476] Dr. Prior's "Popular Names of British Plants," p. 13.

[477] Nares's "Glossary," vol. i. p. 45.

_Balm._ From very early times the balm, or balsam, has been valued for
its curative properties, and, as such, is alluded to in "Troilus and
Cressida" (i. 1):

"But, saying thus, instead of oil and balm,
Thou lay'st in every gash that love hath given me
The knife that made it."

In "3 Henry VI." (iv. 8) King Henry says:[478]

"My pity hath been balm to heal their wounds."

[478] See "Richard III.," i. 2; "Timon of Athens," iii. 5.

Alcibiades, in "Timon of Athens" (iii. 5), says:

"Is this the balsam, that the usuring senate
Pours into captains' wounds? Banishment!"

Macbeth, too, in the well-known passage ii. 2, introduces it:

"Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care,
The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast."

As the oil of consecration[479] it is spoken of by King Richard
("Richard II.," iii. 2):

"Not all the water in the rough rude sea
Can wash the balm from an anointed king."

[479] See "2 Henry IV.," iv. 5.

And again, in "3 Henry VI." (iii. 1), King Henry, when in disguise,
speaks thus:

"Thy place is fill'd, thy sceptre wrung from thee,
Thy balm wash'd off wherewith thou wast anointed:
No bending knee will call thee Caesar now."

The origin of balsam, says Mr. Ellacombe,[480] "was for a long time a
secret, but it is now known to have been the produce of several
gum-bearing trees, especially the _Pistacia lentiscus_ and the
_Balsamodendron Gileadense_, and now, as then, the name is not strictly
confined to the produce of any one plant."

[480] "Plant-Lore of Shakespeare," p. 22.

_Barley._ The barley broth, of which the Constable, in "Henry V." (iii.
5), spoke so contemptuously as the food of English soldiers, was
probably beer,[481] which long before the time of Henry was so
celebrated that it gave its name to the plant (barley being simply the
beer-plant):

"Can sodden water,
A drench for sur-rein'd jades, their barley broth,
Decoct their cold blood to such valiant heat?"

[481] Ellacombe's "Plant-Lore of Shakespeare," p. 23.

_Bay-tree._ The withering and death of this tree were reckoned a
prognostic of evil, both in ancient and modern times, a notion[482] to
which S