186 LEGUMINOS^ 



enemies from taking refuge in the wars ; and with the woods would go the 

 woodland sorrel. 



We confess that we incline to the opinion that one of the Trefoils is the 

 true Shami'ock, nor do we believe it possible to infer which particular species 

 was selected. Men of those days were no botanists ; one triple leaf was the 

 same to them as another ; nor by the middle of March are the leaves of any 

 of the Clovers sufficiently developed for any but an accurate observer to 

 decide the species to which they belong. Wood-sorrel may or may not have 

 been a common Irish plant, but Trefoil leaves abound by eveiy wayside. 

 Nor can we attach any importance to an argument inferring that the Sham- 

 rock was the wood-sorrel, because it was eaten, since the Clover leaves have, 

 in various times and countries, been used as food ; and a starving man would 

 find as much nutriment in them as in the wood-sorrel. Whatever the plant 

 might be, it appears to have been eaten. In Wyther's " Abuses stript and 

 whipt," published in 1613, we find this couplet : — 



"And for my cloathing in a mantle go, 

 And feed on Shamroots as the Irish doe ;" 



and Spenser, in his "View of the State of Ireland," published 1596, speaking 

 of "these late warres of Mounster," says that it was before "a most rich and 

 plentifull countrey, full of corne and cattle," but that the inhabitants were 

 now reduced to so much distress, that if they found " a plot of water-cresses 

 or Shamrocks, there they flocked as to a feast for the time." 



Many of us have in childhood looked diligently among the grasses of the 

 meadow to find "a four-leaved Shamrock," though we know from experience 

 that such Shamrocks are not plentiful. The child, Avho hopes to gain good 

 fortune by finding it, knows not that he is acting upon an old superstition. 

 Melton in his " Astrologaster," says, that "If a man walking in the fields 

 finds any four-leaved grass, he shall, in a short while after, finde some good 

 thing." In Herrick's "Hesperides," too, we find a slight allusion to this : — 



" Glide by the ranks of virgins then and passe 

 The shoures of roses, lucky four-leaved grasse ; 

 The while the crowds of younglings sing, 

 And drown ye with a flourie spring." 



Our fathers tell how the Clover "was not only good for cattle, but 

 noisome to witches "; and in those dark days, when every lonely woman was 

 deemed a witch, the Trefoil was prized as a protection, not alone by the 

 peasant, but by the soldier and philosopher : — 



** Woe, woe to the wight, who meets the green knight, 

 Except on his faulchion arm, 

 Sjaell-proof, he hear, like the brave St. Clair, 

 The holy Trefoil's charm." 



We wonder not that its old associations endear to an imaginative and warm- 

 hearted people, like the Irish, the badge of their nation. It is not difficult 

 to sympathize with the feelings expressed by an Irish lady, in a little poem 

 written on the Shamrock for this work : — 



