"Ferdinand and Miranda avow their mutual love, beside the lapping of the long blue waves."
[Illustration: FERDINAND AND MIRANDA. _Painting by Edmund Dulac_.]
Moving meditatively along Holborn, he presently encountered his old friend Gerard the botanist, whose _Herball_ had been published two years before,--who stood at the head of his profession for knowledge and achievement. He lived in Holborn, where he had not only a fine garden-ground, but a fruit-ground in Fetter Lane, which he superintended for the surgical society of which he was a member.
"Well met, Will!" said the grave and reverend herbalist, "no other man in London would I more gladly welcome: for that thou hast a most worthy apprehension of the seemliness of plants and herbs. Country blood, country blood, good sir! Come, now, into my poor enclosure and let me regale thee with new and marvellous things.... What! it is but eight o' the clock! The paltry playhouse shall not claim thee yet awhile. What are all Euripides his dramas, in comparison with that wherewith I shall rejoice thine eyes?"
And, seizing the poet's hand, Gerard drew him through a side-door into his beloved garden. "Behold!" he exclaimed, "the Apple of Love, _Pomum Aureum_!"--and, with ineffable pride, he pointed out some slowly-ripening tomatoes. "These grow in Spain, Italy and such hot countries, from whence myself have received seeds for my garden, where, as thou seest, they do grow and prosper.... Howbeit there be other golden apples, which the poets do fable growing in the gardens of the daughters of Hesperus. These,"--he added regretfully, "I have not."
"Master Gerard, there shall no golden apples ever come to England worthy to compare with yours," remarked the dramatist, luxuriously inhaling the warm June scents shut closely within sun-baked walls, and gazing down the coloured vistas and aisles of bloom. "Here's flowers for you!" he murmured to himself,
"Here's a plenty of sweet herbs! Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram, The marigold that goes to bed with the sun, And with him rises weeping: these are flowers Of middle summer. And I think they are given To men of middle age."
"Sithee here again," continued Gerard, well launched upon his favourite topic, "this plant, which is called of some Skyrrits of Peru, is generally called of us, Potatus or Potatoes,"--and he waved his hand towards a bed of sweet potatoes. "Of these roots may be made conserves, toothsome, wholesome and dainty, and many comfortable and restorative sweetmeats. Other potatoes there be, which some do use with salt,--but of these I have no present apprehension."