SHAKESPEARE’S GARDEN 
123 
confined to a special plant ( Piper nigrum , L.), a 
native of the tropics. Its name is a native one, 
pippali, latinized into piper. It was apparently well 
known and used among the Romans, but not so much 
among the Greeks. By the former it was probably 
introduced into our islands, and hence we may 
account for its mention in Saxon literature. It may 
be added that in medieval times a pound of pepper 
was one of the commonest rents at which land was 
held in socage. In this description of nominal pay¬ 
ments, we find not only a pound of pepper, or even 
a peppercorn, but such things as a sparrow-hawk, a 
pair of gloves, a pair of gilt spurs, or a pound of 
cummin, or a red rose payable on St. John the 
Baptist’s Day. 
Shakespeare uses the word pepper in several 
senses; as a general name for spice, we have the 
words “pepper gingerbread ” (1 Henry IV., III. 
i. 260 ). 
The single flower-bud occurs 
An I have not forgotten what the inside of a church is 
made of, I am a peppercorn, a brewer’s horse. 
1 Henry IV., III. iii. 8. 
In a metaphorical sense it is used twice again in 
the same play, II. iv. 212, and V. iii. 36, as well 
as in Romeo and Jidiet, III. i. 102 : 
I am peppered I warrant for this world. 
And, lastly, in Twelfth Night , III. iv. 157 : 
Here’s the challenge, read it: I warrant there’s vinegar 
and pepper in’t. 
The vessel, call it what you will, in which the 
ground spice vras kept is mentioned as a pepper-box 
in the Merry Wives of Windsor, III. v. 147. 
In concluding these brief notes on some of the 
