Stray Leaves from a Border Garden 
liked it in claret-cup, since it professes to “ cheer the Heart 
and expell Melancholy.” I have Lavender in many places, 
in little hedges. I love it so S There is a little garden-path by 
a Violet-bed, bordered with red tiles, with a tiny Lavender 
and Rosemary hedge on either side of it, close to a row of 
white Valerian — Rosmarine, as Spenser calls it. Rosmarine, 
which means “ the flower that loves the seaspray,” was a 
favourite flower in old love-charms, and baths of Rosemary- 
water were supposed to keep people young. It used to be 
made into a tea by old wives, and considered a fine remedy 
in some illnesses. It was sometimes called “ Old Man,” 
but why I do not know. In Sicily ’tis said the Fairies 
love it, and the young Fairies, disguised as snakes, hide in its 
branches. It used sometimes to be grown as a climber. I 
think I must try this. Hentzner writes in 1598 he saw it 
grown thus at Hampton Court, but I do not remember 
it thus there. There is a quaint old saying that wherever 
Rosemary does well the Mistress rules. Here I have tried in 
vain to establish it ; there was none when I came here, and 
only now one small bush is growing. It is not so common 
in gardens as it used to be, probably because housewives no 
longer believe in its virtues as a preventive of moth in their 
wardrobes, whence its old name of Guardrobe, or because it 
is no longer in request for either bridals or burials. It was 
mostly a death-flower, I think, in the eyes of old England, 
but was used also in love-charms. It is good as a hair- 
wash, and also pleasant to burn as a remedy against 
mosquitoes, but such wholesale use is only possible in the 
South of France, where it grows wild in abundance and be- 
comes almost a tree. An old French name for Rosemary was 
Incensier — Incensewort as it is sometimes called in the old 
Herbals. If Rosemary-flowers, says an old Herbalist, are taken 
all the while it is flowering, every morning fasting, along with 
bread and salt, they will clear dim eyesight. In Tuscany a 
sprig of Rosemary was supposed to avert th ejettatura or Evil 
Eye. This superstition of the evil eye seems widespread : 
in Scotland the expression is the “ ill e’e,” and the Devil is 
sometimes called the 111 Man ; while to bring bad luck on 
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