238 PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE 
were introduced into Ireland in 1584 by Sir Walter Raleigh, 
and from thence brought into England; but the year of their 
first planting in England is not recorded. They are not men¬ 
tioned by Lyte in 1586. Gerard grew them in 1597, but only 
as curiosities, under the name of Virginian Potatoes (.Battata 
Virginianorum and Pappas ), to distinguish them from the 
Spanish Potato, or Convolvulus Battatas, which had been long 
grown in Europe, and in the first edition of his “ Herbal ” is 
his portrait, showing him holding a Potato in his hand. They 
seem to have grown into favour very slowly, for half a century 
after their introduction, Waller still spoke of them as one of the 
tropical luxuries of the Bermudas— 
“With candy’d Plantains and the juicy Pine, 
On choicest Melons and sweet Grapes they dine, 
And with Potatoes fat their wanton swine.” 
The Battel of the Summer Islands. 
Potato is a corruption of Batatas or Patatas. 
As soon as the Potato arrived in England, it was at once 
invested with wonderful restorative powers, and in a long 
exhaustive note in Steevens’ Shakespeare, Mr. Collins has 
given all the passages in the early writers in which the Potato 
is mentioned, and in every case they have reference to these 
supposed virtues. These passages, which are chiefly from the 
old dramatists, are curious and interesting in the early history 
of the Potato, and as throwing light on the manners of our 
ancestors; but as in every instance they are all more or less 
indelicate, I refrain from quoting them here. 
As a garden plant, we now restrict the Potato to the kitchen- 
garden and the field, but it belongs to a very large family, the 
Solanacese or Nightshades, of which many members are very 
ornamental, though as they chiefly come from the tropical 
regions, there are very few that can be treated as entirely hardy 
plants. One, however, is a very beautiful climber—the 
Solatium jasminoides from South America—and quite hardy 
in the South of England. Trained against a wall it will soon 
cover it, and when once established will bear its handsome 
