124 
SHAKESPEARE'S GARDEN 
spices mentioned in the plays, let us give one short 
quotation from Beaumont and Fletcher's Knight of 
the Burning Pestle, I. iii., which serves to illustrate 
their use as ingredients in the hot spiced ale our 
forefathers loved : 
Nutmegs and ginger, cinnamon and cloves, 
And they gave me this jolly red nose. 
But we have not yet touched on ginger, although 
we have mentioned it in the quotation from the 
Winter s Tale, IV. iii. 50. It occurs in nine other 
places. Its heat is referred to in Twelfth Night, 
II. iii. 125, when Sir Toby queries : 
Dost thou think because thou art virtuous there shall be no 
more cakes and ale ? 
And Clown replies: 
Yes, by Saint Anne, and ginger shall be hot i’ the mouth 
too. 
And in the Merchant of Venice, III. i. 9, we get : 
I would she were as lying a gossip in that as ever knapped 
ginger. 
Razes of ginger are not only mentioned in 
the Winters Tale, but in 1 Henry IV., II. i. 
25 : 
I have a gammon of bacon and two razes of ginger to be 
delivered as far as Charing Cross. 
Gingerbreads occur in Loves Labour s Lost, 
V. i. 74: 
An I had but one penny in the world, thou shouldst have 
it to buy gingerbread. 
And in 1 Henry IV., III. i. 258 : 
Swear me, Kate, like a lady as thou art, a good mouth- 
