There is a fashion in plants as in most other things, and in none is this more curiously shown than in the estimation in which Ferns are and have been held. Now-a-days it is the fashion to admire Ferns, and few would be found bold enough to profess an indifference to them. But it was not always so. Theocritus seems to have admired the Fern—
"Like Fern my tresses o'er my temples streamed."
Idyll xx. (Calverley.)
"Come here and trample dainty Fern and Poppy blossom."
Idyll v. (Calverley.)
But Virgil gives it a bad character, speaking of it as "filicem invisam." Horace is still more severe, "neglectis urenda filix innascitur agris." The Anglo-Saxon translation of Boethius spoke contemptuously of the "Thorns, and the Furzes, and the Fern, and all the weeds" (Cockayne). And so it was in Shakespeare's time. Butler spoke of it as the—
"Fern, that vile, unuseful weed,
That grows equivocably without seed."
Cowley spoke the opinion of his day as if the plant had neither use nor beauty—
"Nec caulem natura mihi, nec Floris honorem,
Nec mihi vel semen dura Noverca dedit—
Nec me sole fovet, nec cultis crescere in hortis
Concessum, et Foliis gratia nulla meis—
Herba invisa Deis poteram cœloque videri,
Et spurio Terræ nata puerperio."