_ PART I. THE PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE
BURNET, CABBAGE, CAMOMILE,
BURNET.
Burgundy.
The even mead, that erst brought sweetly forth
The freckled Cowslip, Burnet, and green Clover.
--- Henry V. act v, sc. 2 (48).
The Burnet (
Poterium sanguisorba) is a native plant of no great beauty or horticultural interest, but it was valued as a good salad plant, the leaves tasting of Cucumber, and Lord Bacon (contemporary with Shakespeare) seems to have been especially fond of it. He says ("Essay of Gardens"):
"Those flowers which perfume the air most delightfully, not passed by as the rest, but being trodden upon and crushed, are three--that is, Burnet, Wild Thyme, and Water Mints; therefore you are to set whole alleys of them, to have the pleasure when you walk or tread." Drayton had the same affection for it--
"The Burnet shall bear up with this,
Whose leaf I greatly fancy."
---
Nymphal V. It also was, and still is, valued as a forage plant that will grow and keep fresh all the winter in dry barren pastures, thus often giving food for sheep when other food was scarce. It has occasionally been cultivated, but the result has not been very satisfactory, except on very poor land, though, according to the Woburn experiments, as reported by Sinclair, it contains a larger amount of nutritive matter in the spring than most of the Grasses. It has brown flowers, from which it is supposed to derive its name (Brunetto).[45:1]
FOOTNOTES:
[44:1]
"A Clote-leef he had under his hood
For swoot, and to keep his heed from hete."
--- CHAUCER,
Prologue of the Chanounes Yeman (25).
This Clote leaf is by many considered to be the Burdock leaf, but it was more probably the name of the Water-lily.
[45:1] "Burnet colowre, Burnetum, burnetus."--
Promptorium Parvulorum. CABBAGE.
Evans.
Pauca verba, Sir John; good worts.
Falstaff.
Good worts! good Cabbage.
--- Merry Wives, act i, sc. 1 (123).
The history of the name is rather curious. It comes to us from the French
Chou cabus, which is the French corruption of
Caulis capitatus, the name by which Pliny described it.
The Cabbage of Shakespeare's time was essentially the same as ours, and from the contemporary accounts it seems that the sorts cultivated were as good and as numerous as they are now. The cultivated Cabbage is the same specifically as the wild Cabbage of our sea-shores (
Brassica oleracea) improved by cultivation. Within the last few years the Cabbage has been brought from the kitchen garden into the flower garden on account of the beautiful variegation of its leaves. This, however, is no novelty, for Parkinson said of the many sorts of Cabbage in his day: "There is greater diversity in the form and colour of the leaves of this plant than there is in any other that I know groweth on the ground. . . . Many of them being of no use with us for the table, but for delight to behold the wonderful variety of the works of God herein."
CAMOMILE.
Falstaff.
Though the Camomile, the more it is trodden on the faster it
grows, yet youth, the more it is wasted the sooner it wears.
--- 1st Henry IV, act ii, sc. 4 (443).
The low-growing Camomile, the emblem of the sweetness of humility, has the lofty names of Camomile (
Chamaemelum,
i.e., Apple of the Earth) and Anthemis nobilis. Its fine aromatic scent and bitter flavour suggested that it must be possessed of much medicinal virtue, while its low growth made it suitable for planting on the edges of flower-beds and paths, its scent being brought out as it was walked upon. For this purpose it was much used in Elizabethan gardens; "large walks, broad and long, close and open, like the Tempe groves in Thessaly, raised with gravel and sand, having seats and banks of Camomile; all this delights the mind, and brings health to the body."[46:1] As a garden flower it is now little used, though its bright starry flower and fine scent might recommend it; but it is still to be found in herb gardens, and is still, though not so much as formerly, used as a medicine.
Like many other low plants, the Camomile is improved by being pressed into the earth by rolling or otherwise, and there are many allusions to this in the old writers: thus Lily in his "Euphues" says: "The Camomile the more it is trodden and pressed down, the more it spreadeth;" and in the play, "The More the Merrier" (1608), we have--
"The Camomile shall teach thee patience
Which riseth best when trodden most upon."
FOOTNOTES:
[46:1] Lawson, "New Orchard," p. 54.
CARDUUS.,
see HOLY THISTLE. _