water is an excellent, good, and great whitish Apple, full of sap or moisture, somewhat pleasant sharp, but a little bitter withall; it will not last long, the winter frosts soon causing it to rot and perish." It must have been very like the modern Lord Suffield Apple, and though Parkinson says it will not last long, yet it is mentioned as lasting till the New Year in a tract entitled "Vox Graculi," 1623. Speaking of New Year's Day, the author says: "This day shall be given many more gifts than shall be asked for; and apples, egges, and oranges shall be lifted to a lofty rate; when a Pomewater bestuck with a few rotten cloves shall be worth more than the honesty of a hypocrite" (quoted by Brand, vol. i. 17, Bohn's edition). We have no such difficulty with the "dish of Apple-johns" (17 and 18). Hakluyt recommends "the Apple John that dureth two years to make show of our fruit " to be carried by voyagers. "The Deusan (deux ans) or Apple-john," says Parkinson, "is a delicate fine fruit, well rellished when it beginneth to be fit to be eaten, and endureth good longer than any other Apple." With this description there is no difficulty in identifying the Apple-john with an Apple that goes under many names, and is figured by Maund as the Easter Pippin. When first picked it is of a deep green colour, and very hard. In this state it remains all the winter, and in April or May it becomes yellow and highly perfumed, and remains good either for cooking or dessert for many months. The Codling (2) is not the Apple now so called, but is the general name of a young unripe Apple. The "Leathercoats (19) are the Brown Russets; and though the "dish of Caraways" in the same passage may refer to the Caraway or Caraway-russet Apple, an excellent little apple, that seems to be a variety of the Nonpareil, and has long been cultivated in England, yet it is almost certain that it means a dish of Caraway Seeds. (See CARRAWAYS.) APRICOTS. (1) Titania. Be kind and courteous to this gentleman; (2) Gardener. Go, bind thou up yon dangling Apricocks, (3) Palamon. Would I were, For all the fortunes of my life hereafter, Two Noble Kinsmen, act ii, sc. 2 (291). Shakespeare's spelling of the word "Apricocks" takes us at once to its derivation. It is derived undoubtedly from the Latin præcox or præcoquus, under which name it is referred to by Pliny and Martial; but, before it became the English Apricot it was much changed by Italians, Spaniards, French, and Arabians. The history of the name is very curious and interesting, but too long to give fully here; a very good account of it may be found in Miller and in "Notes and Queries,” vol. ii. p. 420 (1850). It will be sufficient to say here that it acquired its name of “the precocious tree," because it flowered and fruited earlier than the Peach, as explained in Lyte's "Herbal," 1578: "There be two kinds of Peaches, whereof the one kinde is late ripe, . . . the other kinds are soner ripe, wherefore they be called Abrecox or Aprecox." Of its introduction into England. we have no very certain account. It was certainly grown in England before Turner's time (1548), though he says, "We have very few of these trees as yet; "I but the only account of its introduction is by Hakluyt, who states that it was brought from Italy by one Wolf, gardener to King Henry the Eighth. If that be its true history, Shakespeare was in "Names of Herbes," s.v. Malus Armeniaca. I error in putting it into the garden of the queen of Richard the Second, nearly a hundred years before its introduction.' In Shakespeare's time the Apricot seems to have been grown as a standard; I gather this from the description in Nos. 2 (see the entire passage s.v. Pruning" in Part II.) and 3, and from the following in Browne's "Britannia's Pastorals " "Or if from where he is 2 he do espy Some Apricot upon a bough thereby Which overhangs the tree on which he stands, Aufidius. ASH. Let me twine Mine arms about that body, where against Coriolanus, act iv, sc. 5 (112). Warwickshire is more celebrated for its Oaks and Elms than for its Ash trees. Yet considering how common a tree the Ash is, and in what high estimation it was held by our ancestors, it is strange that it is only mentioned in this one passage. Spenser spoke of it as "the Ash for nothing ill;" it was "the husbandman's tree," from which he got the wood for his agricultural implements; and there was connected with it a great amount of mystic folk-lore, which was carried to its extreme limit in the Yggdrasil, or legendary Ash of Scandinavia, which was almost looked upon as the parent of Creation: a full account of this may be found in Mallet's "Northern Antiquities" and other works on Scandinavia. It is an English native tree,3 and it adds much to The Apricot has usually been supposed to have come from Armenia, but there is now little doubt that its original country is the Himalaya (M. Lavaillee). 2 On a Cherry tree in an orchard. 3 It is called in the "Promptorium Parvulorum ""Esche," and the seed vessels "Esche key." the beauty of any English landscape in which it is allowed. to grow. It gives its name to many places, especially in the South, as Ashdown, Ashstead, Ashford, &c.; but to see it in its full beauty it must be seen in our northern counties, though the finest in England is said to be at Woburn. "The Oak, the Ash, and the Ivy tree, O, they flourished best at hame, in the north countrie. " Old Ballad. In the dales of Yorkshire it is especially beautiful, and any one who sees the fine old trees in Wharfdale and Wensleydale will confess that, though it may not have the rich luxuriance of the Oaks and Elms of the southern and midland counties, yet it has a grace and beauty that are all its own, so that we scarcely wonder that Gilpin called it "the Venus of the woods." ASPEN. (1) Marcus. O, had the monster seen those lily hands Tremble, like Aspen leaves, upon a lute. Titus Andronicus, act 2, sc. 4 (44). (2) Hostess. Feel, masters, how I shake. Yea, in very truth do I an 'twere an Aspen leaf. The Aspen or Aspe1 (Populus tremula) is one of our three native Poplars, and has ever been the emblem of enforced restlessness, on account of which it had in Anglo-Saxon times the expressive name of quick-beam. How this perpetual motion in the "light quivering Aspen" is produced has not been quite satisfactorily explained; and the mediæval legend that it supplied the wood of the Cross, and has never since ceased to tremble, is still told as a sufficient reason both in Scotland and England. I 66 "Oh! a cause more deep, More solemn far the rustic doth assign, To the strange restlessness of those wan leaves; Espe" in "Promptorium Parvulorum." "Aspen ” is the caseending of "Aspe." The cross, he deems, the blessed cross, whereon MRS. HEMANS. The Aspen has an interesting botanical history, as being undoubtedly, like the Scotch fir, one of the primæval trees of Europe; while its grey bark and leaves and its pleasant rustling sound make the tree acceptable in our hedgerows, but otherwise it is not a tree of much use.. In Spenser's time it was considered "good for staves;" and before his time the tree must have been more valued than it is now, for in the reign of Henry V. an Act of Parliament was passed (4 Henry V. c. 3) to prevent the consumption of Aspe, otherwise than for the making of arrows, with a penalty of an Hundred Shillings if used for making pattens or clogs. This Act remained in force till the reign of James I., when it was repealed. In our own time the wood is valued for internal panelling of rooms, and is used in the manufacture of gunpowder. By the older writers the Aspen was the favourite simile for female loquacity. The rude libel is given at full length in "The Schoole-house of Women" (511-545), concluding thus "The Aspin lefe hanging where it be, For if it should the hart would brest." HAZLITT'S Popular English Poetry, vol. iv, p. 126. And to the same effect Gerard concludes his account of the tree thus: "In English Aspe and Aspen tree, and may also be called Tremble, after the French name, considering it is the matter whereof women's tongues were made (as the poets and some others report), which seldom cease wagging." |