28 
SHAKESPEARE’S GARDEN 
henge himsilf upon, for despeyr that he hadde, when 
he solde and betrayed oure Lorde.” 
The elder had, however, many admirers, despite 
its ill fame, while its scented flowers are used to-day 
to soften hard water, for the complexion, and for 
perfumes, while from its fruit wine is largely manu¬ 
factured. One of Alexis of Piedmont’s recipes may 
be given as a specimen of the repute it was held in 
by the Elizabethan herbalists : 
“ For to make a cleere voyce ye shall take the 
floures of an elder tree, and drye them in the 
sunne, but take heede they take no moysture or 
wet, then make pouder of them, and drinke of 
it with white wine every mornyng fasting ” (Alexis, 
ii. 17). 
The hard external wood, the large space occupied 
by the soft pith, are noticed by the poet in the 
jeering, taunting speech of the Host ( Merry Wives , 
II. iii. 29) •* 
What says Esculapius ? my Galen ? my heart of elder ? 
And its boyish use as a suitable material for pop¬ 
guns is not forgotten, either : 
That’s a perilous shot out of an elder gun. 
Henry V ., IV. i. 209. 
And, lastly, its strong scent : 
And let the stinking elder, grief, untwine 
His perishing root with the increasing vine. 
Cymbeline, IV. ii. 59. 
Turning from our English trees, let us survey 
the stateliest of the old-world pines—the cedar of 
Lebanon ( Cedrus libanus), the impersonation of 
majesty and grandeur. Ella combe doubts if Shake¬ 
speare ever saw the tree, as it is not supposed to 
have been introduced until it was planted at Bretby 
