SHAKESPEARE’S GARDEN 
I 35 
but civil count, civil as an orange, and something of that 
jealous complexion. 
Much Ado About Nothing , II. i. 303. 
The other is an allusion to an orange saleswoman 
under the name of an “ orange wife ” ( Coriolanus , 
H. i. 77). 
Many flowers of various kinds were used for 
wedding wreaths. It is only of recent years that 
orange blossom, real or artificial, has been considered 
the flower par excellence . Among the Saxon people 
wreaths were kept in the churches, and sometimes 
blessed and sprinkled with holy water. Myrtle was 
used abroad and corn-ears in England (see Brand, 
vol. ii., p. 124). 
The beautiful old-fashioned garden shrub, the 
mock orange ( Philadelphia coronarius , L.), was, no 
doubt, used in this connection also. 
But not only was the orange grown to eat of or its 
flowers used in the wedding ceremony : it was also 
used for medicine and as a scent. Thus : 
“Take fresh flowres of Rosemarye pounde twoo, 
amber a scrupule, three pounde of the flowres of 
oranges, lemons and citrons, all confuselyve together 
whyche the Frenche menne call eau de naphe, leave 
all together in somme vesselle welle steepte tenne 
dayes. Thenne the water beynge dystylled in Baheo 
Marie lette it bee kepte in a vyolle of glasse very 
close and stopped ” (Alexis, 146 in d.). 
Of the former we get a curious cure : 
“For Biliousness and Cattsheare .—Take a cytron or 
orange, and parte hym in the myddes, take a lyttle 
to we in a dyshe, and . . . presse or wryng it in your 
hand, and put to it a lyttell commune salt well 
beaten to powder, and laye it so hotte upon the sore, 
puttyng uppon the sayde towe halfe the citron or 
orange, and so bynde all this with some bande, 
chaungynge it evenynge and mornynge, and inconti- 
