The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare Part 10

(2) _Carrier._

Peas and Beans are as dank here as a dog; and that is the next way to give poor jades the bots.

_1st Henry IV_, act ii, sc. 1 (9).

The Bean (_Faba vulgaris_), though an Eastern plant, was very early introduced into England as an article of food both for men and horses.

As an article of human food opinions were divided, as now. By some it was highly esteemed--

"Corpus alit Faba; stringit c.u.m cortice ventrem, Desiccat fleuma, stomac.u.m lumenque relidit"--

is the description of the Bean in the "Modus Cenandi," l. 182 ("Babee's Book," ii, 48). While H. Vaughan describes it as--

"The Bean By curious pallats never sought;"

and it was very generally used as a proverb of contempt--

"None other lif, sayd he, is worth a Bene."[34:1]

"But natheles I reche not a Bene."[34:2]

It is not apparently a romantic plant, and yet there is no plant round which so much curious folk lore has gathered. This may be seen at full length in Phillips' "History of Cultivated Vegetables." It will be enough here to say that the Bean was considered as a sacred plant both by the Greeks and Romans, while by the Egyptian priests it was considered too unclean to be even looked upon; that it was used both for its convenient shape and for its sacred a.s.sociations in all elections by ballot; that this custom lasted in England and in most Europeans countries to a very recent date in the election of the kings and queens at Twelfth Night and other feasts; and that it was of great repute in all popular divinations and love charms. I find in Miller another use of Beans, which we are thankful to note among the obsolete uses: "They are bought up in great quant.i.ties at Bristol for Guinea ships, as food for the negroes on their pa.s.sage from Africa to the West Indies."

As an ornamental garden plant the Bean has never received the attention it seems to deserve. A plant of Broad Beans grown singly is quite a stately plant, and the rich scent is an additional attraction to many, though to many others it is too strong, and it has a bad character--"Sleep in a Bean-field all night if you want to have awful dreams or go crazy," is a Leicestershire proverb:[34:3] and the Scarlet Runner (which is also a Bean) is one of the most beautiful climbers we have. In England we seldom grow it for ornament, but in France I have seen it used with excellent effect to cover a trellis-screen, mixed with the large blue Convolvulus major.

FOOTNOTES:

[34:1] Chaucer, "The Marchandes Tale," 19.

[34:2] Ibid., "The Man of Lawes Tale," prologue.

[34:3] Copied from the mediaeval proverb: "c.u.m faba florescit, stultorum copia crescit."

BILBERRY.

_Pistol._

Where fires thou find'st unraked and hearths unswept, There pinch the maids as blue as Bilberry-- Our radiant Queen hates s.l.u.ts and s.l.u.ttery.

_Merry Wives_, act v, sc. 5 (48).

The Bilberry is a common British shrub found on all mossy heaths, and very pretty both in flower and in fruit. Its older English name was Heathberry, and its botanical name is Vaccinium myrtillus. We have in Britain four species of Vaccinium: the Whortleberry or Bilberry (_V.

myrtillus_), the Large Bilberry (_V. uliginosum_), the Crowberry (_V.

vitis idaea_), and the Cranberry (_V. oxycoccos_). These British species, as well as the North American species (of which there are several), are all beautiful little shrubs in cultivation, but they are very difficult to grow; they require a heathy soil, moisture, and partial shade.

BIRCH.

_Duke._

Fond fathers, Having bound up the threatening twigs of Birch, Only to stick it in their children's sight For terror, not to use, in time the rod Becomes more mock'd than fear'd.

_Measure for Measure_, act i, sc. 3 (23).

Shakespeare only mentions this one unpleasant use of the Birch tree, the manufacture of Birch rods; and for such it seems to have been chiefly valued in his day. "I have not red of any vertue it hath in physick,"

says Turner; "howbeit, it serveth for many good uses, and for none better than for betynge of stubborn boys, that either lye or will not learn." Yet the Birch is not without interest. The word "Birch" is the same as "bark," meaning first the rind of a tree and then a barque or boat (from which we also get our word "barge"), and so the very name carries us to those early times when the Birch was considered one of the most useful of trees, as it still is in most northern countries, where it grows at a higher degree of lat.i.tude than any other tree. Its bark was especially useful, being useful for cordage, and matting, and roofing, while the tree itself formed the early British canoes, as it still forms the canoes of the North American Indians, for which it is well suited, from its lightness and ease in working.

In Northern Europe it is the most universal and the most useful of trees. It is "the superlative tree in respect of the ground it covers, and in the variety of purposes to which it is converted in Lapland, where the natives sit in birchen huts on birchen chairs, wearing birchen boots and breeches, with caps and capes of the same material, warming themselves by fires of birchwood charcoal, reading books bound in birch, and eating herrings from a birchen platter, pickled in a birchen cask.

Their baskets, boats, harness, and utensils are all of Birch; in short, from cradle to coffin, the Birch forms the peculiar environment of the Laplander."[36:1] In England we still admire its graceful beauty, whether it grows in our woods or our gardens, and we welcome its pleasant odour on our Russia leather bound books; but we have ceased to make beer from its young shoots,[36:2] and we hold it in almost as low repute (from the utilitarian point of view) as Turner and Shakespeare seem to have held it.

FOOTNOTES:

[36:1] "Gardener's Chronicle."

[36:2] "Although beer is now seldom made from birchen twigs, yet it is by no means an uncommon practice in some country districts to tap the white trunks of Birches, and collect the sweet sap which exudes from them for wine-making purposes. In some parts of Leicestershire this sap is collected in large quant.i.ties every spring, and birch wine, when well made, is a wholesome and by no means an unpleasant beverage."--B. in _The Garden_, April, 1877. "The Finlanders subst.i.tute the leaves of Birch for those of the tea-plant; the Swedes extract a syrup from the sap, from which they make a spirituous liquor. In London they make champagne of it. The most virtuous uses to which it is applied are brooms and wooden shoes."--_A Tour Round My Garden_, Letter xix.

BITTER-SWEET, _see_ APPLE (22).

BLACKBERRIES.

(1) _Falstaff._

Give you a reason on compulsion!--if reasons were as plentiful as Blackberries, I would give no man a reason upon compulsion, I.[37:1]

_1st Henry IV_, act ii, sc. 4 (263).

(2) _Falstaff._

Shall the blessed sun of heaven prove a micher and eat Blackberries?

_Ibid._ (450).