SHAKESPEARE'S GARDEN 
95 
composite flowers of the wormwood (“ wyrme 
wyrt ”), Artemisia , of which we have four species 
native, viz., A. campestris, L. ; A. vulgaris , L., the 
mugwort ; A. Absinthium , L., the true wormwood, 
from which absinthe is distilled; and A . maritima , 
L., a plant of our sea-shores. In our herb-gardens 
we find the shrub called variously lad’s-love, old-man, 
and southernwood [A. Abrotanum, L.), a native of 
Southern Europe. Alexis tells us the wormwood, 
which originally took its name from a powder made 
from it, which was very generally in use as a pre¬ 
servative of books and manuscripts, was used to keep 
moth and vermin from clothes, mingled with cedar 
and valerian (Alexis, ii. 14 in d.). It was also con¬ 
sidered a sovereign specific in sea-sickness. In Shake¬ 
speare it is referred to metaphorically or actually 
in three places: Love s Labour s Lost , V. ii. 85; Romeo 
and Jnliet , I. iii. 26 ; Hamlet , III. ii. 191 ; and Lucrece, 
1. 89 3 ; but none are worth quoting here, unless it 
be the last, where, in a list of comparisons, we 
read: 
Thy sugar’d tongue to bitter wormwood taste. 
“ Artemisia ” is a name derived from Artemis, i.e. 
Diana, who is said to have found the herb and given 
it to Chiron the centaur ; and so we get “ Dian’s 
bud ” of the Midsummer-Night's Dream , IV. i. 78 : 
Dian’s bud o’er Cupid’s flower 
Hath such force and blessed power. 
The cornfields are, however, as we have hinted, 
the feature of the month. The principal corn 
grown in England in Shakespeare’s day was such 
as we moderns grow : barley, oats, rye and wheat. 
Of each something must be said. The barley has 
been cultivated by man since the Eastern neolithic 
farmers invaded Europe. Several varieties of it 
