The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare
greenhouse Ferns; but for the most part, the Mosses must be studied in
their native haunts, and when so studied, they are found to be full of
beauty and of wonderful construction. Nor are they without use, and it
is rather strange that Shakespeare should have so markedly called them
"idle," or useless, considering that in his day many medical virtues
were attributed to them. This reputation for medical virtues they have
now all lost, except the Iceland Moss, which is still in use for
invalids; but the Mosses have other uses. The Reindeer Moss (_Cladonia
rangiferina_) and Roch-hair (_Alectoria jubata_) are indispensable to
the Laplander as food for his reindeer, and Usnea florida is used in
North America as food for cattle; the Iceland Moss (_Cetraria
Islandica_) is equally indispensable as an article of food to all the
inhabitants of the extreme North; and the Tripe de la Roche (_Gyrophora
cylindrica_) has furnished food to the Arctic explorers when no other
food could be obtained; while many dyes are produced from the Lichens,
especially the Cudbear (a most discordant corruption of the name of the
discoverer, Mr. Cuthbert), which is the produce of the Rock Moss
(_Lecanora tartarea_). So that even to us the Mosses have their uses,
even if they do not reach the uses that they have in North Sweden,
where, according to Miss Bremer, "the forest, which is the countryman's
workshop, is his storehouse, too. With the various Lichens that grow
upon the trees and rocks, he cures the virulent diseases with which he
is sometimes afflicted, dyes the articles of clothes which he wears, and
poisons the noxious and dangerous animals which annoy him."
As to the beauty of Mosses and Lichens we have only to ask any
artist or go into any exhibition of pictures. Their great beauty
has been so lovingly described by Ruskin ("Modern Painters"), that
no one can venture to do more than quote his description. It is well
known to many, but none will regret having it called to their
remembrance--"placuit semel--decies repetita placebit"--space, however,
will oblige me somewhat to curtail it. "Meek creatures! the first mercy
of the earth, veiling with hushed softness its dentless rocks: creatures
full of pity, covering with strange and tender honour the sacred
disgrace of ruin, laying quiet fingers on the trembling stones to teach
them rest. No words that I know of will say what these Mosses are; none
are delicate enough, none perfect enough, none rich enough.. . . . They
will not be gathered like the flowers for chaplet or love token; but of
these the wild bird will make its nest and the wearied child its pillow,
and as the earth's first mercy so they are its last gift to us. When all
other service is vain from plant and tree, the soft Mosses and grey
Lichens take up their watch by the headstone. The woods, the blossoms,
the gift-bearing Grasses have done their parts for a time, but these do
service for ever. Trees for the builder's yard, flowers for the bride's
chamber, Corn for the granary, Moss for the grave."
FOOTNOTES:
[164:1] There may be special appropriateness in the selection of the
"furr'd Moss" to "winter-ground thy corse." "The final duty of Mosses is
to die; the main work of other leaves is in their life, but these have
to form the earth, out of which other leaves are to grow."--RUSKIN,
_Proserpina_, p. 20.
MULBERRIES.
(1) _Titania._
Feed him with Apricocks and Dewberries,
With purple Grapes, green Figs, and Mulberries.
_Midsummer Night's Dream_, act iii, sc. 1 (169).
(2) _Volumnia._
Thy stout heart,
Now humble as the ripest Mulberry
That will not bear the handling.
_Coriolanus_, act iii, sc. 2 (78).
(3) _Prologue._
Thisby tarrying in Mulberry shade.
_Midsummer Night's Dream_, act v, sc. 1 (149).
(4) _Wooer._
Palamon is gone
Is gone to the wood to gather Mulberries.
_Two Noble Kinsmen_, act iv, sc. 1 (87).
(5)
The birds would bring him Mulberries and ripe-red Cherries.
_Venus and Adonis_ (1103).
(_See_ CHERRIES.)
We do not know when the Mulberry, which is an Eastern tree, was
introduced into England, but probably very early. We find in Archbishop
Ælfric's "Vocabulary," "morus vel rubus, mor-beam," but it is doubtful
whether that applies to the Mulberry or Blackberry, as in the same
catalogue Blackberries are mentioned as "flavi vel mori, blace-berian."
There is no doubt that Morum was a Blackberry as well as a Mulberry in
classical times. Our Mulberry is probably the fruit mentioned by
Horace--
"Ille salubres
Æstates peraget, qui nigris prandia Moris
Finiet ante gravem quæ legerit arbore solem."
_Sat._ ii, 4, 24.
And it certainly is the fruit mentioned by Ovid--
"In duris hærentia mora rubetis."
_Metam._, i, 105.
In the Dictionarius of John de Garlande (thirteenth century)[167:1] we
find, "Hec sunt nomina silvestrium arborum, qui sunt in luco magistri
Johannis; quercus cum fago, pinus cum lauro, celsus gerens celsa;" and
Mr. Wright translates "celsa" by "Mulberries," without, however, giving
his authority for this translation.[167:2] But whenever introduced, it
had been long established in England in Shakespeare's time.
It must have been a common tree even in Anglo-Saxon times, for the
favourite drink, Morat, was a compound of honey flavoured with
Mulberries (Turner's "Anglo-Saxons").[167:3] Spenser spoke of it--
"With love juice stained the Mulberie,
The fruit that dewes the poet's braine."
_Elegy_, 18.
Gerard describes it as "high and full of boughes," and growing in sundry
gardens in England, and he grew in his own London garden both the Black
and the White Mulberry. Lyte also, before Gerard, describes it and says:
"It is called in the fayning of Poetes the wisest of all other trees,
for this tree only among all others bringeth forth his leaves after the
cold frostes be past;" and the Mulberry Garden, often mentioned by the
old dramatists, "occupied the site of the present Buckingham Palace and
Gardens, and derived its name from a garden of Mulberry trees planted by
King James I. in 1609, in which year 935_l._ was expended by the king in
the planting of Mulberry trees near the Palace of Westminster."[168:1]
As an ornamental tree for any garden, the Mulberry needs no
recommendation, being equally handsome in shape, in foliage, and in
fruit. It is a much prized ornament in all old gardens, so that it has
been well said that an old Mulberry tree on the lawn is a patent of
nobility to any garden; and it is most easy of cultivation; it will bear
removal when of a considerable size, and so easily can it be propagated
from cuttings that a story is told of Mr. Payne Knight that he cut large
branches from a Mulberry tree to make standards for his clothes-lines,
and that each standard took root, and became a flourishing Mulberry
tree.
Though most of us only know of the common White or Black Mulberry, yet,
where it is grown for silk culture (as it is now proposed to grow it in
England, with a promised profit of from £70 to £100 per acre for the
silk, and an additional profit of from £100 to £500 per acre from the
grain (eggs)!!), great attention is paid to the different varieties; so
that M. de Quatrefuges briefly describes six kinds cultivated in one
valley in France, and Royle remarks, "so many varieties have been
produced by cultivation that it is difficult to ascertain whether they
all belong to one species; they are," as he adds, "nearly as numerous as
those of the silkworm" (Darwin).
We have good proof of Shakespeare's admiration of the Mulberry in the
celebrated Shakespeare Mulberry growing in his garden at New Place at
Stratford-on-Avon. "That Shakespeare planted this tree is as well
authenticated as anything of that nature can be, . . . and till this was
planted there was no Mulberry tree in the neighbourhood. The tree was
celebrated in many a poem, one especially by Dibdin, but about 1752,
the then owner of New Place, the Rev. Mr. Gastrell, bought and pulled
down the house, and wishing, as it should seem, to be 'damned to
everlasting fame,' he had some time before cut down Shakespeare's
celebrated Mulberry tree, to save himself the trouble of showing it to
those whose admiration of our great poet led them to visit the poetick
ground on which it stood."--MALONE. The pieces were made into many
snuff-boxes[169:1] and other mementoes of the tree.
"The Mulberry tree was hung with blooming wreaths;
The Mulberry tree stood centre of the dance;
The Mulberry tree was hymn'd with dulcet strains;
And from his touchwood trunk the Mulberry tree
Supplied such relics as devotion holds
Still sacred, and preserves with pious care."
COWPER, _Task_, book vi.
FOOTNOTES:
[167:1] The Dictionarius of John de Garlande is published in Wright's
"Vocabularies." His garden was probably in the neighbourhood of Paris,
but he was a thorough Englishman, and there is little doubt that his
description of a garden was drawn as much from his English as from his
French experience.
[167:2] The authority may be in the "Promptorium Parvulorum:" "Mulberry,
Morum (selsus)."
[167:3] "Moratum potionis genus, f. ex vino et moris dilutis
confectæ."--_Glossarium Adelung._
[168:1] Cunningham's "Handbook of London," p. 346, with many quotations
from the old dramatists.
[169:1] Some of these snuff-boxes were inscribed with the punning motto
"Memento Mori."
MUSHROOMS.
(1) _Prospero._
You demi-puppets, that
By moonshine do the greensour ringlets make,
Whereof the ewe not bites, and you whose pastime
Is to make midnight Mushrooms.
_Tempest_, act v, sc. 1 (36).
(2) _Fairy._
I do wander everywhere.
Swifter than the moon's sphere;
And I serve the fairy queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green.
_Midsummer Night's Dream_, act ii, sc. 1 (6).
(3) _Quickly._
And nightly, meadow-fairies, look you sing,
Like to the Garter's compass, in a ring:
The expressure that it bears, green let it be,
More fertile-fresh than all the field to see.
_Merry Wives_, act v, sc. 5 (69).
(4) _Ajax._
Toadstool, learn me the proclamation.
_Troilus and Cressida_, act ii, sc. 1 (22).
The three first passages, besides the notice of the Mushroom, contain
also the notice of the fairy-rings, which are formed by fungi, though
probably Shakespeare knew little of this. No. 4 names the Toadstool, and
the four passages together contain the whole of Shakespeare's fungology,
and it is little to be wondered at that he has not more to say on these
curious plants. In his time "Mushrumes or Toadstooles" (they were all
classed together) were looked on with very suspicious eyes, though they
were so much eaten that we frequently find in the old herbals certain
remedies against "a surfeit of Mushrooms." Why they should have been
connected with toads has never been explained, but it was always so--
"The grieslie Todestoole growne there mought I see,
And loathed paddocks lording on the same."--SPENSER.
They were associated with other loathsome objects besides toads, for