PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE 
23 
(12) Our fraughtage, Sir, 
I have conveyed aboard, and I have bought 
The oil, the Balsamum, and aqua vitae. 
Comedy of Errors, iv. 1, 187. 
(13) Is this the Balsam that the usuring Senate 
Pours into captains’ wounds?— Timon of Athens, iii. 5, no. 
(14) Sleep that knits up the ravell’d sleave of care, 
The death of each day’s life, sore labour’s bath, 
Balm of hurt minds, great Nature’s second course, 
Chief nourisher in life’s feast.— Macbeth, ii. 2, 37. 
(15) The several chairs of order look you scour 
With juice of Balm and every precious flower. 
Merry l Vines, v. 5, 65. 
(16) As sweet as Balm, as soft as air, as gentle. 
Antony and C/cofatra, v. 2, 314. 
(17) And trembling in her passion, calls it Balm, 
Earth’s sovereign salve to do a goddess good. 
Venus and Adonis, 27. 
(18) And drop sweet Balm in Priam’s painted wound. 
Luc-recc, 1466. 
(19) With the drops of this most balmy time 
My love looks fresh.— Sonnet cvii. 
In all these passages, except the two last, the reference is to 
the Balm or Balsam which was imported from the East, from 
very early times, and was highly valued for its curative pro¬ 
perties. The origin of Balsam was for a long time a secret, 
but it is now known to have been the produce of several gum¬ 
bearing trees, especially the Pistacia lentiscus and the Balsamo- 
dendron Gileadense; and now, as then, the name is not strictly 
confined to the produce of any one plant. But in Nos. 15 and 
16 the reference is no doubt to the Sweet Balm of the English 
gardens (.Melissa officinalis), a plant highly prized by our 
ancestors for its medicinal qualities (now known to be of little 
value), and still valued for its pleasant scent and its high value 
as a bee plant, which is shown by its old Greek and Latin 
flames, Melissa, Mellissophyllum, and Apiastrum. The Bastard 
