1866,] REPORT ON VEGETABLES. 17 



Thouo-h we cannot now engage in that enquiry, we may be amused for a 

 moment in the recollection that the great dramatist testifies incidentally to the 

 gardens of the days of " the good Queen Bess," and enables us to know some- 

 thing of the green groceries which blessed the house-wives of that age. Indeed 

 the poet's cuisine was well furnished, as Bardolph's nose afforded fire enough to 

 cook anything, though it could be tempered down to " do the office of a warming- 

 pan." 



Leeks, garlic and onions were accepted as equally piquant for appetite, and 

 ready terms to point a jest. 



Bottom advises his " most dear actors " at rehearsal, to " eat no onions nor 

 garlic, for we are to utter sweet breath." 



Lafeu says, " mine eyes smell onions, I shall weep anon." Another 

 character slanders the fair saying : — 



" And if the boy have not a woman's gift 



To rain a shower of commanded tears, 

 An onion will do well for such a shift ; 



Which in a napkin being close conveyed, 

 Shall in despite enforce a watery eye." 



Enobarbus was '' onion-eyed," at the reverses of his master, Antony. The 

 dubious tribute was paid to a lover's eyes, that they were "green as leeks." 



The Welsh wore leeks in their caps on Saint Davy's day, as an honorable 

 badge of military service in a French war, and Henry 5th was proud to observe 

 the custom. For this custom, his Welsh general Fluellen, is insulted by Pistol, 

 the bully, and the latter comes to grief, being required by Fluellen to eat a leek 

 because it is repulsive. Fluellen cudgels the rogue for sauce, declares he will 

 beat his pate four days, and compels him to eat the leek, skin and all ; and 

 then degrades him to a beggar, by forcing him to accept a groat to heal his pate, 

 on pain of eating another leek, and being cudgelled again till he is converted 

 into a small wood merchant. 



Bottom attributed to mustard an ironical virtue of paiience, and observed to 

 master mustard seed that his kindred had made his eyes water. To peas- 

 blossora he says, " 1 pray you commend me to mistress* squash, your mother, 

 and to master peas-cod your father." 



Viola disguised in man's attire appeared, '' not yet old enough for a man nor 

 young enough for a boy ; as a squash is before 'tis a peas-cod, or a codling 

 when 'tis almost an apple." 



A Yankee house-wife would hardly use a watery pumpkin, but Mistress Ford 

 says, however in another sense, " We'll use this unwholesome humidity, this 

 gross watery pumpion." 



Falstaff liked good cabbage better than good words ill spoken. He says, " if 

 I have not fought with fifty of them I am a bunch of radish." 



Bioudello tells the apochryphal story that he " knew a wench married in an 

 afternoon as she went to the garden for parsley to stuff a rabbit." 



*The word squash signified an immature pod of peas. 



