weeds,' which show that cockle and darnel are dis

tinct plants:

Mocking our hopes, turning our seed-wheat kernel,
To burn grain thistle and to vapourie darnel,

Cockle, wild oats, rough burs, corn-cumb'ring tares,
Short recompense for all our earthly cares.

The cockle is also referred to in Love's Labour's lost, Activ. Scene 1, as destructive to corn, where Biron, in reply to the King, says:—

Allons! Allons! sow'd cockle, reap'd no corn.

When we regard the intoxicating property of the darnel seed, and bear in mind that the cockle (Agrostemma Githago) is harmless, we are satisfied that Shakspere referred to the former plant.

In Act iii. Scene 2 (Coriolanus's house), Volumnia addresses Menenius Agrippa, and refers to the mulberry

Mulberry (Morus nigra). The black, or common mulberry, a native of Persia, is a tree which sometimes grows to a considerable size, and is

cultivated as a fruit tree. It was brought to England about the year 1520, and lives to a great age. Gerarde notices that the trees grew in sundry gardens in England. In Haydn's 'Dictionary of Dates' it is said that the first mulberry trees planted in England are standing in the gardens at Sion House; also that Shakspere planted a mulberry tree with his own hands in his ground at Stratford, and Garrick, Macklin, and others were entertained under it in 1742; that this tree was afterwards cut down by a clergyman named Gastrel, who had bought the house. Mr. Charles Knight, in a note to his 'Biography of Shakspere,' says: This mulberry tree was cut down in 1756, and sold for firewood, but the bulk of it was purchased by Mr. Thomas Sharp, of Stratford, watchmaker, who, out of a sincere veneration for the memory of its celebrated planter, had the wood worked into curious toys and 'useful articles.'

Shakspere notices this fruit, 'in a full ripe state,' to illustrate his meaning of humility, and most true is the expression that it will not hold the handling,' the cuticle being so thin that the slightest touch will break it. The mulberry tree does not put forth its buds and leaves until the frost is gone; it has therefore been called the wisest of trees.' In heraldry, according to Gwillim, it is used as an hieroglyphic of wisdom, whose property is to speak and do all things in season.

CHAPTER XXII.

CYMBELINE.*

HE plants named in this play are Elder (Sambucus nigra), Pale Primrose, Harebell (Hyacinthus non-scriptus), and Mari

gold (Chrysanthemum coronarium).

In Act iv. Scene 2, the Cave, Arviragus and Guiderius, speaking of Imogen :—

And let the stinking elder, grief, untwine

His perishing root with the increasing vine!

Elder (Sambucus nigra). Black elder or elder

* First printed in the folio of 1623.

berry tree is well known, and properly called stinking elder. It grows in most parts of England. Bartholomæus says that the ellern hath leaves with heavy smell, and the flowers thereof be full white with strong smell; the fruit is black with horryble smell and savour.'

In Lyte's translation of Dodonæus, after noticing the virtues of the elder, he speaks of the smell of the plant: Elder is of his own nature, very evil for man, for it stirreth by a great desire to vomit, with great tossing and trouble to the stomach; it maketh all the body weak and feeble, and wasteth the strength and health of the liver.'

Evelyn, in his 'Sylva,' after describing the elder, says: 'I do by no means commend the scent of it, which is very noxious to the air; and therefore, though I do not undertake that all things which sweeten the air are salubrious, nor all ill savours pernicious, yet as not for its beauty, so neither for its smell, would I plant elder near my habitation, since we learn from Bresius that a certain house in Spain, seated amongst many elder trees, diseased and killed almost all the inhabitants, which, when grubbed up, became a very wholesome and healthy place.'

Spencer, in The Shepherd's Calendar for November,' on the death of a maiden called Dido, has:

In Love's Labour's lost, Act v. Scene 2, Biron, in reply to Holifernes, says, Judas was hanged on an elder.

Sir John Mandeville, who wrote in the year 1364 his Travels,' notices the same fact :-' Also straighte from Natatoria Silve is an ymage of stone and men clepen it the honde of Absalon; and further by is yit the tree of elder that Judas hanged himself upon for despeyr that he had when he solde and betrayed our Lord.' This passage is illustrated by a singular woodcut, which represents Judas hanging on the tree, and a grotesque figure of despair approaching him.

In the first Vision of Piers Plowman,' reference is also made to it :

When we consider the evil nature of the stinking

elder, as stated by the writers before quoted, we can