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may be worth recording, since they give a pretty 
notice of the changing colour of the fruit: “ Beauty 
is like the blackberry, which seemeth red, when it is 
not ripe, resembling precious stones that are polished 
with honey, which the smoother they look the sooner 
they break.” 
In 1 Henry IV. , II. iv. 265, we have the remark, 
If reasons were as plentiful as blackberries ; 
and, again {ibid., 450): 
Shall the blessed sun of heaven prove a micher and eat 
blackberries ? 
and in Troilus and Cressida, V. iv. 13, the dog-fox, 
Ulysses, “ is not proved worth a blackberry.” They 
are vehicles for the suspension of a lover s elegies in 
As You Like It, III. ii. 379 ; and, lastly, in Venus and 
Adonis, 1. 629* we read : 
The thorny brambles and embracing bushes, 
As fearful of him, part, through whom he rushes. 
A foreign fruit, locusts ( Othello, I. iii. 354), may 
be considered here. The bean so called is the 
legume of the carob-tree {Ceratonia siliqua ), a 
native of South Europe and Western Asia, much 
cultivated. The beans are full of pulp of a sweet 
taste, and cattle and swine are exceedingly fond of 
them. In Dodoens-Lyte’s “Herball” he says (of 
England) : “ They grow not in this countrie . . . 
yet for all that, they be sometimes in the gardens 
of some diligent Herboristes, but they be so small 
shrubbes that they can bring forth neither flowers 
nor fruite.” 
The bean was at an early date used as a weight, 
and from it our name “ carat ” is said to be derived.* 
* It may be remembered that the early form of Troy weight 
ran: 4 grains 1 carat, 24 carats 1 ounce, 12 ounces 1 Troy 
pound. See Cripps, “ Old English Plate,” p. 6. Ed. 1881. 
