Here’s flowers for you, Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram, The marigold that goes to bed wi’ the sun, And with him rises weeping.
The wholesome saulge and lavender still gray, Ranke smelling Rue, and cummin good for eyes.
Opening upon level plots Of crowned lilies standing near Purple spiked lavender.
Lavender is for lovers true, Which evermore be faine, Desiring always for to have Some pleasure for their paine.
_Piscator._ “I’ll now lead you to an honest ale-house; where we shall find a cleanly room, lavender in the windows and twenty ballads stuck about the wall.”
Lavender is one of the few herbs that has always been in great repute and allusions to it are legion. From the custom of laying it among linen, or other carefully stored goods, a proverb has arisen--Timbs quotes from Earle’s _Microcosm_: “He takes on against the Pope without mercy and has a jest still _in Lavender_ for Bellarmine.” Walton’s _Coridon_ mentions that “the sheets” smell of lavender in a literal sense, and Parkinson says that it is much put among “apparell.” Oil of Lavender is still to be found in the British Pharmacopœia, and some of the old writers utter serious warnings against “divers rash and overbold Apothecaries and other foolish women,” who gave indiscriminately the distilled water, or composition that is made of distilled wine in which flower seeds have been steeped. Turner suggests using it in a curious manner. “I judge that the flowers of Lavander quilted in a cappe and dayly worne are good for all diseases of the head that come of a cold cause and that they comfort the braine very well.” Dr Fernie says it is of real use in a case of nervous headache. Lavender used to be called Lavender Spike or Spike alone, and French Lavender (_L. Stæchas_) Stickadove or Cassidony, sometimes turned by country people into Cast-me-down. _La petite Corbeille_ tells us that the juice of Lavender is a specific in cases of loss of speech and adds drily, “une telle propriété suffirait pour rendre cette plante à jamais precieuse.” In Spain and Portugal it is used to strew churches and it is burned in bonfires on St John’s Day, the day when all evil spirits are abroad. In some countries it must still possess wonderful qualities! Tuscan peasants believe that it will prevent the Evil Eye from hurting children.