In Shakespeare's time the "Brier" was not restricted to the Sweet Briar, as it usually is now; but it meant any sort of wild Rose, and even it would seem from No. 9 that it was applied to the cultivated Rose, for there the scene is laid in the Temple Gardens. In some of the passages it probably does not allude to any Rose, but simply to any wild thorny plant. That this was its common use then, we know from many examples. In "Le Morte Arthur," the Earl of Ascolot's daughter is described-- "Hyr Rode was rede as blossom or Brere Or floure that springith in the felde" (179). And in "A Pleasant New Court Song," in the Roxburghe Ballads-- "I stept me close aside Under a Hawthorn Bryer." It bears the same meaning in our Bibles, where "Thorns," "Brambles," and "Briers," stand for any thorny and useless plant, the soil of Palestine being especially productive of thorny plants of many kinds. Wickliffe's translation of Matthew vii. 16, is--"Whether men gaderen grapis of thornes; or figis of Breris?" and Tyndale's translation is much the same--"Do men gaddre grapes of thornes, or figges of Bryeres?"[41:1] FOOTNOTES: [41:1] "Brere--Carduus, tribulus, vepres, veprecula."--_Catholicon Anglicum._ BROOM. (1) _Iris._ And thy Broom groves, Whose shadow the dismissed bachelor loves, Being lass-lorn. _Tempest_, act iv, sc. 1 (66). (2) _Puck._ I am sent with Broom before To sweep the dust behind the door. _Midsummer Night's Dream_, act v, sc. 1 (396). (3) _Man._ I made good my place; at length they came to the Broomstaff with me. _Henry VIII_, act v, sc. 4 (56). The Broom was one of the most popular plants of the Middle Ages. Its modern Latin name is _Cytisus scoparius_, but under its then Latin name of _Planta genista_ it gave its name to the Plantagenet family, either in the time of Henry II., as generally reported, or probably still earlier. As the favourite badge of the family it appears on their monuments and portraits, and was embroidered on their clothes and imitated in their jewels. Nor was it only in England that the plant was held in such high favour; it was the special flower of the Scotch, and it was highly esteemed in many countries on the Continent, especially in Brittany. Yet, in spite of all this, there are only these three notices of the plant in Shakespeare, and of those three, two (2 and 3) refer to its uses when dead; and the third (1), though it speaks of it as living, yet has nothing to say of the remarkable beauties of this favourite British flower. Yet it has great beauties which cannot easily be overlooked. Its large, yellow flowers, its graceful habit of growth, and its fragrance-- "Sweet is the Broome-flowre, but yet sowre enough"-- SPENSER, _Sonnet_ xxvi.