PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE 337 
Century). This name is commonly supposed to have reference 
to the hard shell, but it only means that the nut is of foreign 
origin. “ Wal ” is another form of Walshe or Welch, and so 
Lyte says that the tree is called “ in English the Walnut and 
Walshe Nut tree.” “ The word Welsh ( wilisc , woelisc ) meant 
simply a foreigner, one who was not of Teutonic race, and was 
(by the Saxons) applied especially to nations using the Latin 
language. In the Middle Ages the French language, and in 
fact all those derived from Latin, and called on that account 
linguce Romance , were called in German Welsch. France was 
called by the mediaeval German writers daz Welsche lant , and when 
they wished to express ‘ in the whole world,’ they said in alien 
Welschen und in Tiutschen richen, ‘in all Welsh and Teutonic 
kingdoms.’ In modern German the name Wdlsch is used more 
especially for Italian.”— Wright’s Cell, Roman , and Saxon 1 
This will at once explain that Walnut simply means the foreign 
or non-English Nut. 
It must have been a well-established and common tree in 
Shakespeare’s time, for all the writers of his day speak of it as a 
high and large tree, and I should think it very likely that 
Walnut trees were even more extensively planted in his day 
than in our own. There are many noble specimens to be seen 
in different parts of England, especially in the chalk districts, 
for “ it delights,” says Evelyn, “ in a dry, sound, rich land, 
especially if it incline to a feeding chalk or marl; and where it 
may be protected from the cold (though it affects cold rather 
than extreme heat), as in great pits, valleys, and highway sides; 
also in stony ground, if loamy, and on hills, especially chalky; 
likewise in cornfields.” The grand specimens that may be 
seen in the sheltered villages lying under the chalk downs of 
Wiltshire and Berkshire bear witness to the truth of Evelyn’s 
remarks. But the finest English specimens can bear no com¬ 
parison with the size of the Walnut trees in warmer countries, 
and especially where they are indigenous. There they “ some¬ 
times attain prodigious size and great age. An Italian architect 
mentions having seen at St. Nicholas, in Lorraine, a single 
1 See Earle’s “Philology of the English Tongue,” p. 23. 
Z 
