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SHAKESPEARE’S GARDEN 
Monks of Warden Abbey, co. Beds., who bear those 
pears as their armorial ensign. The Poperin is men¬ 
tioned by Parkinson as a summer and winter variety, 
good firm dry pears, spotted and brownish on the 
outside. It was perhaps brought from Flanders by 
old Leland, who was Rector of Popering. 
Another ally of the apple and pear is the quince 
(Pyrus Cydonia, L.), the fruit especially assigned to 
Venus by the youthful Paris, and henceforth sacred 
to that goddess and love. The quince was un¬ 
doubtedly used to a large extent as a love token or 
symbol among the ancients, and an old English 
custom of eating a quince pear at a wedding feast is 
told by Brand. The passage is quoted by Ellacombe 
(p. 249), and, since it serves to illustrate the reference 
in Romeo and Juliet , may be here given : 
“ I come to marriages, wherein, as our ancestors 
did fondly, and with a kind of doating, maintaine 
many rites and ceremonies, some whereof were either 
shadowes or abodements of a pleasant life to come, 
as the eating of a quince peare to be preparative of 
sweet and delightful dayes between the married 
persons.” 
The name is said to be a corruption of “ coynes,” 
itself derived from Cydonia, a city of Crete, where 
the quince grows naturally. The fruit is now used 
for marmalade and cooked with apples, but it has 
lost the popularity it once had. The only place it is 
mentioned in the poet is in the line 
They call for dates and quinces in the pastry. 
Romeo and Juliet, IV. iv. 2. 
Yet another fruit-tree this month, and again a 
close ally of the quince and pear—the medlar 
(Pyrus germanica, L.), a tree long since naturalized 
amongst us, and exceedingly handsome when in 
flower. It is called. Prior tells us, meslier in Nor- 
