number baptized was calculated by means of beans dropped into a bag: for every boy a black one, for every girl a white (Murray's "Handbook of North Italy"). In Shakespeare's day several kinds of beans were grown. Twice he refers to them, once as part of the food for horses. Mischievous Puck says: When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile. And secondly, in 1 Henry IV., II. i. 9: Peas and beans are as dank here as a dog. Two species of the genus Allium flower this month, the garlick and onion, plants popular at that time not only as food, but as medicine, and much might be said of their reputed virtues. The garlic, Allium sativum, L., is a native of Southern Europe, but grows easily in our gardens. Stevens quaintly says: "Garlicke taken fasting is the countrie man's treacle in the time of the plague and other dangerous diseases, as also against all manner of venom and poison. " He advises, to prevent the unpleasant smell, it is well to eat "a bean or ribbe of a beete or mallage or green parsley." There is no doubt its objectionable smell made it unpleasant to the refined palate, and Shakespeare only uses it when alluding to the coarse food of the lower orders. Thus, in MidsummerNight's Dream, IV. ii. : And, most dear actors, eat no onions nor garlic, for we are to utter sweet breath; and again in 1 Henry, IV., III. i. 161 : I had rather live With cheese and garlic in a windmill, far, Yet another recipe may be inserted before we pass on to the next plant: "A goodly and a pleasaunt secrete to heale the coughe, in rubbyng of the soales of the feete, and is a thynge very easy and certayne. Take two or three garlyke heades well mundified and made cleane, stampe them well, then put to them hogges sewot, and stampe them well anew and at nyghte whenne you goe to bedde warme well the soales of youre feete, and annoynte them well with the sayd confection, and then warme them agayne as hote as you may endure, rubbynge them welle a preatye space and beyng abedde, let youre feete be bounde with some warme lynnen cloathe, and rubbe also the smalle of your legges with the sayde oyntemente, by this meanes you shall be healed in three nyghtes (Alexis, p. 36). The companion plant of the order and genus, the common onion, Allium cepa, L., apparently came originally from Spain, but, like the garlic, had long been cultivated, and was considered a most healthy and useful food. Stevens tells us that tender onions eaten in honey give health, that the juice is a remedy for baldness, that it is good for the complexion, and takes away white spots from the face, while, "mingled with hen's grease, it drieth up the kibes," and last, but not least, mixed with honey and salt, is a soveraigne remedy against the bite of a mad dog (p. 221). Shakespeare uses it in very much the same way that he handles garlic in the advice to the players already quoted, but he also mentions the effect of its vapour on the sight: And if the boy have not a woman's gift, Taming of the Shrew, Induct. i. 124; and again in Antony and Cleopatra, I. ii. 176: Indeed, the tears live in an onion that should water this sorrow. JULY Here's flowers for you; Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram ; bold oxlips, and COMP ... Winter's Tale, IV. iii. 103. OMPARED to the beautiful plants which deck the month of June, as interesting in their lore as they are beautiful in form and scent, those of the early dog-days are far from attractive, and yet one is the most rich and gorgeous of our native wild flowers, and another decks our garden trellises with a profusion of golden blossoms. Who does not know the scarlet of poppy land when the Papaver rhoeas of Linnæus has been allowed to grow too freely amongst the fields of corn and pease? It is more brilliant far than the daisy trimmed meads, or those which the buttercup has "painted with delight"; and yet it is an evil weed, notwithstanding, found only too commonly, the agriculturist would say, throughout Europe to India. The poppy of Shakespeare is that known as the opium poppy (Papaver somniferum, L.), a plant with handsome glaucous foliage and large white flower of four petals marked with a bold cross of dark purple. It is found wild over the whole of Europe and Asia and in Western Africa, and its countless varieties, single, semi-double, and double, ranging from snowy white to purplish-black, are a great ornament in an old-world garden. Only once is the plant mentioned, and then the reference is to the strong narcotic juice, which has been used as a drug by man since the Bronze Age, and has done more than any other decoction to debase the minds of its votaries. It is not truly wild in our islands, though a not uncommon escape. It is mentioned in connection with mandrakes in Othello, III. iii. 330. England has several species of pinks habiting its fields, woods, and pastures, but it is hardly likely that the poet refers to any of these, sweet and dainty as they are. He thinks of the garden, of the carnation and gilliflower, of the many "pied" varieties the Elizabethan gardeners produced, apart from hybrids. Gerard grew the sweet william, still a great favourite, and deservedly so, called by scientists Dianthus barbatus, L., a native of Central Europe. It has hybridized into a hundred forms, now white, now all but black, and another several shades of pink and white in one cyme. The old name sops-in-wine, or sops, used for carnations, suggests the modern use of sweet herbs, such as woodruff, in the mingled wines called by the Rhenish peasants "bola." It seems to have been specially used to flavour the bridal wine. See Taming of the Shrew, III. ii. 174: Quaffed off the muscadel, And threw the sops all in the sexton's face. The word "carnation" is said by Prior to be derived from Coronaria, and represents the Vetonica coronaria of early herbalists, because its flowers were used in chaplets, and he quotes in illustration Spenser's "Shepherd's Calendar": |