the morbid effluvias of
the corpse.' For the same reason, this writer asserts, it was customary
to burn rosemary in the chambers of the sick, just like frankincense,
'whose odour is not much different from rosemary, which gave the Greeks
occasion to call it Libanotis, from Libanos (frankincense).'

The hyssop of the Bible is believed by some to be rosemary, and it is
said that in the East it was customary to hang up a bunch in the house
as a protection against evil spirits, and to use it in various
ceremonies against enchantment. Perhaps there was some connection
between this custom and that of the Greeks referred to by Aristotle, who
regarded indigestion as the effect of witchcraft, and who used rue as an
antidote. The dispelling of the charm was just the natural physical
action of the herb.

In Devonshire, however, there was a more mystic use for rosemary in
dispelling the charms of witches. A bunch of it had to be taken in the
hand and dropped bit by bit on live coals, while the two first verses of
the sixty-eighth psalm were recited, followed by the Lord's Prayer.
Bay-leaves were sometimes used in the same manner; but if the afflicted
one were suffering physically, he had also to take certain prescribed
medicines. Rosemary worn about the body was believed to strengthen the
memory and to add to the success of the wearer in anything he might
undertake.

It is as an emblem of remembrance that rosemary is most frequently used
by the old poets. Thus Ophelia:

'There is rosemary for you, that's for remembrance;
I pray you, love, remember.'

And in The Winter's Tale:

'For you there's rosemary and rue; these keep
Seeming and savour all the winter long;
Grace and remembrance be with you both.'

And thus Drayton:

'He from his lass him lavender hath sent,
Showing her love, and doth requital crave;
Him rosemary his sweetheart, whose intent
Is that he her should in remembrance have.'

Quotations might be easily multiplied, but the reader will find in
Brand's Popular Antiquities numerous references to the plant by writers
of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

As an emblem of rejoicing, rosemary was also often used. Hone quotes a
contemporary account of the joyful entry of Queen Elizabeth into London
in 1558, wherein occurs this passage: 'How many nosegays did her Grace
receive at poor women's hands? How often times stayed she her chariot
when she saw any simple body offer to speak