118 THE OLD ENGLISH HERBALS 



dates in the open ! "of the which," Gerard tells us (in no wise 

 downcast by his numerous failures), " I have planted many 

 times in my garden and have growne to the height of three foot, 

 but the frost hath nipped them in such sort that soone after they 

 perished, notwithstanding my industrie by covering them, or 

 what else I could do for their succour." And does it not make 

 one feel as eager as Gerard himself when one finds, under water- 

 mallows, that, though exotic plants, " at the impression hereof 

 I have sowen some seeds of them in my garden, expecting the 

 successe." The mere catalogue of the plants in Gerard's own 

 wonderful garden fills a small book, and scattered through the 

 Herbal we find numerous references to it, unfortunately too 

 lengthy to quote here. 



One likes to think that Shakespeare must have seen this 

 garden, for we know that at least for a time he lived in the 

 vicinity. In those days two such prominent men could scarcely 

 have failed to know one another. 1 As Canon Ellacombe has 

 pointed out, Shakespeare's writings are full of the old English 

 herb lore. In this use of plant lore, which was traditional rather 

 than literary, he is curiously distinct from his contemporaries. 

 Outside the herbals there is more old English herb lore to be 

 found in Shakespeare than in any other writer. It is, in fact, 

 incredible that the man whose own works are so redolent of the 

 fields and hedgerows of his native Warwickshire, did not visit 

 the garden of the most famous herbalist of his day. Perhaps 

 it was to Shakespeare that Gerard first told the sad tale of the 

 loss of his precious scammony of Syria, a tale which no one with 

 a gardener's heart can read without a pang of sympathy, even 



1 Shakespeare and Gerard were near neighbours during the time when the 

 former was writing many of his finest plays, for Shakespeare lived in the 

 house of a Huguenot refugee (Mountjoy by name) 1598-1604. This house 

 was at the corner of Mugwell Street (now Monkswell Street) and Silver Street, 

 very near the site of the ancient palace of King Athelstan in Saxon days. 

 Almost opposite Mount joy's house was the Barber-Surgeons' Hall. Aggers' 

 Map (circ. 1560) with pictures of the houses, gives an excellent idea of the 

 neighbourhood in those days. See also Leak's Map (1666). 



