72 SWEET-BRIAR IN LITERATURE 



one, yet one would have to go far back in our litera- 

 ture to find its characteristic expression even to 

 a time when possibly the sense of smell was more 

 acute in our race and flower-fragrance more delightful 

 than they are to us. Shakespeare has it : 



The leaf of eglantine which not to slander 

 Outsweetens not your breath. 



How beautifully expressed ! Not to slander the 

 scented leaf ! Yet we know that it is a sweeter, richer 

 fragrance than the love-odour of a woman's breath; 

 this is like the heifer's breath, which smells of milk 

 and new-mown hay, combined with a fragrance most 

 like the delicate scent of red clover, but it is made 

 sweeter than all essential oils from leaf and flower 

 by love and passion. 



However, I prefer my favourite Chaucer: 



And I, that all this pleasant sighte see, 

 Thought sodainlie, I felt so sweet an aire 

 Come of the eglantere, that cirtainlie 

 There is no hert, I deem, in such dispaire, 

 Ne with no thoughtes froward and contraire 

 So overlaid, but it should soon have bote 

 If it but once did smell that savour sote. 



Or to put it in plain prose : " Is there a man on earth 

 in such despair, so overloaded with cares and mad- 

 dened with anxious thoughts, who would not find 

 instant relief and forgetfulness of all his miseries on 

 inhaling this delicious fragrance of the sweet-briar ? 



And I would ask: Is it conceivable that any poet 

 of this time (and I believe that the number of those 

 now living in this country exceeds a hundred) could 

 have such a thought, or having it, would dare to put 



