The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare Part 67

(4) _En.o.barbus._

Look, they weep, And I, an a.s.s, am Onion-eyed.

_Ibid._, act iv, sc. 2 (34).

(5) _Lord._

And if the boy have not a woman's gift To rain a shower of commanded tears, An Onion will do well for such a s.h.i.+ft, Which in a napkin being close conveyed Shall in despite enforce a watery eye.

_Taming of the Shrew_, Induction, sc. 1 (124).

There is no need to say much of the Onion in addition to what I have already said on the Garlick and Leek, except to note that Onions seem always to have been considered more refined food than Leek and Garlick.

Homer makes Onions an important part of the elegant little repast which Hecamede set before Nestor and Machaon--

"Before them first a table fair she spread, Well polished and with feet of solid bronze; On this a brazen canister she placed, And Onions as a relish to the wine, And pale clear honey and pure Barley meal."

_Iliad_, book xi. (Lord Derby's translation).

But in the time of Shakespeare they were not held in such esteem.

Coghan, writing in 1596, says of them: "Being eaten raw, they engender all humourous and corruptible putrifactions in the stomacke, and cause fearful dreames, and if they be much used they snarre the memory and trouble the understanding" ("Haven of Health," p. 58).

The name comes directly from the French _oignon_, a bulb, being the bulb _par excellence_, the French name coming from the Latin _unio_, which was the name given to some species of Onion, probably from the bulb growing singly. It may be noted, however, that the older English name for the Onion was Ine, of which we may perhaps still have the remembrance in the common "Inions." The use of the Onion to promote artificial crying is of very old date, Columella speaking of "lacrymosa caepe," and Pliny of "caepis odor lacrymosus." There are frequent references to the same use in the old English writers.

The Onion has been for so many centuries in cultivation that its native home has been much disputed, but it has now "according to Dr. Regel ('Gartenflora,' 1877, p. 264) been definitely determined to be the mountains of Central Asia. It has also been found in a wild state in the Himalaya Mountains."--_Gardener's Chronicle._

ORANGE.

(1) _Beatrice._

The count is neither sad nor sick, nor merry nor well; but civil count, civil as an Orange, and something of that jealous complexion.

_Much Ado About Nothing_, act ii, sc. 1 (303).

(2) _Claudio._

Give not this rotten Orange to your friend.

_Much Ado About Nothing_, act iv, sc. 1 (33).

(3) _Bottom._

I will discharge it either in your straw-coloured beard, your Orange-tawny beard.

_Midsummer Night's Dream_, act i, sc. 2 (95).

(4) _Bottom._

The ousel c.o.c.k so black of hue With Orange-tawny bill.

_Ibid._, act iii, sc. 1 (128).

(5) _Menenius._

You wear out a good wholesome forenoon in hearing a cause between an Orange-wife and a fosset-seller.

_Coriola.n.u.s_, act ii, sc. 1 (77).

I should think it very probable that Shakespeare may have seen both Orange and Lemon trees growing in England. The Orange is a native of the East Indies, and no certain date can be given for its introduction into Europe. Under the name of the Median Apple a tree is described first by Theophrastus, and then by Virgil and Palladius, which is supposed by some to be the Orange; but as they all describe it as unfit for food, it is with good reason supposed that the tree referred to is either the Lemon or Citron. Virgil describes it very exactly--

"Ipsa ingens arbor, faciemque simillima lauro Et si non alium late jactaret odorem Laurus erat; folia hand ullis labentia ventis Flos ad prima tenax."--_Georgic_ ii, 131.

Dr. Daubeny, who very carefully studied the plants of cla.s.sical writers, decides that the fruit here named is the Lemon, and says that it "is noticed only as a foreign fruit, nor does it appear that it was cultivated at that time in Italy, for Pliny says it will only grow in Media and a.s.syria, though Palladius in the fourth century seems to have been familiar with it, and it was known in Greece at the time of Theophrastus." But if Oranges were grown in Italy or Greece in the time of Pliny and Palladius, they did not continue in cultivation. Europe owes the introduction or reintroduction to the Portuguese, who brought them from the East, and they were grown in Spain in the eleventh century. The first notice of them in Italy was in the year 1200, when a tree was planted by St. Dominic at Rome. The first grown in France is said to have been the old tree which lived at the Orangery at Versailles till November, 1876, and was called the Grand Bourbon. "In 1421 the Queen of Navarre gave the gardener the seed from Pampeluna; hence sprang the plant, which was subsequently transported to Chantilly.

In 1532 the Orange tree was sent to Fontainebleau, whence, in 1684, Louis XIV. transferred it to Versailles, where it remained the largest, finest, and most fertile member of the Orangery, its head being 17yds.

round." It is not likely that a tree of such beauty should be growing so near England without the English gardeners doing their utmost to establish it here. But the first certain record is generally said to be in 1595, when (on the authority of Bishop Gibson) Orange trees were planted at Beddington, in Surrey, the plants being raised from seeds brought into England by Sir Walter Raleigh. The date, however, may be placed earlier, for in Lyte's "Herbal" (1578) it is stated that "In this countrie the Herboristes do set and plant the Orange trees in there gardens, but they beare no fruite without they be wel kept and defended from cold, and yet for all that they beare very seldome." There are no Oranges in Gerard's catalogue of 1596, and though he describes the trees in his "Herbal," he does not say that he then grew them or had seen them growing. But by 1599 he had obtained them, for they occur in his catalogue of that date under the name of "Malus orantia, the Arange or Orange tree," so that it is certainly very probable that Shakespeare may have seen the Orange as a living tree.

As to the beauty of the Orange tree, there is but one opinion. Andrew Marvel described it as--

"The Orange bright, Like golden lamps in a green night."

_Bermudas._

George Herbert drew a lesson from its power of constant fruiting--

"Oh that I were an Orenge tree, That busie plant; Then should I ever laden be, And never want Some fruit for him that dressed me."

_Employment._

And its handsome evergreen foliage, its deliciously scented flowers, and its golden fruit--

"A fruit of pure Hesperian gold That smelled ambrosially"--

TENNYSON.

at once demand the admiration of all. It only fails in one point to make it a plant for every garden: it is not fully hardy in England. It is very surprising to read of those first trees at Beddington, that "they were planted in the open ground, under a movable covert during the winter months; that they always bore fruit in great plenty and perfection; that they grew on the south side of a wall, not nailed against it, but at full liberty to spread; that they were 14ft. high, the girth of the stem 29in., and the spreading of the branches one way 9ft., and 12ft. another; and that they so lived till they were entirely killed by the great frost in 1739-40."--MILLER.[191:1] These trees must have been of a hardy variety, for certainly Orange trees, even with such protection, do not now so grow in England, except in a few favoured places on the south coast. There is one species which is fairly hardy, the Citrus trifoliata, from j.a.pan,[191:2] forming a pretty bush with sweet flowers, and small but useless fruit (seldom, I believe, produced out-of-doors); it is often used as a stock on which to graft the better kinds, but perhaps it might be useful for crossing, so as to give its hardiness to a variety with better flower and fruit.

Commercially the Orange holds a high place, more than 20,000 good fruit having been picked from one tree, and England alone importing about 2,000,000 bushels annually. These are almost entirely used as a dessert fruit and for marmalade, but it is curious that they do not seem to have been so used when first imported. Parkinson makes no mention of their being eaten raw, but says they "are used as sauce for many sorts of meats, in respect of the sweet sourness giving a relish and delight whereinsoever they are used;" and he mentions another curious use, no longer in fas.h.i.+on, I believe, but which might be worth a trial: "The seeds being cast into the grounde in the spring time will quickly grow up, and when they are a finger's length high, being pluckt up and put among Sallats, will give them a marvellous fine aromatick or spicy tast, very acceptable."[192:1]