stem, snatching it away quickly, and
if the good omen of the peas remaining in the husk were preserved, in
then presenting it to the lady of his choice. Touchstone, in "As You
Like It" (ii. 4), alludes to this piece of popular suggestion: "I
remember the wooing of a peascod[541] instead of her." Gay, who has
carefully chronicled many a custom of his time, says, in his "Fourth
Pastoral:"

"As peascods once I pluck'd, I chanc'd to see,
One that was closely fill'd with three times three,
Which when I cropp'd I safely home convey'd,
And o'er my door the spell in secret laid."

[541] The cod was what we now call the pod.

We may quote, as a further illustration, the following stanza from
Browne's "Pastorals" (bk. ii. song 3):

"The peascod greene, oft with no little toyle,
He'd seek for in the fattest, fertil'st soile,
And rende it from the stalke to bring it to her,
And in her bosom for acceptance wooe her."[542]

[542] See Brand's "Pop. Antiq.," 1849, vol. ii. p. 99.

_Plantain._ The leaves of this plant were carefully valued by our
forefathers for their supposed efficacy in healing wounds, etc. It was
also considered as a preventive of poison; and to this supposed virtue
we find an allusion in "Romeo and Juliet" (i. 2):

"_Benvolio._ Take thou some new infection to thy eye,
And the rank poison of the old will die.

_Romeo._ Your plantain leaf is excellent for that.

_Benvolio._ For what, I pray thee?

_Romeo._ For your broken shin."[543]

[543] See "Love's Labour's Lost," iii. 1.

In the "Two Noble Kinsmen" (i. 2) Palamon says:

"These poor slight sores
Need not a plantain."

_Poppy._ The plant referred to by Shakespeare in "Othello" (iii. 3) is
the opium poppy, well known in his day for its deadly qualities. It is
described by Spenser in the "Fairy Queen" (ii. 7, 52) as the
"dead-sleeping poppy," and Drayton ("Nymphidia," v.) enumerates it among
the flowers that procure "deadly sleeping."

_Potato._ It is curious enough, says Nares,[544] to find that excellent
root, which now forms a regular portion of the daily nutriment of every
individual, and is the chief or entire support of multitudes in Ireland,
spoken of continually as having some powerful effect upon the human
frame, in exciting the desires and passions; yet this is the case in all
the writings contemporary with Shakespeare. Thus Falstaff,