158 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IX ENGLAND. 



'' on her head a coronet of gold and precious stones, set full of 

 branches of rosemary." At a rustic wedding witnessed by Queen 

 Elizabeth at Kenilworth, " each wight had a branch of green 

 broom tied on his left arm (for that side is near the heart) 

 because rosemary was scant there." 



" Down with the rosemary and bays, 

 Down with the mistletoe ; — 

 Instead of Holly, now upraise 

 The greener box, for show. 

 * * * 



When yew is out and birch comes in, 



And many flowers beside 

 Both of a fresh and frag-rant kin 



To honour Whitsuntide. 

 Green rushes then, and sweetest bents* 



With cooler open boughs. 

 Come in for comely ornaments 



To re-adorn the house." 



Herrick, Candlemas Eve. 



Parkinson again refers to the flowers in houses when writing 

 about wall-flowers. " The sweetness of the flowers," he says, 

 " causeth them to be generally used in nosegay es and to deck 

 up houses." The " greater flag " was also used for the same 

 purpose. Plants were grown in rooms also, and Piatt gives a 

 long paragraph with suggestions of the best plants to grow, and 

 tells how to water them, and give them air and light. Window 

 boxes, too, were used : " In every window you may make 

 square frames either of lead or of boards well pitched within ; 

 fill them with some rich earth, and plant such flowers or hearbs 

 therein as you like best." For the more shady parts of a room 

 he advises rosemary, sweet briar, bay, or germander. And 

 "in summer-time," he continues, "your chimney may be 

 trimed with a fine bank of mosse, ... or with orpin, or the 

 white flower called 'everlasting.' And at either end one of 

 your flower or Rosemary pots. . . . You may also hang in the 

 roof and about the sides of the room small pompions or 

 cowcumbers pricked full of Barley. . . You may also plant vines 

 without the walls, which being let in at some quarrels, may 

 run about the sides of your windows, and all over the sealing of 



* A sort of grass. {Agrostis.) 



