SHAKESPEARE’S GARDEN 
hi 
which the Earls of Warwick were hereditary keepers, 
but now built over by stabling. Ellacombe men¬ 
tions the lynches of the Cotswolds, and seems to mis¬ 
understand their nature. Many may be vineyard 
terraces, but a lynch, as a rule, is merely a remnant of 
the cultivation of common field. When the land to 
be ploughed lay on the side of a hill, the plough 
travelled only one way, cutting the furrow and return¬ 
ing without working. In this way the land was 
always turned outwards and downhill, making a suc¬ 
cession of terraced ridges. 
The vine is referred to some twenty-seven times 
by the poet. From these we cannot do more than 
pick a few passages of interest. 
Its dedication to the jovial Bacchus is told us in 
Antony and Cleopatra , II. vii. 120 : 
Come, thou monarch of the vine, 
Plumpy Bacchus with pink eyne ! 
In thy fats our cares be drown’d, 
With thy grapes our hairs be crown’d. 
As a local example in sculpture, we may see on the 
Warwick vase the delicately-carved grape tendrils 
surrounding the basin of that magnificent specimen 
of ancient art, together with the groups of thyrsi 
and heads of Bacchanals. 
We get it mentioned as a tavern sign in Measure 
for Measure , II. i. 133 : 
'Twas in the Bunch of Grapes ; 
and, finally, a description of the vineyard itself in the 
same play, IV. i. 28 : 
He hath a garden circummured with brick, 
Whose western side is with a vineyard back’d ; 
And to that vineyard is a planched gate, 
That makes his opening with this bigger key : 
This other doth command a little door 
Which from the vineyard to the garden leads, 
