to us from the
French _Chou cabus_, which is the French corruption of _Caulis
capitatus_, the name by which Pliny described it.

The Cabbage of Shakespeare's time was essentially the same as ours, and
from the contemporary accounts it seems that the sorts cultivated were
as good and as numerous as they are now. The cultivated Cabbage is the
same specifically as the wild Cabbage of our sea-shores (_Brassica
oleracea_) improved by cultivation. Within the last few years the
Cabbage has been brought from the kitchen garden into the flower garden
on account of the beautiful variegation of its leaves. This, however, is
no novelty, for Parkinson said of the many sorts of Cabbage in his day:
"There is greater diversity in the form and colour of the leaves of
this plant than there is in any other that I know groweth on the
ground. . . . Many of them being of no use with us for the table, but
for delight to behold the wonderful variety of the works of God herein."

CAMOMILE.

_Falstaff._

Though the Camomile, the more it is trodden on the faster it
grows, yet youth, the more it is wasted the sooner it wears.

_1st Henry IV_, act ii, sc. 4 (443).

The low-growing Camomile, the emblem of the sweetness of humility, has
the lofty names of Camomile (_Chamaemelum_, _i.e._, Apple of the Earth)
and Anthemis nobilis. Its fine aromatic scent and bitter flavour
suggested that it must be possessed of much medicinal virtue, while its
low growth made it suitable for planting on the edges of flower-beds and
paths, its scent being brought out as it was walked upon. For this
purpose it was much used in Elizabethan gardens; "large walks, broad and
long, close and open, like the Tempe groves in Thessaly, raised with
gravel and sand, having seats and banks of Camomile; all this delights
the mind, and brings health to the body."[46:1] As a garden flower it is
now little used, though its bright starry flower and fine scent might
recommend it; but it is still to be found in herb gardens, and is still,
though not so much as formerly, used as a medicine.

Like many other low plants, the Camomile is improved by being pressed
into the earth by rolling or otherwise, and there are many allusions to
this in the old writers: thus Lily in his "Euphues" says: "The Camomile
the more it is trodden and pressed down, the more it spreadeth;" and in
the play, "The More the Merrier" (1608), we have--