STBAWBEBKIES. 203 



permitted to doubt whether the conclusion thence drawn 

 be not somewhat questionable, that 



" Wholesome berries thrive and ripen best, 



Neighbour'd by fruits of baser quality." 



At least, we find that when removed by the farmer's wife, 

 probably rather for convenience sake than with any view 

 to cultivation, then little thought of, it was in far other 

 company that they grew ; for, speaking of their arrange- 

 ment when thus transplanted to the garden, Tusser says 

 that 



" The gooseberry, respis, and roses all three, 

 With strawberries under them fitly agree." 



And when we reach those most famous fruits, preserved 

 even unto immortality by Shakespeare in the scene taken 

 almost literally from the chronicle of Hollingshead, 

 wherein the despotic usurper Kichard tells the bishop, 



" My Lord of Ely, when I was last in Holborn, 

 I saw good strawberries in your garden there," 



we find that at least the loveliest of the three com- 

 panions assigned them by Tusser was still associated with 

 them, for this said garden at Ely Place was famed for its 

 roses as for its strawberries. 



In 1593, Thomas Hyle informs us that strawberries " be 

 much eaten at allmen's tables in the summer, and they grow 

 in gardens unto the bigness of a mulberry ; " nor was open 

 garden cultivation found in England to deteriorate their 

 quality, while thus materially increasing their magnitude 

 from the mere currant-sized growth of the shady woods. 

 A naturally larger kind, too, was introduced before long ; 

 for Parkinson, in 1624, speaks of the " Scarlet," the native 

 Wild Strawberry of North America, then already common 

 in this country, and still valued by gardeners as being the 

 earliest to bear fruit unforced, and by confectioners as 

 making the finest car mine- coloured preserve. He mentions 

 also, as the only other kind then known, a " Bohemian" 

 Strawberry, considered to be identical with the Haut- 

 T)ois of the present day, which is believed to have been 



