The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare
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 flowers
Whose stately stalk so straight up is and stay;
To whom th' lave ay lowly louts and cowers
As 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 (_see_ HONEYSUCKLE), 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, the Lent 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 beauty is 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 Wild Artichoke, 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."
FOOTNOTES:
[140:1] This is a modern reading, the older and more correct reading is
"twilled."
[142:1]
"Within the garden's peaceful scene
Appeared 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 you
Let each be deemed a Queen."--COWPER.
LIME.
(1) _Ariel._
All prisoners, sir,
In the Line-grove which weather-fends your cell.
_Tempest_, act v, sc. 1 (9).
(2) _Prospero._
Come, hang them on this Line.
_Ibid._, act iv, sc. 1 (193).
(3) _Stephano._
Mistress Line, is not this my jerkin?
_Ibid._, act iv, sc. 1 (235).
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 which load 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.
FOOTNOTES:
[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'S _Pliny's Nat. Hist._
xvi. 14. The chapter is headed "Of the Line or Linden Tree."
LING.
_Gonzalo._
Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of
barren ground, Ling, Heath, brown Furze, anything.
_Tempest_, act i, sc. 1 (70).
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.
LOCUSTS.
_Iago._
The food that to him now is as luscious as Locusts, shall be
to him shortly as bitter as Coloquintida.
_Othello_, act i, sc. 3 (354).
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 cultivated for 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