(1)	Thisbe.	His eyes were green as Leeks.
Midsummer Night's Dream, act v, sc. 1 (342).
(2)	Pistol.	Tell him I'll knock his Leek about his pate upon Saint Davy's Day.
Henry V, act iv, sc. 1 (54).
(3)	Fluellen.	If your majesties is remembered of it, the Welshmen did good service in a garden where Leeks did grow, wearing Leeks in their Monmouth caps; which your majesty knows to this hour is an honourable badge of the service; and I do believe your majesty takes no scorn to wear the Leek upon Saint Tavy's Day.
Ibid., act iv, sc. 7 (101).
(4)		In act v, sc. 1, is the encounter between Fluellen and Pistol, when he makes the bully eat the Leek; this causes such frequent mention of the Leek that it would be necessary to extract the whole scene, which, therefore, I will simply refer to in this way.

We can scarcely understand the very high value that was placed on Leeks in olden times. By the Egyptians the plant was almost considered sacred, "Porrum et cÆpe nefas violare et frangere morsu" (Juvenal); we know how Leeks were relished in Egypt by the Israelites; and among the Greeks they "appear to have constituted so important a part in ancient gardens, that the term p?as??, or a bed, derived its name from p?as??, the Greek word for Onion," or Leek[138:1] (Daubeny); while among the Anglo-Saxons it was very much the same. The name is pure Anglo-Saxon, and originally meant any vegetable; then it was restricted to any bulbous vegetable, before it was finally further restricted to our Leek; and "its importance was considered so much above that of any other vegetable, that leac-tun, the Leek-garden, became the common name of the kitchen garden, and leac-ward, the Leek-keeper, was used to designate the gardener" (Wright). The plant in those days gave its name to the Broad Leek which is our present Leek, the Yne Leek or Onion, the Garleek (Garlick), and others of the same tribe, while it was applied to other plants of very different families, as the Hollow Leek (Corydalis cava), and the House Leek (Sempervivum tectorum).

It seems to have been considered the hardiest of all flowers. In the account of the Great Frost of 1608, "this one infallible token" is given in proof of its severity. "The Leek whose courage hath ever been so undaunted that he hath borne up his lusty head in all storms, and could never be compelled to shrink for hail, snow, frost, or showers, is now by the violence and cruelty of this weather beaten unto the earth, being rotted, dead, disgraced, and trod upon."

Its popularity still continues among the Welsh, by whom it is still, I believe, very largely cultivated; but it does not seem to have been much valued in England in Shakespeare's time, for Gerard has but little to say of its virtues, but much of its "hurts." "It hateth the body, ingendreth naughty blood, causeth troublesome and terrible dreames, offendeth the eyes, dulleth the sight, &c." Nor does Parkinson give a much more favourable account. "Our dainty eye now refuseth them wholly, in all sorts except the poorest; they are used with us sometimes in Lent to make pottage, and is a great and generall feeding in Wales with the vulgar gentlemen." It was even used as the proverbial expression of worthlessness, as in the "Roumaunt of the Rose," where the author says, speaking of "Phiciciens and Advocates"—

And by Chaucer—

Prologue of the Chanoune's Tale.

The Child of Bristowe.

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FOOTNOTES:

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