Sylva,' says: 'It has the names of Avelan, Avelin, as I find in some antient records and deeds in my custody, where my ancestors' names were written, Avelan, alias Evelyn, generally.'

CHAPTER X.

ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL.*

IN Act iv. Scene 5, Marjoram (Origanum vulgare).

Lafew. 'Twas good a lady, 'twas good a lady; we may pick a thousand sallets, ere we light on such another herb. Clown. Indeed, sir, she was the sweet marjoram of the sallet, or rather the herb of grace.

Lafew. They are not sallet herbs, you knave, they are nose herbs.

Clown. I am no great Nebuchadnezzar, sir, I have not much skill in grass.

Sweet Marjoram, common marjoram (Origanum vulgare). The only British species; flowers in July and August. The whole plant is very fragrant, and frequently cultivated as a pot

herb.

The poet most appropriately makes the Clown compare one of our sweetest flowers to Helen,

* Printed in the folio of 1623.

whom he also styles the herb of grace_highly distinctive of her quality. The herb of grace is

described in The Winter's Tale.

The poet Clare notices the sweetness of marjo

ram:

The thyme strong scented 'neath our feet,
And marjoram so doubly sweet.

Cypress (Cupressus sempervirens) — evergreen

cypress.

According to Dr.W.Turner this tree was cultivated in Sion House gardens in 1551, and

Gerarde says that it grew there, and also in gardens at Greenwich and at Hampstead. The cypress lives to a great age. Thucydides tells us that the Athenians buried their heroes in coffins made of this wood. Pliny informs us that cypress was consecrated to Pluto, and therefore, men used to set a bough thereof as a sign on those houses wherein a dead corpse lieth.' See Ph. Holland's translation.

William Coles, in his 'Introduction to the Knowledge of Plants,' states that Cypress garlands are of great account at funerals among the genteler sorts; but rosemary and bays are used by the commons, both at funerals and weddings. They are plants which fade not a good while after they are gathered, and used (as I conceive) to intimate unto us that the remembrance of the present solemnity might not be presently, but be kept in mind for many years.'

The cypress tree is alluded to by Shakspere in the following passage from the Second Part of King Henry VI. Act iii. Scene 2, where Suffolk replies to Queen Margaret, who asks:

Hast thou not spirit to curse thine enemies?

Suffolk. A plague upon them! wherefore should I
curse them?

Would curses kill, as doth the mandrake's groan,
I would invent as bitter searching terms,
As curst, as harsh, and horrible to hear,
Deliver'd strongly through my fixed teeth,

F