hed werk away schall synkyn."[325:1]

But even in Shakespeare's time this high character had somewhat abated,
though it was still used for all medicines in which a strong bitter was
recommended. But its chief use seems to have been as a protection
against insects of all kinds, who might very reasonably be supposed to
avoid such a bitter food. This is Tusser's advice about the plant--

"While Wormwood hath seed get a handful or twaine
To save against March, to make flea to refraine:
Where chamber is sweeped and Wormwood is strowne,
No flea, for his life, dare abide to be knowne.
What saver is better (if physick be true),
For places infected than Wormwood and Rue?
It is as a comfort for hart and the braine,
And therefore to have it, it is not in vaine."

_July's Husbandry._

This quality was the origin of the names of Mugwort[326:1] and Wormwood.
Its other name (in the Stockholm MS. referred to), Avoyne or Averoyne is
a corruption of the specific name of one of the species, A. Abrotanum.
Southernwood is the southern Wormwood, _i.e._, the foreign, as
distinguished from the native plant. The modern name for the same
species is Boy's Love, or Old Man. The last name may have come from its
hoary leaves, though different explanations are given: the other name is
given to it, according to Dr. Prior, "from an ointment made with its
ashes being used by young men to promote the growth of a beard." There
is good authority for this derivation, but I think the name may have
been given for other reasons. "Boy's Love" is one of the most favourite
cottage-garden plants, and it enters largely into the rustic language of
flowers. No posy presented by a young man to his lass is complete
without Boy's Love; and it is an emblem of fidelity, at least it was so
once. It is, in fact, a Forget-me-Not, from its strong abiding smell; so
St. Francis de Sales applied it: "To love in the midst of sweets, little
children could do that; but to love in the bitterness of Wormwood is a
sure sign of our affectionate fidelity." Not that the Wormwood was ever
named Forget-me-Not, for that name was given to the Ground Pine (_Ajuga
chamaepitys_) on account of its unpleasant and long-enduring smell, until
it was transferred to the Myosotis (which then lost its old name of
Mouse-ear), and the pretty legend was manufactured to account for the
name.

In England Wormwo