Shamrock of Ireland. 457 



And again, p. 31 



Thus hotly they pursued the scent, 

 Cramming their gorges as they went ; 

 Until they crept the very weed, 

 Where every day they used to feed. 

 Nees, when the shamrog he did spye, 

 Cries out, I have it in my eye, 

 Is vid me fait. And so he run, 

 To bring the presents to the nun. 



My next quotation shall be from Fynnes Morrison, who 

 went over to Ireland, in 1598, with the Lord-Deputy Mount- 

 joy, to quell the Earl of Tyrone's rebellion ; by which it will 

 appear that the shamrock was not only eaten, but that it was 

 a sour plant. It may also be inferred, as it was eaten after 

 the winter stock of provisions, that it was a spring plant. 

 ( Yea, the wilde Irish in time of greatest peace impute covet- 

 ousnesse^ and base birth to him, that hath any corn after 

 Christmas, as if it were a point of nobility to consume all 

 within those festival dayes. They willingly eate the hearbe 

 shamrocke, being of a sharp taste, which, as they run and are 

 chased to and fro, they snatch like beastes out of the ditches.' 



If the shamrock should be proved, by a more diligent search 

 into the old authorities, to have been a wood plant, this cir- 

 cumstance would materially corroborate the view I have taken, 

 as the Trifolium repens is never found in such situations. 

 The only authority for the fact, I have yet discovered, has 

 been pointed out to me by my friend, Mr. E. T. Bennett, in 

 the Irish Hudibras, where the plant is twice mentioned as 

 being found in a wood : 



Within a wood, near to this place, 

 There grows a bunch of three-leaved grass, 

 Call'd by the boglanders sham rogues, 

 A present for the queen of shoges (spirits). 



p. 23, and again at p. 30. 



Nor is it difficult to account for the substitution of the one 

 plant for the other. Cultivation, which brought in the trefoil, 

 drove out the wood-sorrel. The latter, though now not com- 

 mon, was, doubtless, an abundant plant as long as the woods 

 remained ; but these being cut down, partly by the natives to 

 supply their wants, and partly also by the government to pre- 

 vent their enemies from taking refuge in them in the wars, the 



