ry
land,[967] and, according to Armado, in "Love's Labour's Lost" (i. 2),
"Green, indeed, is the colour of lovers."

[967] See Singer's "Shakespeare," vol. viii. p. 204.

In "A Midsummer-Night's Dream" (v. 1), Thisbe laments:

"Lovers, make moan:
His eyes were green as leeks."

The Nurse, in her description of Romeo's rival ("Romeo and Juliet," iii.
5), says:

"An eagle, madam,
Hath not so green, so quick, so fair an eye
As Paris hath."

In the "Two Noble Kinsmen" (v. 1), Emilia, praying to Diana, says:

"O vouchsafe,
With that thy rare green eye--which never yet
Beheld thing maculate--look on thy virgin."

The words of Armado have been variously explained as alluding to green
eyes--Spanish writers being peculiarly enthusiastic in this praise--to the
willow worn by unsuccessful lovers, and to their melancholy.[968] It has
also been suggested[969] that, as green is the color most suggestive of
freshness and spring-time, it may have been considered the most
appropriate lover's badge. At the same time, however, it is curious
that, as green has been regarded as an ominous color, it should be
connected with lovers, for, as an old couplet remarks:

"Those dressed in blue
Have lovers true;
In green and white,
Forsaken quite."[970]

[968] See Douce's "Illustrations of Shakespeare," p. 133.

[969] See an article by Mr. Black, in _Antiquary_, 1881, vol. iii.

[970] See Henderson's "Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties," pp.
34, 35.

In "Merchant of Venice" (iii. 2), "green-eyed jealousy," and in
"Othello" (iii. 3), its equivalent, "green-eyed monster," are
expressions used by Shakespeare.

_Yellow_ is an epithet often, too, applied to jealousy, by the old
writers. In the "Merry Wives of Windsor" (i. 3), Nym says he will
possess Ford "with yellowness." In "Much Ado About Nothing" (ii. 1)
Beatrice describes the Count as "civil as an orange, and something of
that jealous complexion." In "Twelfth Night" (ii. 4), Viola tells the
Duke how her father's daughter loved a man, but never told her love:

"She pin'd in thought,
And with a green and yellow melancholy
She sat like patience on a monument."

_Dinner Customs._ In days gone by there was but one salt-cellar on the
table, which was a large piece of plate, generally much ornamented. The
tables being long, the salt wa