SHAKESPEARE'S GARDEN 
149 
derived, is still said to be in accordance with long 
tradition, due to the fact that from it the wood of 
the holy rood was made which bore our Saviour's 
body on Calvary. Ellacombe quotes a verse which 
gives what he describes as “ a rude libel ” (p. 50 ), 
from “ The Schoolhouse of Women ” ( 511 - 545 ), which 
thus concludes: 
The aspin lefe hanging where it be, 
With little wind or none it shaketh ; 
A woman’s tung in like wise taketh 
Little ease and little rest; 
For if it should the hart would brest. 
And old Gerard has much the same idea in his 
concluding remarks on the tree : 
“ In English Aspe and Aspen tree, and may also be 
called Tremble, after the French name, considering 
it is a matter whereof women's tongues were made 
(as the poets and some others report) which seldom 
cease wagging/’ 
Dr. Prior says it was called in Chaucer's time apse, 
from “ sepse," from the hissing sound of the leaves 
(p- 
The willow, in favourable seasons, towards the end 
of this month puts out a multitude of golden catkins 
on the male tree, and as many green or silvery on the 
female. The willows belong to a difficult order of 
plants, and some 160 species, are known, of which we 
ourselves, under the latest arrangement—that of 
Dr. White and the Rev. E. P. Linton—are considered 
to have endless named varieties. The most impor¬ 
tant are the trees, such as (Salix fragilis) the crack 
willow or withy, which reaches 80 feet, and the white 
willow (S. alba , L.). The goat willow or sallow 
($. Caprcea , L.) is well-known, and the basket osier 
{$. viminalis , L.) also. From the earliest times the 
use of the pliable twigs of these plants, has been 
known, and in Britain this class of work was carried to 
