LADY-SMOCKS.

"The chewing flocksHad ta'en their supper on the savoury herbOf 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 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.

[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 is one of the many names of the Garden Delphinium, otherwise called Larkspur, Larksclaw, Larkstoes.

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 conquerorsAnd poet's sage,"—Spenser;

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

"This Daphne into a Lorer treWas 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 treeThat gave so passing a delicious smelleAccording to the Eglantere ful welle."

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

"Myn herte and al my lymes be as greneAs 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 (seeBay).

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

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.

[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."

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 termπρασιά, or a bed, derived its name fromπρασον, 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, thatleac-tun, the Leek-garden, became the common name of the kitchen garden, andleac-ward, the Leek-keeper, was used to designate the gardener" (Wright). The plant in those days gave its nameto 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 madeYs not worth a Leky's blade,But men will tend ther tille."

The Child of Bristowe.

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

SeeOrangeandCloves.

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.

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 atonce 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 flowersWhose stately stalk so straight up is and stay;To whom th' lave ay lowly louts and cowersAs 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 (seeHoneysuckle), 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, theLent 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 beautyis 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 WildArtichoke, 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."

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

[142:1]"Within the garden's peaceful sceneAppeared 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 youLet each be deemed a Queen."—Cowper.

[142:1]

"Within the garden's peaceful sceneAppeared 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 youLet each be deemed a Queen."—Cowper.

"Within the garden's peaceful sceneAppeared 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 youLet each be deemed a Queen."—Cowper.

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 whichload 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.

[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'sPliny's Nat. Hist.xvi. 14. The chapter is headed "Of the Line or Linden Tree."

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.

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 cultivatedfor 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.

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