354. SHAKESPEARE’S NATURAL HISTORY. [worrs. 
Wuite Wormwood hath seed, get a handful or twain, 
To save against March, to make flea to refrain, 
Where chamber is sweeped, and Wormwood is strown, 
No flea for his life dare abide to be known. 
What savour is better, if physic be true, 
For places infected, than Wormwood and rue? 
It is as a comfort for heart, and the brain, 
And therefore to have it, it 1s not in vain. 
Tusser, “July’s Husbandry,” st. 10 and 11. 
Worts. 
Merry Wives or Winpsor, i. 1, 124. 
How to make long Worts :—Take a good quantity of 
coleworts, and seethe them in water whole a good while, 
then take the fattest of powdered beef-broth, and put it to 
the Worts, and let them seethe a good while after; then 
put them in a platter, and lay your powdered beef upon it. 
“The Good Huswife’s Handmaid,” p. 8, b. 
V. Cabbage. 
Wren. 
MacseTH, iv. 2, 9. 
Ir is much to be marvelled at the little bird called a 
Wren, being fastened to a little stick of hazel newly 
gathered, doth turn about and roast himself. 
Lupton, “Notable Things,” bk. vii. § 57. 
Yew. 
Macsery, iv. I, 27. 
A YEw-TREE is a tree with venom and poison, and is 
a strong tree and an high, with great boughs pliant and 
long ; such trees are burnt and bows made thereof. The 
shadow thereof is grievous, and slayeth such as sleep there- 
under. Bartholomew (Berthelet), bk. xvii. § 161. 
THE birds that eat the red berries either die or cast 
their feathers. Batman's addition to Bartholomew, loc. cit. 
_ [Gerard denies that the Yew-berries are poisonous, and that 
its shadow is dangerous; but to this day the Yew is held to 
be poisonous among country-folk.] 
