THE WOOUSORREL. 55 



is doubtless correct ; for while there is little ground 

 for asserting that the ancient shamrock of Ireland 

 was any other plant than the woodsorrel, with its 

 emerald green leaves, there is, reason to believe 

 that at an early period the name of shamrock 

 originally shamroot* came to be applied as a 

 kind of generic name to various plants of a like 

 character. The emblem of Ireland being, in fact, 

 simply a trefoiled plant, when we find, in the older 

 writers, references to the trefoil, we are not to con- 

 sider it as an allusion merely to the clover, which 

 we designate by that name ; for that the earliest 

 shamrock was the sorrel the most conspicuous of 

 our trefoiled plants is shewn, in addition to other 

 evidence, by its being an article of food. Thus Piers 

 says, in speaking of the spring time in Ireland, " for 

 then milk becomes plenty, and butter, and new 

 cheese, and curds, and shamrocks, are the food of the 

 meaner sort all this season ;"( and Wither, in his 

 "Abuses Stript and Whipt," written in 1613, says, 



" Aiid for my cloathing in a mantle goe, 

 And feed on shamroots as the Irish doe." 



Spenser too declares that, fc if they found a plot of 

 water-cresses, or of shamrocks, there they flocked as 

 to a feast." 



The trefoiled leaf has been in all ages regarded 

 with great reverence, and more especially when it 

 departs from its usual form, and is found (a very 

 rare occurrence) with four leaflets. The happy 



* It is singular that ShamrooJch in Arabic signifies a club, 

 or shillelah. 

 t In Vallency. " Collectanea de rebus Hibernicis." 



