SHAKESPEARE’S GARDEN 
77 
mentioned, and that in the Merry Wives of Windsor , 
V. v. 20 : 
Let the sky rain potatoes . . . hail kissing-comfits, and 
snow eringoes. 
The method of preparing the roots is thus given 
in Gerard’s “ Herbal,” p. 1000, Ed. 1597 : 
“ Refine sugar fit for the purpose, and take a 
pound of it, the white of one egge, and a pint of 
cleere water, boile them togither and scum it, then 
let it boile untill it become to a good strong syrupe, 
and when it is boiled, as it cooleth adde thereto a 
sawcer full of rose water, a spoonful! of cinnamon 
water, and a graine of muske, which have beene 
infused togither the night before, and now strained ; 
into which syrupe, being more than half colde, put in 
your rootes to soke and infuse untill the next day : 
your rootes being ordered in maner heer after 
following.” 
The root is taken from the sea-holly (Eryngium 
maritimum , L.), a plant common on our coasts, but 
a very handsome one, notwithstanding. It has 
curious glaucous blue spiny foliage, and grows to 
the height of 1 to 2 feet. The flowers are bluish- 
white, and each head is surrounded by a spinescent 
involucre. One or two other species are locally 
naturalized, and of late years the plants have become 
garden favourites. 
We now come to the sweet-scented purple thyme, 
spoken of in the lines so often quoted in Midsummer- 
Night* s Dream , II. i. 209, 
I know a bank where the wild-thyme blows 
—a place always conjectured to be either near the 
mill at Hampton Lucy or on the summit of Borden 
Hill, spots which fit in Well with the poet’s descrip¬ 
tion, and even to-day harmonize with the spirit of 
