PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE 
201 
Bourbon. “In 1421 the Queen of Navarre gave the gardener 
the seed from Pampeluna; hence sprang the plant, which was 
subsequently transported to Chantilly. In 1532 the Orange 
tree was sent to Fontainebleau, whence, in 1684, Louis XIV. 
transferred it to Versailles, where it remained the largest, finest, 
and most fertile member of the Orangery, its head being 17 yds. 
round.” It is not likely that a tree of such beauty should be 
growing so near England without the English gardeners doing 
their utmost to establish it here. But the first certain record is 
generally said to be in 1595, when (on the authority of Bishop 
Gibson) Orange trees were planted at Beddington, in Surrey, 
the plants being raised from seeds brought into England by 
Sir Walter Raleigh. The date, however, may be placed earlier, 
for in Lyte’s “Herbal” (1578) it is stated that “ In this countrie 
the Herboristes do set and plant the Orange trees in there 
gardens, but they beare no fruite without they be wel kept 
and defended from cold, and yet for all that they beare very 
seldome.” There are no Oranges in Gerard’s catalogue of 
1596, and though he describes the trees in his “Herbal,” he 
does not say that he then grew them or had seen them growing. 
But by 1599 he had obtained them, for they occur in his 
catalogue of that date under the name of “ Malus orantia, the 
Arange or Orange tree,” so that it is certainly very probable 
that Shakespeare may have seen the Orange as a living 
tree. 
As to the beauty of the Orange tree, there is but one opinion. 
Andrew Marvel described it as— 
“ The Orange bright, 
Like golden lamps in a green night.”— Bernmdas. 
George Herbert drew a lesson from its power of constant 
fruiting— 
“ Oh that I were an Orenge tree, 
That busie plant; 
Then should I ever laden be, 
And never want 
Some fruit for him that dressed me.”— Employment. 
