There's rosemary--that's for remembrance:
Pray you, love, remember.
Hamlet
There's rosemarie; the Arabians Justifie
(Physitions of exceeding perfect skill)
It comforteth the brain and memory.
Chester.
Bacon speaks of heaths of ROSEMARY (Rosmarinus[095]) that "will smell a great way in the sea; perhaps twenty miles." This reminds us of Milton's Paradise.
So lovely seemed
That landscape, and of pure, now purer air,
Meets his approach, and to the heart inspires
Vernal delight and joy, able to drive
All sadness but despair. Now gentle gales
Fanning their odoriferous wings, dispense
Native perfumes, and whisper whence they stole
Those balmy spoils. As when to them who sail
Beyond the Cape of Hope, and now are past
Mozambic, off at sea north east winds blow
Sabean odours from the spicy shore
Of Araby the blest, with such delay
Well pleased they slack their course, and many a league
Cheered with the grateful smell, old Ocean smiles.
Rosemary used to be carried at funerals, and worn as wedding favors.
Lewis Pray take a piece of Rosemary
Miramont I'll wear it,
But for the lady's sake, and none of your's!
Beaumont and Fletcher's "Elder Brother."
Rosemary, says Malone, being supposed to strengthen the memory, was the emblem of fidelity in lovers. So in A Handfull of Pleasant Delites, containing Sundrie New Sonets, 16mo. 1854: