ite over-canopied with luscious Woodbine,
With sweet Musk-Roses and with Eglantine.

_Midsummer Night's Dream_, act ii, sc. 1 (249).

(2) _Arviragus._

Thou shalt not lack
The flower that's like thy face, pale Primrose, nor
The azured Harebell, like thy veins, no, nor
The leaf of Eglantine, whom not to slander,
Out-sweeten'd not thy breath.

_Cymbeline_, act iv, sc. 2 (220).

If Shakespeare had only written these two passages they would
sufficiently have told of his love for simple flowers. None but a dear
lover of such flowers could have written these lines. There can be no
doubt that the Eglantine in his time was the Sweet Brier--his notice of
the sweet leaf makes this certain. Gerard so calls it, but makes some
confusion--which it is not easy to explain--by saying that the flowers
are white, whereas the flowers of the true Sweet Brier are pink. In the
earlier poets the name seems to have been given to any wild Rose, and
Milton certainly did not consider the Eglantine and the Sweet Brier to
be identical. He says ("L'Allegro")--

"Through the Sweet Briar or the Vine,
Or the twisted Eglantine."

But Milton's knowledge of flowers was very limited. Herrick has some
pretty lines on the flower, in which it seems most probable that he was
referring to the Sweet Brier--

"From this bleeding hand of mine
Take this sprig of Eglantine,
Which, though sweet unto your smell,
Yet the fretful Briar will tell,
He who plucks the sweets shall prove
Many Thorns to be in love."

It was thus the emblem of pleasure mixed with pain--

"Sweet is the Eglantine, but pricketh nere."

SPENSER, _Sonnet_ xxvi.

And so its names pronounced it to be; it was either the Sweet Brier, or
it was Eglantine, the thorny plant (Fr., _aiglentier_). There was also
an older name for the plant, of which I can give no explanation. It was
called Bedagar. "Bedagar dicitur gallice aiglentier" (John de
Gerlande). "_Bedagrage_, spina alba, wit-thorn" (Harl. MS., No. 978 in
"Reliquiae Antiquae," i, 36).[84:1] The name still exists, though not in
common use; but only as the name of a drug made from "the excrescences
on the branches of the Rose, and particularly on those of the wild
varieties" (Parsons on the Rose).

It is a native of Britain, but not v