Eglantine. 
hi 
The honeysuckle, or woodbine, symbolic of generous and 
devoted affection , is frequently mistaken even by the poets 
themselves—to their shame be it said—for the eglantine, or 
sweetbriar, as it is sometimes called : even Milton appears to 
fall into this error when he speaks of “the tzuisted eglantine.” 
Where the English Homer nods, it is not to be wondered at 
if lesser mortals, headed by Scott, the Wizard of the North, 
prove less wakeful; and so we have to turn to Shakspeare, the 
righter of all wrongs, to put us right anew. He tells us : 
“ I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows, 
Where oxlip and the nodding violet grows ; 
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, 
With sweet musk roses, and with eglantine.” 
An almost forgotten friend and contemporary of the great 
dramatist, and a very sweet poet withal, Richard Barnfield by 
name, puts this dainty invitation into the mouth of the “ Love¬ 
lorn Shepherdess ”: 
“And in the sweltering heat of Summer-time, 
I would make cabinets for thee, my love ; 
Sweet-smelling arbours made of eglantine, 
Should be thy shrine, and I would be thy dove.” 
As the lily is usually coupled with the rose, or the myrtle 
with the bay, so is the woodbine ofttimes mingled with the 
eglantine in poetic invocations; and thus does Shenstone 
make particular mention of this fragrant pair: 
“Come, gentle air! and while the thickets bloom, 
Convey the jasmine’s breath divine, 
Convey the woodbine’s rich perfume, 
Nor spare the sweet-leafed eglantine.” 
And then Keats—“ Lamented Adonais ”—says : 
“Its sides I’ll plant with dew-sweet eglantine, 
And honeysuckles full of clear bee wine.” 
Chaucer, in “The Flower and the Leaf,” describes a plea¬ 
sant arbour formed of eglantine ; whilst one of the sweetest 
stanzas in the “Faerie Queene” gave Spenser an opportunity 
of portraying “ the fragrant eglantine.” 
