io 4 SHAKESPEARE’S GARDEN 
pestilence,, or, rather, as a preventative. Alexis has 
the following recipe : 
“ Take the seede or bearies of yvy, that groweth on 
trees or walles, and not of that whyche is founde lowe 
by the grounde, and you muste gather the sayde 
bearies very rype and towarde the northe; yf it bee 
possible, yf not, take theym as you maye gette them, 
although they bee not verye rype : drye them in 
shadowe, and kepe them in a boxe of woode, as a 
precious thynge. And yf anye bee infected with the 
pestilence, take of the sayde herbes, and beate them 
to poulder in a cleane morter and gyve the pacient 
of the sayd poulder, in halfe a glassefull of white 
wyne ” (Alexis, i. 42). 
There seems to have been some variation in 
different localities as to the use of ivy in decoration ; 
as the special plant of Bacchus, it would naturally 
be unfit in places of worship, and yet there is no 
doubt it was so used. Coles says (p. 64): “ In some 
places setting up of holly, ivy, rosemary, bayes, yewes, 
etc., in churches at Christmas is still in use ”; and 
Stow tells us that every man’s house, “ as also 
their parish churches,” were so decked; nor are 
entries wanting in old churchwardens’ accounts, such 
as those of St. Martin Outwich, where in 1524-25 
we get: “ Item, for Holy and Ivye at Christmas.” 
But as the special symbol of Bacchus it was very fitly 
appropriated to the front of taverns, where a tod or 
bush of ivy was suspended, and hence the proverb, 
“ Good wine needs no bush and, again, “ Be merry 
and wise”—that is, “An owl in an ivy-bush.” 
The clover as clover is mentioned by the poet in 
Henry V. } V. ii. 48, in connection with cowslip and 
burnet, and as “ honey-stalks ” in Titus Andronicus, 
IV. iv. 89 : 
I will enchant the old Andronicus 
With words more sweet, and yet more dangerous, 
Than baits to fish, or honey-stalks to sheep. 
