The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare Part 40

(5) _K. Henry._

Gives not the Hawthorn-bush a sweeter shade To shepherds looking on their silly sheep, Than doth a rich embroider'd canopy To kings that fear their subjects' treachery?

O yes, it doth; a thousand-fold it doth.

_3rd Henry VI_, act ii, sc. 5 (42).

(6) _Edgar._

Through the sharp Hawthorn blows the cold wind (_bis_).

_King Lear_, act iii, sc. 4 (47 and 102).

(7) _Arcite._

Againe betake you to yon Hawthorne house.

_Two n.o.ble Kinsmen_, act iii, sc. 1 (90).

Under its many names of Albespeine, Whitethorn, Haythorn or Hawthorn, May, and Quickset, this tree has ever been a favourite with all lovers of the country.

"Among the many buds proclaiming May, Decking the field in holiday array, Striving who shall surpa.s.s in braverie, Mark the faire blooming of the Hawthorn tree, Who, finely cloathed in a robe of white, Fills full the wanton eye with May's delight.

Yet for the braverie that she is in Doth neither handle card nor wheel to spin, Nor changeth robes but twice; is never seen In other colours but in white or green."

such is Browne's advice in his "Britannia's Pastorals" (ii. 2). He, like the other early poets, clearly loved the tree for its beauty; and in picturesque beauty the Hawthorn yields to none, when it can be seen in some sheltered valley growing with others of its kind, and allowed to grow unpruned, for then in the early summer it is literally a sheet of white, yet beautifully relieved by the tender green of the young leaves, and by the bright crimson of the anthers, and loaded with a scent that is most delicate and refreshing. But not only for its beauty is the Hawthorn a favourite tree, but also for its many pleasant a.s.sociations--it is essentially the May tree, the tree that tells that winter is really past, and that summer has fairly begun. Hear Spenser--

"Thilke same season, when all is yclade With pleasaunce; the ground with Gra.s.se, the woods With greene leaves, the bushes with blooming buds, Youngthes folke now flocken in everywhere To gather May-baskets and smelling Brere; And home they hasten the postes to dight, And all the kirk-pillours eare day-light, With Hawthorne-buds, and sweet Eglantine, And girlondes of Roses, and soppes-in-wine."

_Shepherd's Calendar--May._

Yet in spite of its pretty name, and in spite of the poets, the Hawthorn now seldom flowers till June, and I should suppose it is never in flower on May Day, except perhaps in Devonshire and Cornwall; and it is very doubtful if it ever were so found, except in these southern counties, though some fancy that the times of flowering of several of our flowers are changed, and in some instances largely changed. But "it was an old custom in Suffolk, in most of the farmhouses, that any servant who could bring in a branch of Hawthorn in full blossom on the 1st of May was ent.i.tled to a dish of cream for breakfast. This custom is now disused, not so much from the reluctance of the masters to give the reward, as from the inability of the servants to find the Whitethorn in flower."--BRAND'S _Antiquities_.[112:1] Even those who might not see the beauty of an old Thorn tree, have found its uses as one of the very few trees that will grow thick in the most exposed places, and so give pleasant shade and shelter in places where otherwise but little shade and shelter could be found.

"Every shepherd tells his tale Under the Hawthorn in the dale."--MILTON.

And "at Hesket, in c.u.mberland, yearly on St. Barnabas' Day, by the highway side under a Thorn tree is kept the court for the whole forest of Englewood."--_History of Westmoreland._

The Thorn may well be admitted as a garden shrub either in its ordinary state, or in its beautiful double white, red, and pink varieties, and those who like to grow curious trees should not omit the Glas...o...b..ry Thorn, which flowers at the ordinary time, and bears fruit, but also buds and flowers again in winter, showing at the same time the new flowers and the older fruit.

Nor must we omit to mention that the Whitethorn is one of the trees that claims to have been used for the sacred Crown of Thorns. It is most improbable that it was so, in fact almost certain that it was not; but it was a mediaeval belief, as Sir John Mandeville witnesses: "Then was our Lord yled into a gardyn, and there the Jewes scorned hym, and maden hym a crowne of the branches of the Albiespyne, that is Whitethorn, that grew in the same gardyn, and setten yt upon hys heved. And therefore hath the Whitethorn many virtues. For he that beareth a branch on hym thereof, no thundre, ne no maner of tempest may dere hym, ne in the howse that it is ynne may non evil ghost enter."

And we may finish the Hawthorn with a short account of its name, which is interesting:--"Haw," or "hay," is the same word as "hedge" ("sepes, id est, _haies_," John de Garlande), and so shows the great antiquity of this plant as used for English hedges. In the north, "haws" are still called "haigs;" but whether Hawthorn was first applied to the fruit or the hedge, whether the hedge was so called because it was made of the Thorn tree that bears the haws, or whether the fruit was so named because it was borne on the hedge tree, is a point on which etymologists differ.

FOOTNOTES:

[112:1] "Gilbert White in his 'Naturalists' Calendar' as the result of observations taken from 1768 to 1793 puts down the flowering of the Hawthorn as occurring in different years upon dates so widely apart as the twentieth of April and the eleventh of June."--MILNER'S _Country Pleasures_, p. 83.

HAZEL.

(1) _Mercutio._

Her [Queen Mab's] chariot is an empty Hazel-nut Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub, Time out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers.

_Romeo and Juliet_, act i, sc. 4 (67).

(2) _Petruchio._

Kate like the Hazel twig Is straight and slender and as brown in hue As Hazel-nuts and sweeter than the kernels.

_Taming of the Shrew_, act ii, sc. 1 (255).

(3) _Caliban._

I'll bring thee to cl.u.s.tering Filberts.

_Tempest_, act ii, sc. 2 (174).

(4) _Touchstone._

Sweetest Nut hath sourest rind, Such a Nut is Rosalind.

_As You Like It_, act iii, sc. 2 (115).

(5) _Celia._

For his verity in love I do think him as concave as a covered goblet or a worm-eaten Nut.

_Ibid._, act iii, sc. 4 (25).

(6) _Lafeu._

Believe this of me, there can be no kernel in this light Nut.

_All's Well that Ends Well_, act ii, sc. 5 (46).

(7) _Mercutio._