FOOTNOTES:

"There is growend upon the groundPopy that bereth the sede of slepe."

Conf. Aman., lib. quint. (2, 102 Paulli).

Spenser speaks of the plant as the "dull Poppy," and describing the Garden of Proserpina, he says—

"There mournful Cypress grew in greatest store,And trees of bitter gall, and Heben sad,Dead-sleeping Poppy, and black Hellebore,Cold Coloquintida."

F. Q., ii, 7, 52.

And Drayton similarly describes it—

"Here Henbane, Poppy, Hemlock here,Procuring deadly sleeping."

Nymphalv.

The name of opium does not seem to have been in general use, except among the apothecaries. Chaucer, however, uses it—

"A claire made of a certayn wyn,With necotykes, and opye of Thebes fyn."

The Knightes Tale.

And so does Milton—

"Which no cooling herbOr medicinal liquor can asswage,Nor breath of vernal air from Snowy Alp;Sleep hath forsook and given me o'erTo death's benumming opium as my only cure."

Samson Agonistes.

Many of the Poppies are very ornamental garden plants. The pretty yellow Welsh Poppy (Meconopsis Cambrica), abundant at Cheddar Cliffs, is an excellent plant for the rockwork where, when once established, it will grow freely and sow itself; and for the same place the little Papaver Alpinum, with its varieties, is equally well suited. For the open border the larger Poppies are very suitable, especially the great Oriental Poppy (P. orientale) and the grand scarlet Siberian Poppy (P. bracteatum), perhaps the most gorgeous of hardy plants: while among the rarer species of the tribe we must reckon the Meconopses of the Himalayas (M. WallichiandM. Nepalensis), plants of singular beauty and elegance, but very difficult to grow, and still more difficult to keep, even if once established; for though perfectly hardy, they are little more than biennials. Besides these Poppies, the large double garden Poppies are very showy and of great variety in colour, but they are only annuals.

[223:1]"We usually think of the Poppy as a coarse flower; but it is the most transparent and delicate of all the blossoms of the field. The rest, nearly all of them, depend on the texture of their surface for colour. But the Poppy is paintedglass; it never glows so brightly as when the sun shines through it. Wherever it is seen, against the light or with the light, always it is a flame, and warms the wind like a blown ruby."—Ruskin,Proserpina, p. 86.

The chief interest in these two passages is that they contain almost the earliest notice of Potatoes after their introduction into England. The generally received account is that they were introduced into Ireland in 1584 by SirWalter Raleigh, and from thence brought into England; but the year of their first planting in England is not recorded. They are not mentioned by Lyte in 1586. Gerard grew them in 1597, but only as curiosities, under the name of Virginian Potatoes (Battata VirginianorumandPappas), to distinguish them from the Spanish Potato, or Convolvulus Battatas, which had been long grown in Europe, and in the first edition of his "Herbal" is his portrait, showing him holding a Potato in his hand. They seem to have grown into favour very slowly, for half a century after their introduction, Waller still spoke of them as one of the tropical luxuries of the Bermudas—

"With candy'd Plantains and the juicy Pine,On choicest Melons and sweet Grapes they dine,And with Potatoes fat their wanton swine."

The Battel of the Summer Islands.

Potato is a corruption of Batatas or Patatas.

As soon as the Potato arrived in England, it was at once invested with wonderful restorative powers, and in a long exhaustive note in Steevens' Shakespeare, Mr. Collins has given all the passages in the early writers in which the Potato is mentioned, and in every case they have reference to these supposed virtues. These passages, which are chiefly from the old dramatists, are curious and interesting in the early history of the Potato, and as throwing light on the manners of our ancestors; but as in every instance they are all more or less indelicate, I refrain from quoting them here.

As a garden plant, we now restrict the Potato to the kitchen garden and the field, but it belongs to a very large family, the Solanaceæ or Nightshades, of which many members are very ornamental, though as they chiefly come from the tropical regions, there are very few that can be treated as entirely hardy plants. One, however, is a very beautiful climber—the Solanum jasminoides from South America—and quite hardy in the South of England. Trained against a wall it will soon cover it, and when once established will bear its handsome trusses of white flowers with yellow anthers in great profusion during the whole summer. A better known member of the family is the Petunia, veryhandsome, but little better than an annual. The pretty Winter Cherry (Physalis alkekengi) is another member of the family, and so is the Mandrake (seeMandrake). The whole tribe is poisonous, or at least to be suspected, yet it contains a large number of most useful plants, as the Potato, Tomato, Tobacco, Datura, and Cayenne Pepper.

Whenever we speak of spring flowers, the first that comesinto our minds is the Primrose. Both for its simple beauty and for its early arrival among us we give it the first place over

"Whatsoever other flowre of worthAnd whatso other hearb of lovely hew,The joyous Spring out of the ground brings forthTo cloath herself in colours fresh and new."

It is a plant equally dear to children and their elders, so that I cannot believe that there is any one (except Peter Bell) to whom

"A Primrose by the river's brimA yellow Primrose is to him—And it is nothing more;"

rather I should believe that W. Browne's "Wayfaring Man" is a type of most English countrymen in their simple admiration of the common flower—

"As some wayfaring man passing a wood,Whose waving top hath long a sea-mark stood,Goes jogging on and in his mind nought hath,But how the Primrose finely strews the path,Or sweetest Violets lay down their headsAt some tree's roots or mossy feather beds."

Britannia's Pastorals, i, 5.

It is the first flower, except perhaps the Daisy, of which a child learns the familiar name; and yet it is a plant of unfailing interest to the botanical student, while its name is one of the greatest puzzles to the etymologist. The common and easy explanation of the name is that it means the first Rose of the year, but (like so many explanations that are derived only from the sound and modern appearance of a a name) this is not the true account. The full history of the name is too long to give here, but the short account is this—"The old name was Prime Rolles—or primerole. Primerole is an abbreviation of Fr.,primeverole: It.,primaverola, diminutive ofprima verafromflor di prima vera, the first spring flower.Primerole, as an outlandish unintelligible word, was soon familiarized intoprimerolles, and this intoprimrose."—Dr. Prior.The name Primrose was not at first always applied to the flower, but was an old English word, used to show excellence—

"A fairer nymph yet never saw mine eie,She is the pride and Primrose of the rest."

Spenser,Colin Clout.

"Was not I [the Briar] planted of thine own handeTo bee the Primrose of all thy lande;With flow'ring blossomes to furnish the primeAnd scarlet berries in sommer time?"

Spenser,Shepherd's Calendar—Februarie.

It was also a flower name, but not of our present Primrose, but of a very different plant. Thus in a Nominale of the fifteenth century we have "hoc ligustrum, a Primerose;" and in a Pictorial Vocabulary of the same date we have "hoc ligustrum, Acea Prymrose;" and in the "Promptorium Parvulorum," "Prymerose, primula, calendula, ligustrum"—and this name for the Privet lasted with a slight alteration into Shakespeare's time. Turner in 1538 says, "ligustrum arbor est non herba ut literatorū vulgus credit; nihil que minus est quam a Prymerose." In Tusser's "Husbandry" we have "set Privie or Prim" (September Abstract), and—

"Now set ye mayThe Box and BayHawthorn and PrimFor clothe's trim"—(January Abstract).

And so it is described by Gerard as the Privet or Prim Print (i.e.,primé printemps), and even in the seventeenth century, Cole says of ligustrum, "This herbe is called Primrose." When the name was fixed to our present plant I cannot say, but certainly before Shakespeare's time, though probably not long before. It is rather remarkable that the flower, which we now so much admire, seems to have been very much overlooked by the writers before Shakespeare. In the very old vocabularies it does not at all appear by its present Latin name, Primula vulgaris, but that is perhaps not to be wondered at, as nearly all the old botanists applied that name to the Daisy. But neither is it much noticed by any English name. I can only find it in two of the vocabularies. In an English Vocabulary of the fourteenth century is "Hæc pimpinella, Aeprimerolle," but it is very doubtful if this can be our Primrose, as the Pimpernel of old writers was theBurnet. Gower mentions it as the flower of the star Canis Minor—

"His stone and herbe as saith the scoleBen Achates and Primerole."

Conf. Aman.lib. sept. (3, 130. Paulli).

And in the treatise of Walter de Biblesworth (13th century) is—

"Primerole et primeveyre (cousloppe)Sur tere aperunt en tems de veyre."

I should think there is no doubt this is our Primrose. Then we have Chaucer's description of a fine lady—

"Hir schos were laced on hir legges hygheSche was a Primerole, a piggesneygheFor any lord have liggyng in his bedde,Or yet for any gode yeman to wedde."

The Milleres Tale.

I have dwelt longer than usual on the name of this flower, because it gives us an excellent example of how much literary interest may be found even in the names of our common English plants.

But it is time to come from the name to the flower. The English Primrose is one of a large family of more than fifty species, represented in England by the Primrose, the Oxlip, the Cowslip, and the Bird's-eye Primrose of the North of England and Scotland. All the members of the family, whether British or exotic, are noted for the simple beauty of their flowers, but in this special character there is none that surpasses our own. "It is the very flower of delicacy and refinement; not that it shrinks from our notice, for few plants are more easily seen, coming as it does when there is a dearth of flowers, when the first birds are singing, and the first bees humming, and the earliest green putting forth in the March and April woods; and it is one of those plants which dislikes to be looking cheerless, but keeps up a smouldering fire of blossom from the very opening of the year, if the weather will permit."—Forbes Watson.It is this character of cheerfulness that so much endears the flower to us; as it brightens up our hedgerows after the dulness of winter, the harbinger of many brighter perhaps, but not more acceptable, beauties to come, it is the veryemblem of cheerfulness. Yet it is very curious to note what entirely different ideas it suggested to our forefathers. To them the Primrose seems always to have brought associations of sadness, or even worse than sadness, for the "Primrose paths" and "Primrose ways" of Nos.6and7are meant to be suggestive of pleasures, but sinful pleasures.

Spenser associates it with death in some beautiful lines, in which a husband laments the loss of a young and beautiful wife—

"Mine was the Primerose in the lowly shade!* * * * *Oh! that so fair a flower so soon should fade,And through untimely tempest fade away."

"Mine was the Primerose in the lowly shade!

* * * * *

Oh! that so fair a flower so soon should fade,And through untimely tempest fade away."

Daphnidia, 232.

In another place he speaks of it as "the Primrose trew"—Prothalamion; but in another place his only epithet for it is "green," which quite ignores its brightness—

"And Primroses greeneEmbellish the sweete Violet."

Shepherd's Calendar—April.

Shakespeare has no more pleasant epithets for our favourite flower than "pale," "faint," "that die unmarried;" and Milton follows in the same strain yet sadder. Once, indeed, he speaks of youth as "Brisk as the April buds in Primrose season" ("Comus"); but only in three passages does he speak of the Primrose itself, and in two of these he connects it with death—

"Bring the rathe Primrose that forsaken dies,* * * * *And every flower that sad embroidery wears."—Lycidas.

"Bring the rathe Primrose that forsaken dies,

* * * * *

And every flower that sad embroidery wears."—Lycidas.

"O fairest flower, no sooner blown but blasted,Soft silken Primrose fading timelesslie;Summer's chief honour, if thou hadst outlastedBleak winter's force that made thy blossoms drie."

On the Death of a Fair Infant.

His third account is a little more joyous—

"Now the bright morning star, daye's harbinger,Comes dancing from the East, and leads with herThe flowery May, who from her green lap throwsThe yellow Cowslip and the pale Primrose."

On May Morning.

And nearly all the poets of that time spoke in the same strain, with the exception of Ben Jonson and the two Fletchers. Jonson spoke of it as "the glory of the spring" and as "the spring's own spouse." Giles Fletcher says—

"Every bush lays deeply perfumedWith Violets; the wood's late wintry head,Wide flaming Primroses set all on fire."

And Phineas Fletcher—

"The Primrose lighted new her flame displays,And frights the neighbour hedge with fiery rays.And here and there sweet Primrose scattered.* * * * *Nature seem'd work'd by Art, so lively true,A little heaven or earth in narrow space she drew."

"The Primrose lighted new her flame displays,And frights the neighbour hedge with fiery rays.And here and there sweet Primrose scattered.

* * * * *

Nature seem'd work'd by Art, so lively true,A little heaven or earth in narrow space she drew."

I can only refer very shortly to the botanical interest of the Primula, and that only to direct attention to Mr. Darwin's paper in the "Journal of the Linnæan Society," 1862, in which he records his very curious and painstaking inquiries into the dimorphism of the Primula, a peculiarity in the Primula that gardeners had long recognized in their arrangement of Primroses as "pin-eyed" and "thrum-eyed." It is perhaps owing to this dimorphism that the family is able to show a very large number of natural hybrids. These have been carefully studied by Professor Kerner, of Innspruck, and it seems not unlikely that a further study will show that all the European so-called species are natural hybrids from a very few parents.

Yet a few words on the Primrose as a garden plant. If the Primrose be taken from the hedges in November, and planted in beds thickly in the garden, they make a beautiful display of flowers and foliage from February till the beds are required for the summer flowers; and there are few of our wild flowers that run into so many varieties in their wild state. In Pembrokeshire and Cardiganshire I have seen the wild Primrose of nearly all shades of colour, from the purest white to an almost bright red, and these can all be broughtinto the garden with a certainty of success and a certainty of rapid increase. There are also many double varieties, all of which are more often seen in cottage gardens than elsewhere; yet no gardener need despise them.

One other British Primrose, the Bird's-eye Primrose, almost defies garden cultivation, though in its native habitats in the north it grows in most ungenial places. I have seen places in the neighbourhood of the bleak hill of Ingleborough, where it almost forms the turf; yet away from its native habitat it is difficult to keep, except in a greenhouse. For the cultivation of the other non-English species, I cannot do better than refer to an excellent paper by Mr. Niven in the "The Garden" for January 29, 1876, in which he gives an exhaustive account of them.

I am not aware that Primroses are of any use in medicine or cookery, yet Tusser names the Primrose among "seeds and herbs for the kitchen," and Lyte says "the Cowslips, Primroses, and Oxlips are now used dayly amongst other pot herbes, but in physicke there is no great account made of them." They occur in heraldy. The arms of the Earls of Rosebery (Primrose) are three Primroses within a double tressure fleury counter-fleury, or.

The old name for the Cucumber (in Ælfric's "Vocabulary") is hwer-hwette,i.e., wet ewer, but Pumpion, Pompion, and Pumpkin were general terms including all the Cucurbitaceæ such as Melons, Gourds, Cucumbers, and Vegetable Marrows. All were largely grown in Shakespeare's days, but I shouldthink the reference here must be to one of the large useless Gourds, for Mrs. Ford's comparison is to Falstaff, and Gourds were grown large enough to bear out even that comparison. "The Gourd groweth into any forme or fashion you would have it, . . . . being suffered to clime upon an arbour where the fruit may hang; it hath beene seene to be nine foot long." And the little value placed upon the whole tribe helped to bear out the comparison. They were chiefly good to "cure copper faces, red and shining fierce noses (as red as red Roses), with pimples, pumples, rubies, and such-like precious faces." This was Gerard's account of the Cucumber, while of the Cucumber Pompion, which was evidently our Vegetable Marrow, and of which he has described and figured the variety which we now call the Custard Marrow, he says, "it maketh a man apt and ready to fall into the disease called the colericke passion, and of some the felonie."

Mrs. Ford's comparison of a big loutish man to an overgrown Gourd has not been lost in the English language, for "bumpkin" is only another form of "Pumpkin," and Mr. Fox Talbot, in his "English Etymologies," has a very curious account of the antiquity of the nickname. "The Greeks," he says, "called a very weak and soft-headed person a Pumpion, whence the proverbπεπονος μαλακωτερος, softer than a Pumpion; and even one of Homer's heroes, incensed at the timidity of his soldiers, exclaimsὠ πεπονες, you Pumpions! So alsocornichon(Cucumber) is a term of derision in French."

Yet the Pumpion or Gourd had its uses, moral uses. Modern critics have decided that Jonah's Gourd, "which came up in a night and perished in a night," was not a Gourd, but the Palma Christi, or Castor-oil tree. But our forefathers called it a Gourd, and believing that it was so, they used the Gourd to point many a moral and illustrate many a religious emblem. Thus viewed it was the standing emblem of the rapid growth and quick decay of evil-doers and their evil deeds. "Cito nata, cito pereunt," was the history of the evil deeds, while the doers of them could only say—

"Quasi solstitialis herba fui,Repente exortus sum, repente occidi."

Plautus.

Quince is also the name of one of the "homespun actors" in "Midsummer Night's Dream," and is no doubt there used as a ludicrous name. The name was anciently spelt "coynes"—

"And many homely trees ther wereThat Peches, Coynes, and Apples bere,Medlers, Plommes, Perys, Chesteyns,Cherys, of which many oon fayne is."

Romaunt of the Rose.

The same name occurs in the old English vocabularies, as in a Nominale of the fifteenth century, "hæc cocianus, a coventre;" in an English vocabulary of the fourteenth century, "Hoc coccinum, a quoyne," and in the treatise of Walter de Biblesworth, in the thirteenth century—

"Issi troverez en ce vergerEstang un sek Coigner (a Coyn-tre, Quince-tre)."

And there is little doubt that "Quince" is a corruption of "coynes" which again is a corruption, not difficult to trace, of Cydonia, one of the most ancient cities of Crete, where the Quince tree is indigenous, and whence it derived its name of Pyrus Cydonia, or simply Cydonia. If not indigenous elsewhere in the East, it was very soon cultivated, and especially in Palestine. It is not yet a settled point, and probably never will be, but there is a strong consensus of most of the best commentators, that theTappuachof Scripture, always translated Apple, was the Quince. It is supposed to be the fruit alluded to in the Canticles, "As the Apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons; I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste;" and in Proverbs, "A word fitly spoken is like Apples of gold in pictures of silver;" and the tree is supposed to have given its name to various places in Palestine, as Tappuach, Beth-Tappuach, and Aen-Tappuach.

By the Greeks and Romans the Quince was held inhonour as the fruit especially sacred to Venus, who is often represented as holding a Quince in her right hand, the gift which she received from Paris. In other sculptures "the amorous deities pull Quinces in gardens and play with them. For persons to send Quinces in presents, to throw them at each other, to eat them together, were all tokens of love; to dream of Quinces was a sign of successful love" (Rosenmuller). The custom was handed down to mediæval times. It was at a wedding feast that "they called for Dates and Quinces in the pastry;" and Brand quotes a curious passage from the "Praise of Musicke," 1586 ("Romeo and Juliet" was published in 1596)—"I come to marriages, wherein as our ancestors did fondly, and with a kind of doting, maintaine many rites and ceremonies, some whereof were either shadowes or abodements of a pleasant life to come, as the eating of a Quince Peare to be a preparative of sweet and delightful dayes between the married persons."

To understand this high repute in which the Quince was held, we must remember that the Quince of hot countries differs somewhat from the English Quince. With us the fruit is of a fine, handsome shape, and of a rich golden colour when fully ripe, and of a strong scent, which is very agreeable to many, though too heavy and overpowering to others. But the rind is rough and woolly, and the flesh is harsh and unpalatable, and only fit to be eaten when cooked. In hotter countries the woolly rind is said to disappear, and the fruit can be eaten raw; and this is the case not only in Eastern countries, but also in the parts of Tropical America to which the tree has been introduced from Europe.

In England the Quince is probably less grown now than it was in Shakespeare's time—yet it may well be grown as an ornamental shrub even by those who do not appreciate its fruit. It forms a thick bush, with large white flowers, followed in the autumn by its handsome fruit, and requires no care. "They love shadowy, moist places;" "It delighteth to grow on plaine and even ground and somewhat moist withall." This was Lyte's and Gerard's experience, and I have never seen handsomer bushes or finer fruit than I once saw on some neglected bushes that skirted a horsepond on a farm in Kent; the trees were evidently revelling in their state of moisture and neglect. The tree has a horticultural value asgiving an excellent stock for Pear-trees, on which it has a very remarkable effect, for "Cabanis asserts that when certain Pears are grafted on the Quince, their seeds yield more varieties than do the seeds of the same variety of Pear when grafted on the wild Pear."—Darwin.Its economic value is considered to be but small, being chiefly used for Marmalade,[236:1]but in Shakespeare's time, Browne spoke of it as "the stomach's comforter, the pleasing Quince," and Parkinson speaks highly of it, for "there is no fruit growing in the land," he says, "that is of so many excellent uses as this, serving as well to make many dishes of meat for the table, as for banquets, and much more for their physical virtues, whereof to write at large is neither convenient for me nor for this work."

[236:1]This was a very old use for the Quince. Wynkyn de Worde, in the "Boke of Kervynge" (p. 266), speaks of "char de Quynce;" and John Russell, in the "Boke of Nurture" (l. 75), speaks of "chare de Quynces." This was Quince marmalade.

There can be no doubt that the Radish was so named because it was considered by the Romans, for some reason unknown to us,therootpar excellence. It was used by them, as by us, "as a stimulus before meat, giving an appetite thereunto"—

"Acria circumRapula, lactucæ, Radices, qualia lassumPervellunt stomachum."—Horace.

But it was cultivated, or allowed to grow, to a much larger size than we now think desirable. Pliny speaks of Radishes weighing 40lb. each, and others speak even of 60lb. and 100lb. But in Shakespeare's time the Radish was very much what it is now, a pleasant salad vegetable, but of nogreat value. We read, however, of Radishes being put to strange uses. Lupton, a writer of Shakespeare's day, says: "If you would kill snakes and adders strike them with a large Radish, and to handle adders and snakes without harm, wash your hands in the juice of Radishes and you may do without harm" ("Notable Things," 1586).

We read also of great attempts being made to procure oil from the seed, but to no great effect. Hakluyt, in describing the sufficiency of the English soil to produce everything necessary in the manufacture of cloth, says: "So as there wanteth, if colours might be brought in and made naturall, but onely oile; the want whereof if any man could devise to supply at the full with anything that might become naturall in this realme, he, whatsoever he were that might bring it about, might deserve immortal fame in this our Commonwealth, and such a devise was offered to Parliament and refused, because they denied to allow him a certain liberty, some others having obtained the same before that practised to work that effect by Radish seed, which onely made a trial of small quantity, and that went no further to make that oile in plenty, and now he that offered this devise was a merchant, and is dead, and withal the devise is dead with him" ("Voiages," vol. ii.).

The Radish is not a native of Britain, but was probably introduced by the Romans, and was well-known to the Anglo-Saxon gardener under its present name, but with a closer approach to the Latin, being called Rædic, or Radiolle.[237:1]

A curious testimony to the former high reputation of the Radish survives in the "Annual Radish Feast at Levens Hall, a custom dating from time immemorial, and supposed by some to be a relic of feudal times, held on May 12th at Levens Hall, the seat of the Hon. Mrs. Howard, and adjoining the high road about midway between Kendal and Milnthorpe. Tradition hath it that the Radish feast arose out of a rivalry between the families of Levens Hall and Dallam Tower, as to which should entertain the Corporation with their friends and followers, and in which Levens Hall eventually carried the palm. The feast is provided on the bowling green in front of the Hall, where several long tablesare plentifully spread with Radishes and brown bread and butter, the tables being repeatedly furnished with guests" ("Gardener's Chronicle").

[237:1]"Catholicon Anglicum."

Raisins are alluded to, if not actually named, in "1st Henry IV.," act ii, sc. 4, when Falstaff says: "If reasons were as plentiful as Blackberries, I would give no man a reason upon compulsion, I——" "It seems that a pun underlies this, the association of reasons with Blackberries springing out of the fact thatreasonssounded likeraisins."—Earle,Philology, &c.

Bearing in mind that Raisin is a corruption ofracemus, a bunch of Grapes, we can understand that the word was not always applied, as it is now, to the dried fruit, but was sometimes applied to the bunch of Grapes as it hung ripe on the tree—

"For no man at the firste strokeHe may not felle down an Oke;Nor of the Reisins have the wyneTill Grapes be ripe and welle afyne."

Romaunt of the Rose.

The best dried fruit were Raisins of the sun,i.e., dried in the sun, to distinguish them from those which were dried in ovens. They were, of course, foreign fruit, and were largely imported. The process of drying in the sun is still the method in use, at least, with "the finer kinds, such as Muscatels, which are distinguished as much by the mode of drying as by the variety and soil in which they are grown, the finest being dried on the Vines before gathering, the stalk being partly cut through when the fruits are ripe, and the leaves being removed from near the clusters, so as to allow the full effect of the sun in ripening."

The Grape thus becomes a Raisin, but it is still furthertransformed when it reaches the cook; it then becomes a Plum, for Plum pudding has, as we all know, Raisins for its chief ingredient and certainly no Plums; and the Christmas pie into which Jack Horner put in his thumb and pulled out a Plum must have been a mince-pie, also made of Raisins; but how a cooked Raisin came to be called a Plum is not recorded. In Devonshire and Dorsetshire it undergoes a further transformation, for there Raisins are called Figs, and a Plum pudding is called a Fig pudding.

Reed is a general term for almost any water-loving, grassy plant, and so it is used by Shakespeare. In the Bible it is perhaps possible to identify some of the Reeds mentioned, with the Sugar Cane in some places, with the Papyrus in others, and in others with the Arundo donax. As a Biblical plant it has a special interest, not only as giving the emblem of the tenderest mercy that will be careful even of "the bruised Reed," but also as entering largely into the mockery of the Crucifixion: "They put a Reed in His right hand," and "they filled a sponge full of vinegar, and put it upon a Reed and gave Him to drink." The Reed in these passages was probably the Arundo donax, a very elegant Reed, which was used for many purposes in Palestine, and is a most graceful plant for English gardens, being perfectly hardy, and growing every year from 12ft. to 14ft. in height, but very seldom flowering.[240:1]

But in Shakespeare, as in most writers, the Reed is simply the emblem of weakness, tossed about by and bending to a superior force, and of little or no use—"a Reed that will do me no service" (No.1). It is also the emblem of the blessedness of submission, and of the power that lies in humility to outlast its oppressor—

Back to Index Next