PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE 
183 
The following passage from Coles, in 1657, will illustrate No. 
1 : “ In Gloucestershire about Teuxbury they grind Mustard 
and make it into balls which are brought to London and other 
remote places as being the best that the world affords.” These 
Mustard balls were the form in which Mustard was usually 
sold, until Mrs. Clements, of Durham, in the last century, 
invented the method of dressing mustard-flour, like wheat- 
flour, and made her fortune with Durham Mustard; and it 
has been supposed that this was the only form in which 
Mustard was sold in Shakespeare’s time, and that it was eaten 
dry as we eat pepper. But the following from an Anglo-Saxon 
Leech-book seems to speak of it as used exactly in the modern 
fashion. After mentioning several ingredients in a recipe for 
want of appetite for meat, it says: “Triturate all together—■ 
eke out with vinegar as may seem fit to thee, so that it may 
be wrought into the form in which Mustard is tempered for 
flavouring, put it then into a glass vessel, and then with bread, 
or with whatever meat thou choose, lap it with a spoon, that 
will help” (“Leech Book,” ii. 5, Cockayne’s translation). And 
Parkinson’s account is to the same effect: “ The seeds hereof, 
ground between two stones, fitted for the purpose, and called 
a quern, with some good vinegar added to it to make it liquid 
and running, is that kind of Mustard that is usually made of 
all sorts to serve as sauce both for fish and flesh.” And to the 
same effect the “ Boke of Nurture ”— 
“Yet make moche of Mustard, and put it not away, 
For with every dische he is dewest who so lust to assay.”—L. 853. 
/i&Hltic, 
(1) I was of late as petty to his ends 
As is the morn-dew on the Myrtle-leaf 
To his grand sea .—Antony and Cleopatra , iii. 12, 8. 
(2) Merciful Heaven, 
Thou rather with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt 
Split’st the unwedgeable and gnarled Oak 
Than the soft Myrtle .—Measure for Measure , ii. 2, 114. 
