s slightly named by Virgil, Ovid, and Pliny. It
appears to have been cultivated in England early, as an old writer,
Tusser, says:

'Wife, into the garden, and set me a plot,
With strawberry-roots the best to be got;
Such growing abroad among thorns in the wood,
Well chosen and pricked, prove excellent good.'

Gerarde speaks of them as growing 'in hills and valleys, likewise in
woods, and other such places as be something shadowie; they prosper
well in gardens, the red everywhere; the other two, white and green,
more rare, and are not to be founde save only in gardens.' Shakspeare
speaks of this fruit. We find the Bishop of Ely, when conversing with
the Archbishop of Canterbury on the change of conduct manifested by
the young King Henry V., on his coming to the throne, says:

'The strawberry grows underneath the nettle,
And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best
Neighboured by fruits of baser quality,
And so the prince,' &c.

And the Duke of Gloster, when counselling in the Tower with his
allies, and plotting to strip his young nephew of his crown and
honours, says:

'My Lord of Ely, when I was last in Holborn,
I saw good strawberries in your garden there:
I do beseech you send for some of them.'

Parkinson speaks, in 1629, of their having been introduced 'but of
late days.' As an article of diet, this fruit offers but little
nourishment, but it is considered useful in some diseases, and
generally wholesome, though there are some constitutions to which it
is injurious. Linnaeus states, that he was twice cured of the gout by
the free use of strawberries; and Gerarde and other old authors
enlarge much on their efficacy in consumptive cases. Phillips tells
us, that 'in the monastery of Batalha is the tomb of Don John, son of
King John I. of Portugal, which is ornamented by the representation of
strawberries, this prince having chosen them for his crest, to shew
his devotion to St John the Baptist, who lived on fruits.' This is
rather a curious notion, for though the Scripture tells us of St John
the Baptist, that when in the wilderness 'his meat was locusts and
wild honey,' we have no reason to suppose that he lived always even on
these. What these locusts were is problematical, but it is likely they
were the fruit of the locust-tree, _Hymenaea_, which bears a pod
containing a sort of bean, enclosed in a whitish substance of fine
filaments, as sweet as sugar or honey. T