rushed, are three--that is Burnet, Wild Thyme, and Water mints;
therefore you are to set whole alleys of them, to have the pleasure when
you walk or tread;" and again in his pleasant description of the heath
or wild garden, which he would have in every "prince-like garden," and
"framed as much as may be to a natural wildness," he says, "I like also
little heaps, in the nature of mole-hills (such as are in wild heaths)
to be set some with Wild Thyme, some with Pinks, some with Germander."
Yet the name may have been used sometimes as a general name for any
wild, strong-scented plant. It can only be in this sense that Milton
used it--

"Thee, shepherd! thee the woods and desert caves,
With Wild Thyme and the gadding Vine o'ergrown,
And all their echoes mourn."

_Lycidas._

for certainly a desert cave is almost the last place in which we should
look for the true Wild Thyme.

It is as a bee-plant especially that the Thyme has always been
celebrated. Spenser speaks of it as "the bees alluring Tyme," and Ovid
says of it, speaking of Chloris or Flora--

"Mella meum munus; volucres ego mella daturos
Ad violam et cytisos, et Thyma cana voco."

_Fasti_, v.

so that the Thyme became proverbial as the symbol of sweetness. It was
the highest compliment that the shepherd could pay to his mistress--

"Nerine Galatea, Thymo mihi dulcior Hyblae."

VIRGIL, _Ecl._ vii.

And it was because of its wild Thyme that Mount Hymettus became so
celebrated for its honey--"Mella Thymi redolentia flore" (Ovid). "Thyme,
for the time it lasteth, yeeldeth most and best honni, and therefore in
old time was accounted chief (Thymus aptissimus ad mellificum--Pastus
gratissimus apibus Thymum est--Plinii, 'His. Nat.')

'Dum thymo pascentur apes, dum rore cicadae.'

VIRGIL, _Georg._

Hymettus in Greece and Hybla in Sicily were so famous for Bees and
Honni, because there grew such store of Tyme; propter hoc Siculum mel
fert palmam, quod ibi Thymum bonum et frequens est."--VARRO, _The
Feminine Monarchie_, 1634.

The Wild Thyme can scarcely be considered a garden plant, except in its
variegated and golden varieties, which are very handsome, but if it
should ever come naturally in the turf, it should be welcomed