FOOTNOTES:

"Sed neque quam multæ species, nec nomina quæ sintEst numerus; neque enim numero comprendere refert;Quem qui scire velit, Lybici velit æquoris idemDiscere quam multæ Zephyro turbentur arenæ;Aut ubi navigiis violentior incidit EurusNosse quot Ionii veniant ad littora fluctus."

Georgica, ii, 103.

And now the number must far exceed those of Virgil's time. "The cultivated varieties are extremely numerous; Count Odart says that he will not deny that there may exist throughout the world 700 or 800, perhaps even 1,000 varieties; but not a third of these have any value."—Darwin.These are the Grapes that are grown in our hothouses; some also of a fine quality are produced in favourable years out-of-doors. There are also a few which are grown as ornamental shrubs. The Parsley-leaved Vine (Vitis laciniosa) is one that has been grown in England, certainly since the time of Shakespeare, for its pretty foliage, its fruit being small and few; but it makes a pretty covering to a wall or trellis. The small Variegated Vine (VitisorCissus heterophyllus variegatus) is another very pretty Vine, forming a small bush that may be either trained to a wall or grown as a low rockwork bush; it bears a few Grapes of no value, and is perfectly hardy. Besides these there are several North American species, which have handsome foliage, and are very hardy, of which the Vitis riparia or Vigne des Battures is a desirable tree, as "the flowers have an exquisitely fine smell, somewhat resembling that of Mignonnette."—Don.I mention this particularly, because in all the old authors great stress is laid on the sweetness of the Vine in all its parts, a point of excellence in it which is now generally overlooked. Lord Bacon reckons "Vine flowers" among the "things of beauty in season" in May and June, and reckons among the most sweet-scented flowers, next to Musk Roses and Strawberry leaves dying, "the flower of the Vines; it is a little dust, like the dust of a bent, whichgrows among the duster in the first coming forth." And Chaucer says: "Scorners faren like the foul toode, that may noughte endure the soote smel of the Vine roote when it flourisheth."—The Persones Tale.

Nor must we dismiss the Vine without a few words respecting its sacred associations, for it is very much owing to these associations that it has been so endeared to our forefathers and ourselves. Having its native home in the East, it enters largely into the history and imagery of the Bible. There is no plant so often mentioned in the Bible, and always with honour, till the honour culminates in the great similitude, in which our Lord chose the Vine as the one only plant to which He condescended to compare Himself—"I am the true Vine!" No wonder that a plant so honoured should ever have been the symbol of joy and plenty, of national peace and domestic happiness.

[301:1]According to Vopiscus, England is indebted to the Emperor Probus (a.d.276-282) for the Vine: "Gallis omnibus et Britannis et Hispanis hinc permisit ut vites haberent, et Vinum conficerent."

[302:1]At Stonehouse "there are two arpens of Vineyard."—Domesday Book, quoted by Rudder. Also "the Vineyard" was the residence of the Abbots of Gloucester. It was at St. Mary de Lode near Gloucester, and "the Vineyard and Park were given to the Bishopric of Gloucester at its foundation and again confirmed 6th Edward VI."—Rudder.

[303:1]"Edinburgh Review," April, 1860.

[303:2]See Preface to "Palladius on Husbandrie," p. viii. (Early English Text Society), for a further account of old English Vineyards.

[303:3]For a very interesting account of the formation of lynches, and their connection with the ancient communal cultivation of the soil see Seebohm's "English Village Community," p. 5.

[304:1]On this Vineyard Mr. Skrine, the present owner of Claverton, has kindly informed me that it was sold in 1701 by Mr. Richard Holder for £21,367, of which £28 was for "four hogsheads of wine of the Vineyards of Claverton."

[304:2]Andrew Boorde was evidently a lover of good wine, and his account is: "This I do say that all the kingdoms of the world have not so many sundry kindes of wine as we in England, and yetthere is nothing to make of."—Breviary of Health, 1598.

There are about a hundred different species of Violets, of which there are five species in England, and a few sub-species. One of these is the Viola tricolor, from which is descended the Pansy, or Love-in-Idleness (seePansy). But in all the passages in which Shakespeare names the Violet, he alludes to the purple sweet-scented Violet, of which he was evidently very fond, and which is said to be very abundant in the neighbourhood of Stratford-on-Avon. For all the eighteen passages tell of some point of beauty or sweetness that attracted him. And so it is with all the poets from Chaucer downwards—the Violet is noticed by all, and by all with affectation. I need only mention two of the greatest. Milton gave the Violet a chief place in the beauties of the "Blissful Bower" of our first parents in Paradise—

"Each beauteous flower,Iris all hues, Roses, and JessaminRear'd high their flourish't heads between, and wroughtMosaic; underfoot the Violet,Crocus and Hyacinth with rich inlayBroidered the ground, more coloured than with stoneOf costliest emblem;"

Paradise Lost, book iv.

and Sir Walter Scott crowns it as the queen of wild flowers—

"The Violet in her greenwood bower,Where Birchen boughs with Hazels mingle,May boast itself the fairest flowerIn glen, in copse, or forest dingle."

Yet favourite though it ever has been, it has no English name. Violet is the diminutive form of the Latin Viola,which again is the Latin form of the Greekἴον. In the old Vocabularies Viola frequently occurs, and with the following various translations:—"Ban-wyrt,"i.e., Bone-wort (eleventh century Vocabulary); "Clœfre,"i.e., Clover (eleventh century Vocabulary); "Violé, Appel-leaf" (thirteenth century Vocabulary);[310:1]"Wyolet" (fourteenth century Vocabulary); "Vyolytte" (fifteenth century Nominale); "Violetta, Ace, a Violet" (fifteenth century Pictorial Vocabulary); and "Viola Cleafre, Ban-vyrt" (Durham Glossary). It is also mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon translation of the Herbarium of Apuleius in the tenth century as "the Herb Viola purpurea; (1) for new wounds and eke for old; (2) for hardness of the maw" (Cockayne's translation). In this last example it is most probable that our sweet-scented Violet is the plant meant, but in some of the other cases it is quite certain that some other plant is meant, and perhaps in all. For Violet was a name given very loosely to many plants, so that Laurembergius says: "Vox Violæ distinctissimis floribus communis est. Videntur mihi antiqui suaveolentes quosque flores generatim Violas appellasse, cujuscunque etiam forent generis quasi vi oleant."—Apparat. Plant., 1632. This confusion seems to have arisen in a very simple way. Theophrastus described the Leucojum, which was either the Snowdrop or the spring Snowflake, as the earliest-flowering plant; Pliny literally translated Leucojum into Alba Viola. All the earlier writers on natural history were in the habit of taking Pliny for their guide, and so they translated his Viola by any early-flowering plant that most took their fancy. Even as late as 1693, Samuel Gilbert, in "The Florists' Vade Mecum," under the head of Violets, only describes "the lesser early bulbous Violet, a common flower yet not to be wasted, because when none other appears that does, though in the snow, whence called Snowflower or Snowdrop;" and I think that even later instances may be found.

When I say that there is no genuine English name for the Violet, I ought, perhaps, to mention that one name has been attributed to it, but I do not think that it is more than a clever guess. "The commentators on Shakespeare havebeen much puzzled by the epithet 'happy lowlie down,' applied to the man of humble station in "Henry IV.," and have proposed to read 'lowly clown,' or to divide the phrase into 'low lie down,' but the following lines from Browne clearly prove 'lowly down' to be the correct term, for he uses it in precisely the same sense—

'The humble Violet that lowly downSalutes the gay nymphs as they trimly pass.'

Poet's Pleasaunce."

This may prove that Browne called the Violet a Lowly-down, but it certainly does not prove that name to have been a common name for the Violet. It was, however, the character of lowliness combined with sweetness that gave the charm to the Violet in the eyes of the emblem writers: it was for them the readiest symbol of the meekness of humility. "Humilitas dat gratiam" is the motto that Camerarius places over a clump of Violets. "A true widow is, in the church, as a little March Violet shedding around an exquisite perfume by the fragrance of her devotion, and always hidden under the ample leaves of her lowliness, and by her subdued colouring showing the spirit of her mortification, she seeks untrodden and solitary places," &c.—St. Francis de Sales.And the poets could nowhere find a fitter similitude for a modest maiden than

"A Violet by a mossy stoneHalf hidden from the eye."

Violets, like Primroses, must always have had their joyful associations as coming to tell that the winter is passing away and brighter days are near, for they are among

"The first to riseAnd smile beneath spring's wakening skies,The courier of a bandOf coming flowers."

Yet it is curious to note how, like Primroses, they have been ever associated with death, especially with the death of the young. I suppose these ideas must have arisen from a sort of pity for flowers that were only allowed to see the opening year, and were cut off before the full beauty ofsummer had come. This was prettily expressed by H. Vaughan, the Silurist:

"So violets, so doth the primrose fallAt once the spring's pride and its funeral,Such early sweets get off in their still prime,And stay not here to wear the foil of time;While coarser flowers, which none would miss, if past,To scorching summers and cold winters last."

Daphnis, 1678.

It was from this association that they were looked on as apt emblems of those who enjoyed the bright springtide of life and no more. This feeling was constantly expressed, and from very ancient times. We find it in some pretty lines by Prudentius—

"Nos tecta fovebimus ossaViolis et fronde frequente,Titulumque et frigida saxaLiquido spargemus odore."

Shakespeare expresses the same feeling in the collection of "purple Violets and Marigolds" which Marina carries to hang "as a carpet on the grave" (No.14), and again in Laertes' wish that Violets may spring from the grave of Ophelia (No.8), on which Steevens very aptly quotes from Persius Satires—

"e tumulo fortunataque favillâ.Nascentur Violæ."

In the same spirit Milton, gathering for the grave of Lycidas—

"Every flower that sad embroidery wears,"

gathers among others "the glowing Violet;" and the same thought is repeated by many other writers.

There is a remarkable botanical curiosity in the structure of the Violet which is worth notice: it produces flowers both in spring and autumn, but the flowers are very different. In spring they are fully formed and sweet-scented, but they are mostly barren and produce no seed, while in autumn they arevery small, they have no petals and, I believe, no scent, but they produce abundance of seed.[313:1]

I need say nothing to recommend the Violet in all its varieties as a garden plant. As a useful medicinal plant it was formerly in high repute—

"Vyolet an erbe cowthIs knowyn in ilke manys mowthe,As bokys seyn in here language,It is good to don in potage,In playstrys to wondrys it is comfortyf,Whoyer erbys sanatyf:"

Stockholm MS.

and it still holds a place in the Pharmacopœia, while the chemist finds the pretty flowers one of the most delicate tests for detecting the presence of acids and alkalies; but as to the many other virtues of the Violet I cannot do better than quote Gerard's pleasant and quaint words: "The Blacke or Purple Violets, or March Violets of the garden, have a great prerogative above others, not only because the minde conceiveth a certain pleasure and recreation by smelling and handling of those most odoriferous flowres, but also for that very many by these Violets receive ornament and comely grace; for there be made of them garlands for the head, nosegaies, and poesies, which are delightfull to looke on and pleasant to smell to, speaking nothing of their appropriate vertues; yea, gardens themselves receive by these the greatest ornament of all chiefest beautie and most gallant grace, and the recreation of the minde which is taken thereby cannot but be very good and honest; for they admonish and stir up a man to that which is comely and honest, for flowres through their beautie, variety of colour, and exquisite forme, do bring to a liberall and greatte many minde the remembrance of honestie, comelinesse, and all kindes of vertues. For it would be an unseemely and filthie thing (as a certain wise man saith) for him that doth looke upon and handle faire and beautifull things, and who frequenteth and is conversant in faire and beautifull places, to have his minde not faire but filthie and deformed." With these brave words ofthe old gardener I might well close my account of this favourite flower, but I must add George Herbert's lines penned in the same spirit—

"Farewell, dear flowers, sweetly your time ye spent,Fit, while ye lived, for smell or ornament,And after death for cures;I follow straight without complaint or grief,Since if my scent be good, I care not ifIt be as short as yours."

Poems on Life.

[310:1]Appel-leaf is given as the English name for Viola in two other MS. Glossaries quoted by Cockayne, vol. iii. p. 312.

[313:1]This peculiarity is not confined to the Violet. It is found in some species of Oxalis, Impatiens, Campanula, Eranthemum, Amphicarpea, Leeisia, &c. Such plants are technically called Cleistogamous, and are all self-fertilizing.

The Walnut is a native of Persia and China, and its foreign origin is told in all its names. The Greeks called it Persicon,i.e., the Persian tree, and Basilikon,i.e., the Royal tree; the Latins gave it a still higher rank, naming it Juglans,i.e., Jove's Nut. "Hæc glans, optima et maxima, ab Jove et glande juglans appellata est."—Varro.The English names tell the same story. It was first simply called Nut, as the Nutpar excellence. "Juglantis vel nux, knutu."—Ælfric'sVocabulary. But in the fourteenth century it had obtained the name of "Ban-nut," from its hardness. So it is named in a metrical Vocabulary of the fourteenth century—

PomusAppul-trePirusPeere-treCorulus nuxHasyl NoteAvelanaqueBannenote-treFicusFygge;

and this name it still holds in the West of England. But at the same time it had also acquired the name of Walnut. "Hec avelana, AceWalnot-tree" (Vocabulary fourteenth century). "Hec avelana, a Walnutte and the Nutte" (Nominate fifteenth century). This name is commonly supposed to have reference to the hard shell, but it onlymeans that the nut is of foreign origin. "Wal" is another form of Walshe or Welch, and so Lyte says that the tree is called "in English the Walnut and Walshe Nut tree." "The word Welsh (wilisc,woelisc) meant simply a foreigner, one who was not of Teutonic race, and was (by the Saxons) applied especially to nations using the Latin language. In the Middle Ages the French language, and in fact all those derived from Latin, and called on that accountlinguæ Romanæ, were called in GermanWelsch. France was called by the mediæval German writersdaz Welsche lant, and when they wished to express 'in the whole world,' they said,in allen Welschen und in Tiutschen richen, 'in all Welsh and Teutonic kingdoms.' In modern German the nameWälschis used more especially for Italian."—Wright'sCelt, Roman, and Saxon.[315:1]This will at once explain that Walnut simply means the foreign or non-English Nut.

It must have been a well-established and common tree in Shakespeare's time, for all the writers of his day speak of it as a high and large tree, and I should think it very likely that Walnut trees were even more extensively planted in his day than in our own. There are many noble specimens to be seen in different parts of England, especially in the chalk districts, for "it delights," says Evelyn, "in a dry, sound, rich land, especially if it incline to a feeding chalk or marl; and where it may be protected from the cold (though it affects cold rather than extreme heat), as in great pits, valleys, and highway sides; also in stony ground, if loamy, and on hills, especially chalky; likewise in cornfields." The grand specimens that may be seen in the sheltered villages lying under the chalk downs of Wiltshire and Berkshire bear witness to the truth of Evelyn's remarks. But the finest English specimens can bear no comparison with the size of the Walnut trees in warmer countries, and especially where they are indigenous. There they "sometimes attain prodigious size and great age. An Italian architect mentions having seen at St. Nicholas, in Lorraine, a single plank of the wood of the Walnut, 25ft. wide, upon which the Emperor Frederick III. had given a sumptuous banquet. In the Baidar Valley, near Balaclava, in the Crimea, stands a Walnut tree at least 1000 years old. It yields annually from80,000 to 100,000 Nuts, and belongs to five Tartar families, who share its produce equally."—Gardener's Chronicle.

The economic uses of the Walnut are now chiefly confined to the timber, which is highly prized both for furniture and gun-stocks, and to the production of oil, which is not much used in Europe, but is highly valued in the East. "It dries much more slowly than any other distilled oil, and hence its great value, as it allows the artist as much time as he requires in order to blend his colours and finish his work. In conjunction with amber varnish it forms a vehicle which leaves nothing to be desired, and which doubtless was the vehicle of Van Eyck, and in many instances of the Venetian masters, and of Correggio."—Arts of the Middle Ages, preface. In mediæval times a high medicinal value was attached to the fruit, for the celebrated antidote against poison which was so firmly believed in, and which was attributed to Mithridates, King of Pontus, was chiefly composed of Walnuts. "Two Nuttes (he is speaking of Walnuts) and two Figges, and twenty Rewe leaves, stamped together with a little salt, and eaten fasting, doth defende a man from poison and pestilence that day."—Bullein,Governmente of Health, 1558.

The Walnut holds an honoured place in heraldry. Two large Walnut trees overshadow the tomb of the poet Waller in Beaconsfield churchyard, and "these are connected with a curious piece of family history. The tree was chosen as the Waller crest after Agincourt, where the head of the family took the Duke of Orleans prisoner, and took afterwards as his crest the arms of Orleans hanging by a label in a Walnut tree with this motto for the device:Hæc fructus virtutis."—Gardener's Chronicle, Aug., 1878.

Walnuts are still very popular, but not as poison antidotes; their popularity now rests on their use as pickles, their excellence as autumn and winter dessert fruits, and with pseudo-gipsies for the rich olive hue that the juice will give to the skin. These uses, together with the beauty in the landscape that is given by an old Walnut tree, will always secure for it a place among English trees; yet there can be little doubt that the Walnut is a bad neighbour to other crops, and for that reason its numbers in England have been much diminished. Phillips said there was a decided antipathy between Apples and Walnuts, and spoke of the Apple tree as—

"Uneasy, seated by funereal YewOr Walnut (whose malignant touch impairsAll generous fruits), or near the bitter dewsOf Cherries."

And in this he was probably right, though the mischief caused to the Apple tree more probably arises from the dense shade thrown by the Walnut tree than by any malarious exhalation emitted from it.

[315:1]See Earle's "Philology of the English Tongue," p. 23.

I might perhaps content myself with marking these passages only, and dismiss Shakespeare's Wheat without further comment, for the Wheat of his day was identical with our own; but there are a few points in connection with English Wheat which may be interesting. Wheat is not an English plant, nor is it a European plant; its original home is in Northern Asia, whence it has spread into all civilized countries.[318:1]For the cultivation of Wheat is one of the first signs of civilized life; it marks the end of nomadic life, and implies more or less a settled habitation. When it reached England, and to what country we are indebted for it, we do not know; but we know that while we are indebted to the Romans for so many of our useful trees, and fruits, and vegetables, we are not indebted to them for the introduction of Wheat. This we might be almost sure of from the very name, which has no connection with the Latin names,triticumorfrumentum, but is a pure old English word, signifying originallywhite, and so distinguishing it as the white grain in opposition to the darker grains of Oats and Rye. But besides the etymological evidence, we have good historical evidence that Cæsar found Wheat growing in England when he first landed on the shores of Kent. He daily victualled his camp with British Wheat ("frumentum ex agris quotidie in castra conferebat"); and it was while his soldiers were reaping the Wheat in the Kentish fields that they were surrounded and successfully attacked by the British. He tells us, however, that the cultivation of Wheat was chiefly confined to Kent, and was not much known inland: "interiores plerique frumenta non serunt, sed lacte et carne vivunt."—De Bello Gallico, v, 14. Roman Wheat has frequently beenfound in graves, and strange stories have been told of the plants that have been raised from these old seeds; but a more scientific inquiry has proved that there have been mistakes or deceits, more or less intentional, for "Wheat is said to keep for seven years at the longest. The statements as to mummy Wheat are wholly devoid of authenticity, as are those of the Raspberry seeds taken from a Roman tomb."—Hooker, "Botany" inScience Primers. The oft-repeated stories about the vitality of mummy Wheat were effectually disposed of when it was discovered that much of the so-called Wheat was South American Maize.

[318:1]Yet Homer considered it to be indigenous in Sicily—Odyss: ix, 109—and Cicero, perhaps on the authority of Homer, says the same: "Insula Cereris . . . ubi primum fruges inventæ esse dicuntur."—In Verrem, v, 38.