The Humble-bee. 
413 
Did not go forth of us, ’twere all alike 
As if we had them not. Spirits are not finely touch'd 
But to fine issues.” 
(Measure for Measure , i. 1, 33.) 
Honey was used in England in the manufacture of ale ? 
and by the Scandinavians in the production of mead, 
their favourite beverage. It is said that the word honey¬ 
moon had its origin in the northern custom of drinking 
honey-wine, hydromel , for thirty days after marriage. 
The humble-bee is noticed more than once by Shak- 
speare. Titania bids her fairy train be kind and courteous- 
to her hairy love :— 
“ Feed him with apricocks and dewberries, 
With purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries ; 
The honey-bags steal from the humble-bees, 
And for night-tapers crop their waxen thighs.” 
(Midsummer Night's Dream, iii. 1, 168.) 
Bottom accordingly sends one of his attendant sprites on 
the following errand :— 
“ Mounsieur Cobweb, good mounsieur, get you your weapons in your 
hand, and kill me a red-hipped humble-bee on the top of a thistle ; 
and good mounsieur, bring me the honey-bag. Do not fret yourself too 
much in the action, mounsieur; and, good mounsieur, have a care the 
honey-bag break not; I would be loath to have you overflown with a 
honey-bag, signior.” (iv. 1, 10.) 
John Day wrote an allegorical masque, The Parliament 
of Bees , which was printed about the year 1607. Mr. 
A. H. Bullen, who, in 1881, edited the works of Day, is 
enthusiastic in his admiration of this composition. 
“ The Parliament of Bees," he writes, “ assuredly deserved to have 
been acted; for a daintier sample of exquisite workmanship in this 
form of writing could hardly be found. . . . But hear Charles Lamb, 
the truest and subtlest of all critics :— 
{ The doings, 
The births, the wars, the wooings, 
of these pretty little winged creatures are with continued liveliness 
portrayed throughout the whole of this curious old drama, in words 
