D.L.R.

“Do you know the proper name of this flower?” writes Jeremy Bentham to a lady-friend, “and the signification of its name?  Fuchsia from Fuchs, a German botanist.”

ROSEMARY.

    There’s rosemary—­that’s for remembrance: 
    Pray you, love, remember.

Hamlet

There’s rosemarie; the Arabians Justifie
(Physitions of exceeding perfect skill)
It comforteth the brain and memory.

Chester.

Bacon speaks of heaths of ROSEMARY (Rosmarinus[095]) that “will smell a great way in the sea; perhaps twenty miles.”  This reminds us of Milton’s Paradise.

                            So lovely seemed
    That landscape, and of pure, now purer air,
    Meets his approach, and to the heart inspires
    Vernal delight and joy, able to drive
    All sadness but despair.  Now gentle gales
    Fanning their odoriferous wings, dispense
    Native perfumes, and whisper whence they stole
    Those balmy spoils.  As when to them who sail
    Beyond the Cape of Hope, and now are past
    Mozambic, off at sea north east winds blow
    Sabean odours from the spicy shore
    Of Araby the blest, with such delay
    Well pleased they slack their course, and many a league
    Cheered with the grateful smell, old Ocean smiles.

Rosemary used to be carried at funerals, and worn as wedding favors.

    Lewis Pray take a piece of Rosemary
    Miramont I’ll wear it,
    But for the lady’s sake, and none of your’s!

Beaumont and Fletcher’s “Elder Brother."

Rosemary, says Malone, being supposed to strengthen the memory, was the emblem of fidelity in lovers.  So in A Handfull of Pleasant Delites, containing Sundrie New Sonets, 16mo. 1854: 

    Rosemary is for remembrance
    Between us daie and night,
    Wishing that I might alwaies have
    You present in my sight.

The poem in which these lines are found, is entitled, ’A Nosegay alwaies sweet for Lovers to send for Tokens of Love.’

Roger Hochet in his sermon entitled A Marriage Present (1607) thus speaks of the Rosemary;—­“It overtoppeth all the flowers in the garden, boasting man’s rule.  It helpeth the brain, strengtheneth the memorie, and is very medicinable for the head.  Another propertie of the rosemary is, it affects the heart.  Let this rosemarinus, this flower of men, ensigne of your wisdom, love, and loyaltie, be carried not only in your hands, but in your hearts and heads.”

“Hungary water” is made up chiefly from the oil distilled from this shrub.

* * * * *

I should talk on a little longer about other shrubs, herbs, and flowers, (particularly of flowers) such as the “pink-eyed Pimpernel” (the poor man’s weather glass) and the fragrant Violet, (’the modest grace of the vernal year,’) the scarlet crested Geranium with its crimpled leaves, and the yellow and purple Amaranth, powdered with gold,