PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE 
147 
is still, I believe, very largely cultivated; but it does not seem 
to have been much valued in England in Shakespeare’s time, 
for Gerard has but little to say of its virtues, but much of its 
“hurts.” “It hatJp the body, ingendreth naughty blood, 
causeth troublesome and terrible dreames, offendeth the eyes, 
dulleth the sight, &c.” Nor does Parkinson give a much more 
favourable account. “ Our dainty eye now refuseth them 
wholly, in all sorts except the poorest; they are used with 
us sometimes in Lent to make pottage, and is a great and 
generall feeding in Wales with the vulgar gentlemen.” It was 
even used as the proverbial expression of worthlessness, as in 
the “ Roumaunt of the Rose,” where the author says, speaking 
of “ Phiciciens and Advocates”— 
“For by her wille, without leese, 
Everi man shulde be seke, 
And though they die, they settle not a Leke,” 
And by Chaucer— 
“ And other suche, deare ynough a Leeke.” 
Prologue of the Chanoune s Tale. 
“ The beste song that ever was made 
Ys not worth a Leky’s blade, 
But men will tend ther tille .”—The Child of Bristowe. 
Xemoit. 
Biron. A Lemon. 
Longaville. Stuck with Cloves. 
Love's Labottr's Lost, v. 2, 654. 
See Orange and Cloves. 
