excellent vegetable with its Latin name probably came to us from the Romans.

"Letuce of lac derivyed is perchaunce;
For milk it hath or yeveth abundaunce."

_Palladius on Husbandrie_, ii, 216 (15th cent.)
E. E. Text Soc.

It was cultivated by the Anglo-Saxons, who showed their knowledge of its narcotic qualities by giving it the name of Sleepwort; it is mentioned by Spenser as "cold Lettuce" ("Muiopotmos"). And in Shakespeare's time the sorts cultivated were very similar to, and probably as good as, ours.

LILY.

(1) _Iris._

Thy banks with Pioned and Lilied[140:1] brims.

_Tempest_, act iv, sc. 1 (64).

(2) _Launce._

Look you, she is as white as a Lily and as small as a wand.

_Two Gentlemen of Verona_, act ii, sc. 3 (22).

(3) _Julia._

The air hath starved the Roses in her cheeks,
And pinch'd the Lily-tincture of her face.

_Ibid._, act iv, sc. 4 (160).

(4) _Flute._

Most radiant Pyramus, most Lily-white of hue.

_Midsummer Night's Dream_, act iii, sc. 1 (94).

(5) _Thisbe._

These Lily lips.

_Ibid._, act v, sc. 1 (337).

(6) _Perdita._

Lilies of all kinds,
The Flower-de-luce being one!

_Winter's Tale_, act iv, sc. 4 (126).

(7) _Princess._

Now by my maiden honour, yet as pure
As the unsullied Lily.

_Love's Labour's Lost_, act v, sc. 2 (351).

(8) _Queen Katharine._

Like the Lily
That once was mistress of the field and flourish'd,
I'll hang my head, and perish.

_Henry VIII_, act iii, sc. 1 (151).

(9) _Cranmer._

Yet a virgin,
A most unspotted Lily shall she pass
To the ground.

_Ibid._, act v, sc. 5 (61).

(10) _Troilus._

Give me swift transportance to those fields,
Where I may wallow in the Lily beds
Proposed for the deserver.

_Troilus and Cressida_, act iii, sc. 2 (12).

(11) _Marcus._

O, had the monster seen those Lily hands
Tremble, like Aspen leaves, upon a lute.

_Titus Andronicus_, act ii, sc. 4 (44).

(12) _Titus._

Fresh tears
Stood on her cheeks as doth the honey-dew
Upon a gather'd Lily almost wither'd.

_Ibid._, act iii, sc. 1 (111).

(13) _Iachimo._

How bravely thou becomest thy bed, fresh Lily!

_Cymbeline_, act ii, sc. 2 (15).

(14) _Guiderius._

O sweetest, fairest Lily!
My brother wears thee not the one half so well,
As when thou grew'st thyself.

_Ibid._, act iv, sc. 2 (201).

(15) _Constance._

Of Nature's gifts thou may'st with Lilies boast,
And with the half-blown Rose.

_King John_, act iii, sc. 1 (53).

(16) _Salisbury._

To gild refined gold, to paint the Lily,
To throw a perfume on the Violet,

* * * * *

Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.

_Ibid._, act iv, sc. 2 (11).

(17) _Kent._

A Lily-livered, action-taking knave.

_King Lear_, act ii, sc. 2 (18).

(18) _Macbeth_

Thou Lily-liver'd boy.

_Macbeth_, act v, sc. 3 (15).

(19)

For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;
Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.

_Sonnet_ xciv.

(20)

Nor did I wonder at the Lily's white,
Nor praise the deep vermilion of the Rose.

_Ibid._ xcviii.

(21)

The Lily I condemned for thy hand.

_Ibid._ xcix.

(22)

Their silent war of Lilies and of Roses
Which Tarquin view'd in her fair face's field.

_Lucrece_ (71).

(23)

Her Lily hand her rosy cheek lies under,
Cozening the pillow of a lawful kiss.

_Ibid._ (386).

(24)

The colour in thy face
That even for anger makes the Lily pale,
And the red Rose blush at her own disgrace.

_Ibid._ (477).

(25)

A Lily pale with damask die to grace her.

_Passionate Pilgrim_ (89).

(26)

Full gently now she takes him by the hand,
A Lily prison'd in a jail of snow.

_Venus and Adonis_ (361).

(27)

She locks her Lily fingers one in one.

_Ibid._ (228).

(28)

Whose wonted Lily white
With purple tears, that his wound wept, was drench'd.

_Ibid._ (1053).

Which is the queen of flowers? There are two rival candidates for the honour--the Lily and the Rose; and as we look on the one or the other, our allegiance is divided, and we vote the crown first to one and then to the other. We should have no difficulty "were t'other fair charmer away," but with two such candidates, both equally worthy of the honour, we vote for a diarchy instead of a monarchy, and crown them both.[142:1] Yet there are many that would at once choose the Lily for the queen, and that without hesitation, and they would have good authority for their choice. "O Lord, that bearest rule," says Esdras, "of the whole world, Thou hast chosen Thee of all the flowers thereof one Lily." Spenser addresses the Lily as--

"The Lily, lady of the flow'ring field"--_F. Q._, ii, 6, 16,

which is the same as Shakespeare's "mistress of the field," (8), and many a poet since his time has given the same vote in many a pretty verse, which, however, it would take too much space to quote at length; so that I will content myself with these few lines by Alexander Montgomery (coeval with Shakespeare)--

"I love the Lily as the first of flowers
Whose stately stalk so straight up is and stay;
To whom th' lave ay lowly louts and cowers
As bound so brave a beauty to obey."

Montgomery here has clearly in his mind's eye the Lily now so called; but the name was not so restricted in the earlier writers. "Lilium, cojus vox generali et licentiosa usurpatione adscribitur omni flori commendabili" (Laurembergius, 1632). This was certainly the case with the Greek and Roman writers, and it is so in our English Bible in most of the cases where the word is used, but perhaps not universally so. It is so used by Gower, describing Tarquin cutting off the tall flowers, by some said to be Poppies and by others Lilies--

"And in the garden as they gone,
The Lilie croppes one and one,
Where that they were sprongen out,
He smote off, as they stood about."

_Conf. Ama._ lib. sept.

It is used in the same way by Bullein when, speaking of the flower of the Honeysuckle (_see_ HONEYSUCKLE), and it must have been used in the same sense by Isaak Walton, when he saw a boy gathering "Lilies and Lady-smocks" in the meadows.

We have still many records of this loose way of speaking of the Lily, in the Water Lily, the Lily of the Valley, the Lent Lily, St. Bruno's Lily, the Scarborough Lily, the Belladonna Lily, and several others, none of which are true Lilies.

But it is time to come to Shakespeare's Lilies. In all the twenty-eight passages the greater portion simply recall the Lily as the type of elegance and beauty, without any special reference to the flower, and in many the word is only used to express a colour, Lily-white. But in the others he doubtless had some special plant in view, and there are two species which, from contemporary writers, seem to have been most celebrated in his day. The one is the pure White Lily (_Lilium candidum_), a plant of which the native country is not yet quite accurately ascertained. It is reported to grow wild in abundance in Lebanon, and it probably came to England from the East in very early times. It was certainly largely grown in Europe in the Middle Ages, and was universally acknowledged by artists, sculptors, and architects, as the emblem of female elegance and purity, and none of us would dispute its claim to such a position. There is no other Lily which can surpass it, when well grown, in stateliness and elegance, with sweet-scented flowers of the purest white and the most graceful shape, and crowning the top of the long leafy stem with such a coronal as no other plant can show. On the rare beauties and excellences of the White Lily it would be easy to fill a volume merely with extracts from old writers, and such a volume would be far from uninteresting. Those who wish for some such account may refer to the "Monographie Historique et Littéraire des Lis," par Fr. de Cannart d'Hamale, 1870. There they will find more than fifty pages of the botany, literary history, poetry, and medical uses of the plant, together with its application to religious emblems, numismatics, heraldry, painting, &c. Two short extracts will suffice here:--"Le lis blanc, surnommé la fleur des fleurs, les délices de Venus, la Rose de Junon, qu'Anguillara désigna sous le nom d'Ambrosia, probablement à cause de son parfum suivant, et pent être aussi de sa soidisante divine origine, se place tout naturellement à le tête de ce groupe splendide." "C'est le Lis classique, par excellence, et en même temps le plus beau du genre."

The other is the large Scarlet or Chalcedonian Lily; and this also is one of the very handsomest, though its beauty is of a very different kind to the White Lily. The habit of the plant is equally stately, and is indeed very grand, but the colours are of the brightest and clearest red. These two plants were abundantly grown in Shakespeare's time, but besides these there do not seem to have been more than about half-a-dozen species in cultivation. There are now forty-six recognized species, besides varieties in great number.

The Lily has a very wide geographical range, spreading from Central Europe to the Philippines, and species are found in all quarters of the globe, though the chief homes of the family seem to be in California and Japan. Yet we have no wild Lily in England. Both the Martagon and the Pyrenean Lily have been found, but there is no doubt they are garden escapes.

As a garden plant it may safely be said that no garden can make any pretence to the name that cannot show a good display of Lilies, many or few. Yet the Lily is a most capricious plant; while in one garden almost any sort will grow luxuriantly, in a neighbouring garden it is found difficult to grow any in a satisfactory manner. Within the last few years their culture has been much studied, and by the practical knowledge of such great growers of the family as G. F. Wilson, H. J. Elwes, and other kindred liliophilists, we shall probably in a few years have many difficulties cleared up both in the botanical history and the cultivation of this lovely tribe.

But we cannot dismiss the Lily without a few words of notice of its sacred character. It is the flower specially dedicated to the Virgin Mary, and which is so familiar to us in the old paintings of the Annunciation. But it has, of course, a still higher character as a sacred plant from the high honour placed on it by our Lord in the Sermon on the Mount. After all that has been written on "the Lilies of the field," critics have not yet decided whether any, and, if so, what particular plant was meant. Each Eastern traveller seems to have selected the flower that he most admired in Palestine, and then to pronounce that that must be the Lily referred to. Thus, at various times it has been decided to be the Rose, the Crown Imperial, the White Lily, the Chalcedonian Lily, the Oleander, the Wild Artichoke, the Sternbergia, the Tulip, and many others, but the most generally received opinion now is, that if a true Lily at all, the evidence runs most strongly in favour of the L. Chalcedonicum; but that Dean Stanley's view is more probably the correct one, that the term "Lily" is generic, alluding to the many beautiful flowers, both of the Lily family and others, which abound in Palestine. The question, though deeply interesting, is not one for which we need to be over-curious as to the true answer. All of us, and gardeners especially, may be thankful for the words which have thrown a never dying charm over our favourites, and have effectually stopped any foolish objections that may be brought against the deepest study of flowers, as a petty study, with no great results. To any such silly objections (and we often hear them) the answer is a very short and simple one--that we have been bidden by the very highest authority to "consider the Lilies."

FOOTNOTES:

[140:1] This is a modern reading, the older and more correct reading is "twilled."

[142:1]

"Within the garden's peaceful scene
Appeared two lovely foes,
Aspiring to the rank of Queen,
The Lily and the Rose.

* * * * *

Yours is, she said, the noblest hue,
And yours the statelier mien,
And till a third surpasses you
Let each be deemed a Queen."--COWPER.

LIME.

(1) _Ariel._

All prisoners, sir,
In the Line-grove which weather-fends your cell.

_Tempest_, act v, sc. 1 (9).

(2) _Prospero._

Come, hang them on this Line.

_Ibid._, act iv, sc. 1 (193).

(3) _Stephano._

Mistress Line, is not this my jerkin?

_Ibid._, act iv, sc. 1 (235).

It is only in comparatively modern times that the old name of Line or Linden, or Lind,[146:1] has given place to Lime. The tree is a doubtful native, but has been long introduced, perhaps by the Romans. It is a very handsome tree when allowed room, but it bears clipping well, and so is very often tortured into the most unnatural shapes. It was a very favourite tree with our forefathers to plant in avenues, not only for its rapid growth, but also for the delicious scent of its flowers; but the large secretions of honey-dew which load the leaves, and the fact that it comes late into leaf and sheds its leaves very early, have rather thrown it out of favour of late years. As a useful tree it does not rank very high, except for wood-carvers, who highly prize its light, easily-cut wood, that keeps its shape, and is very little liable to crack or split either in the working or afterwards. Nearly all Grinling Gibbons' delicate carving is in Lime wood. To gardeners the Lime is further useful as furnishing the material for bast or bazen mats,[147:1] which are made from its bark, and interesting as being the origin of the name of Linnæus.

FOOTNOTES:

[146:1] "Be ay of chier as light as lyf on Lynde."--CHAUCER, _The Clerkes Tale_, _l'envoi_.

[147:1] "Between the barke and the woode of this tree, there bee thin pellicles or skins lying in many folds together, whereof are made bands and cords called Bazen ropes."--PHILEMON HOLLAND'S _Pliny's Nat. Hist._ xvi. 14. The chapter is headed "Of the Line or Linden Tree."

LING.

_Gonzalo._

Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of
barren ground, Ling, Heath, brown Furze, anything.

_Tempest_, act i, sc. 1 (70).

If this be the correct reading (and not Long Heath) the reference is to the Heather or Common Ling (_Calluna vulgaris_). This is the plant that is generally called Ling in the South of England, but in the North of England the name is given to the Cotton Grass (_Eriophorum_). It is very probable, however, that no particular plant is intended, but that it means any rough, wild vegetation, especially of open moors and heaths.

LOCUSTS.

_Iago._

The food that to him now is as luscious as Locusts, shall be
to him shortly as bitter as Coloquintida.

_Othello_, act i, sc. 3 (354).

The Locust is the fruit of the Carob tree (_Ceratonia siliqua_), a tree that grows naturally in many parts of the South of Europe, the Levant, and Syria, and is largely cultivated for its fruit.[148:1] These are like Beans, full of sweet pulp, and are given in Spain and other southern countries to horses, pigs, and cattle, and they are occasionally imported into England for the same purpose. The Carob was cultivated in England before Shakespeare's time. "They grow not in this countrie," says Lyte, "yet, for all that, they be sometimes in the gardens of some diligent Herboristes, but they be so small shrubbes that they can neither bring forth flowers nor fruite." It was also grown by Gerard, and Shakespeare may have seen it; but it is now very seldom seen in any collection, though the name is preserved among us, as the jeweller's carat weight is said to have derived its name from the Carob Beans, which were used for weighing small objects.

The origin of the tree being called Locust is a little curious. Readers of the New Testament, ignorant of Eastern customs, could not understand that St. John could feed on the insect locust, which, however, is now known to be a common and acceptable article of food, so they looked about for some solution of their difficulty, and decided that the Locusts were the tender shoots of the Carob tree, and that the wild honey was the luscious juice of the Carob fruit. Having got so far it was easy to go farther, and so the Carob soon got the names of St. John's Bread and St. John's Beans, and the monks of the desert showed the very trees by which St. John's life was supported. But though the Carob tree did not produce the locusts on which St. John fed, there is little or no doubt that "the husks which the swine did eat," and which the Prodigal Son longed for, were the produce of the Carob tree.

FOOTNOTES:

[148:1] Pods of the Carob tree were found in a house at Pompeii. For an account of the use of the Locust as an article of food, both in ancient and modern times, see Hogg's "Classical Plants of Sicily," p. 114.

LONG PURPLES.

_Queen._

There with fantastic garlands did she come
Of Crow-flowers, Nettles, Daisies, and Long Purples,
That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,
But our cold maids do Dead Men's Fingers call them.

_Hamlet_, act iv, sc. 7 (169).

In "Flowers from Stratford-on-Avon" (a pretty book published a few years ago with plates of twelve of Shakespeare's flowers) it is said that "there can be no doubt that the Wild Arum is the plant alluded to by Shakespeare as forming part of the nosegay of the crazed Ophelia;" but the authoress gives no authority for this statement, and I believe that there can be no reasonable doubt that the Long Purples and Dead Men's Fingers are the common purple Orchises of the woods and meadows (Orchis morio, O. mascula, and O. maculata). The name of Dead Men's Fingers was given to them from the pale palmate roots of some of the species (O. latifolia, O. maculata, and Gymnadenia conopsea), and this seems to have been its more common name.

"Then round the meddowes did she walke,
Catching each flower by the stalke,
Such as within the meddowes grew,
As Dead Man's Thumb and Harebell blew;
And as she pluckt them, still cried she,
Alas! there's none 'ere loved like me."

_Roxburghe Ballads._

As to the other names to which the Queen alludes, we need not inquire too curiously; they are given in all their "liberality" and "grossness" in the old Herbals, but as common names they are, fortunately, extinct. The name of Dead Men's Fingers still lingers in a few places, but Long Purples has been transferred to a very different plant. It is named by Clare and Tennyson--

"Gay Long-purples with its tufty spike;
She'd wade o'er shoes to reach it in the dyke."

CLARE'S _Village Minstrel_, ii, 90.

"Round thee blow, self-pleached deep,
Bramble Roses, faint and pale,
And Long Purples of the dale."

_A Dirge_, TENNYSON.

But in both these passages the plant intended is the Lythrum salicaria, or Purple Loosestrife.