"HERBS OF GRACE" 243 



more usually increased by slipping, or dividing, the 

 root and new setting it, severally again in the Spring, 

 than by sowing the seed." 



IV 



Sweet Balm and Camomile 



SWEET BALM (Melissa officinalis). Sweet 

 Anne Page commanded the elves to bestow good 

 luck throughout Windsor Castle : * 



The several chairs of order look you scour 

 With juice of balm and every precious flower. 



The Greek and Latin names, melissa, mellis- 

 sophyllum, and apiastrum, show that this was a bee- 

 plant, which was still the case in Shakespeare's time. 



"It is an herb," says Parkinson, "wherein bees do 

 much delight"; and he also tells us that if balm 

 is rubbed on the inside of the hive "it draweth others 

 to resort thither." He goes on to describe it as fol- 

 lows: 



"The Garden Balm hath divers square blackish 

 green stalks and round, hard, dark, green pointed 

 leaves growing thereon by couples, a little notched 

 about the edges; of a pleasant sweet scent drawing 

 near to the scent of a Lemon or Citron; and there- 



"The Merry Wives of Windsor"; Act V, Scene V. 



