HERBS USED IN DECORATIONS, ETC. 143 



1629, at Padua, before a great pestilence broke out, 

 almost all the Bay-trees about that famous University 

 grew sick and perished. 



Sir Thomas Browne deals with another belief: " That 

 bays will protect from the mischief of lightning and 

 thunder is a quality ascribed thereto, common with the 

 fig-tree, eagle and skin of a seal. Against so famous a 

 quality Vicomeratus produceth experiment of a bay-tree 

 blasted in Italy. And, therefore, although Tiberius 

 for this intent did wear laurel upon his temples, yet did 

 Augustus take a more probable course, who fled under 

 arches and hollow vaults for protection." Sir Thomas 

 is very logical. 



It is not always clear when Laurel and when Bay is 

 intended, because our Bay-tree was often called Laurel 

 in Elizabethan days. For instance : — 



And when from Daphne's tree he plucks more Baies, 

 His shepherd's pipe may chant more heavenly lays. 



Intro, to £r. Pastorals by Christopher Brooke. 



If one is airily told one may pluck bays from a laurel 

 bush, it is impossible to know which is really meant, and 

 a certain confusion between the two is inevitable. William 

 Browne, who took, or pretended to take, seriously the 

 view that bays could not be hurt by thunder, brings 

 forward an ingenious theory to account for it. It is 

 that " being the materials of poets ghirlands, it is 

 supposed not subject to any of Jupiter's thunderbolts, 

 as other trees are. 



" Where Bayes still grow (by thunder not struck down), 

 The victor's garland and the poet's crown." 



Besides being a prophet of evil, the Bay-tree was also 

 a token of joy and triumph. " In Rome, they use it to 

 trim up their Churches and Monasteries on Solemn Festivals 

 ... as also on occasion of Signal Victories and other joy- 

 ful Tidings ; and these Garlands made up with Hobby- 



