Evans. Pauca verba, Sir John; good worts. 
Falstaff. Good worts! good Cabbage .—Merry Wives, i. i, 123. 
ABBAGE in Shakespeare’s time was essentially 
the same as in our own, and from the con¬ 
temporary accounts it seems that the sorts 
cultivated were as good and as numerous as 
they are now. 1 The history of the name is 
rather curious. It comes to us from the 
French Chou cab us, which is the French corruption of Caul is 
capitatus , the name by which Pliny described it. 
The cultivated Cabbage is the same specifically as the wild 
Cabbage of our sea-shores (Brassica oleracea ) improved by 
cultivation. Within the last few years the Cabbage has been 
brought from the kitchen-garden into the flower-garden on 
account of the beautiful variegation of its leaves. This, how¬ 
ever, is no novelty, for Parkinson said of the many sorts of 
Cabbage in his day: “ There is greater diversity in the form 
and colour of the leaves of this plant than there is in any other 
that I know groweth on the ground. . . . Many of them being 
of no use with us for the table, but for delight to behold the 
wonderful variety of the works of God herein.” 
1 The cabbage was introduced about 1570. See Evelyn’s “Acetaria,” 
s. 13. 
