PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE 
33 
So£. 
Get ye all three into the Box tree. 
Twelfth Night , ii. 5 ? 18. 
The Box Is a native British tree, and in the sixteenth century 
was probably much more abundant as a wild tree than it is 
now. Chaucer notes it as a dismal tree. He describes Palamon 
in his misery as— 
“ Like was he to byholde, 
The Boxe tree or the Asschen deed and colde.” 
The Knightes Tale » 
Spenser noted it as “ The Box yet mindful of his olde offence,” 
and in Shakespeare’s time there were probably more woods of 
Box in England than the two which still remain at Box Hill, 
in Surrey, and Boxwell, in Gloucestershire. The name remains, 
though the trees are gone, in Box in Wilts, Boxgrove, Boxley, 
Boxmoor, Boxted, and Boxworth. 1 From its wild quarters the 
Box tree was very early brought into gardens, and was especially 
valued, not only for its rich evergreen colour, but because, 
with the Yew, it could be cut and tortured into all the ungainly 
shapes which so delighted our ancestors in Shakespeare’s time, 
though one of the most illustrious of them, Bacon, entered 
his protest against such barbarisms : “I, for my part, do not 
like images cut out in Juniper or other garden stuff; they be 
for children.” (“ Essay of Gardens.”) 
The chief use of the Box now is for blocks for wood-carving, 
for which its close grain makes it the most suitable of all 
woods. 2 
Bramble, see Blackberries. 
1 In Boxford, and perhaps in some of the other names, the word has 
no connection with the tree, but marks the presence of water or a stream. 
2 In some parts of Europe almost a sacred character is given to the Box. 
For a curious record of blessing the Box, and of a sermon on the lessons 
taught by the Box, see “Gardener’s Chronicle,” April 19, 1873. 
D 
