TRE ROSEMARY 
83 
1 he rosemary (Rosmarinus) was formerly considered 
very ornamiental. Its silvery foliage often covered the 
walls of the garden, when the clipped yew and box stood 
upon the terrace. In the days of Elizabeth it grew all 
over the walls of the gardens of Hampton Court. It is 
now seen more frequently in the cottage garden than else- 
where, and is generally cultivated there on account of the 
excellence it imparts to the honey gathered from it. It 
was once believed to possess the power of improving the 
memory, and our forefathers employed it as a means of 
invigorating the miental faculties ; but it has now lost its 
repute. 
To these supposed medicinal virtues it may be attri- 
buted that rosemary was so long regarded as the emblem 
of remembrance. 
“ There’s rosemary for you — that’s for remembrance : 
I pray you, love, remember,” 
said the sad Ophelia ; and it was as an emblem of kindly 
thought that it was used both at the funeral and the mar- 
riage ceremony. Parkinson, in his “Garden of Flowers,” 
after having recounted the various uses of bay-leaves, as 
“ good both for the sick and sound, both for the living 
and the dead, and fit to crown or encircle, as with a gar- 
land, the heads of the living, and to sticke and decke 
forthe (forth) the bodies of the dead, so that from the 
cradle to the grave we have still use of it, we have still 
need of it,” goes on to say, “Rosemary is almost of as 
great use as bayes, as well for civil as physical purposes; 
for civil uses, as all doe know, at weddings, funerals, etc., 
to bestow among friends.” 
But it was not among the herbalists and apothecaries 
merely that rosemary had its reputation for peculiar vir- 
tues. The celebrated doctor of divinity, Roger Flacket, 
did not disdain to expatiate on its excellencies in the 
pulpit. In a sermon which he entitles “ A Marriage Pre- 
sent,” and which was published in 1607, the following 
curious remarks occur. Speaking of the powers of rose- 
mary, he says, “ it overtoppeth all the flowers in the 
garden, boasting man’s rule. It helpeth the brain, 
strengtheneth the memorie, and is very medicineable for 
