which he must have known, is also very large, and well worth noting.[4:1] He has no notice, under any name, of such common flowers as the Snowdrop, the Forget-me-Not, the Foxglove, the Lily of the Valley,[4:2] and many others which he must have known, but which he has not named; because when he names a plant or flower, he does so not to show his own knowledge, but because the particular flower or plant is wanted in the particular place in which he uses it.

Another point of interest in the Plant-lore of Shakespeare is the wide range of his observation. He gathers flowers for us from all sorts of places—from the "turfy mountains" and the "flat meads;" from the "bosky acres" and the "unshrubbed down;" from "rose-banks" and "hedges even-pleached." But he is equally at home in the gardens of the country gentlemen with their "pleached bowers" and "leafy orchards." Nor is he a stranger to gardens of a much higher pretension, for he will pick us famous Strawberries from the garden of my Lord of Ely in Holborn; he will pick us White and Red Roses from the garden of the Temple; and he will pick us "Apricocks" from the royal garden of Richard the Second's sad queen. I propose to follow Shakespeare into these many pleasant spots, and to pick each flower and note each plant which he has thought worthy of notice. I do not propose to make a selection of his plants, for that would not give a proper idea of the extent of his knowledge, but to note every tree, and plant, and flower that he has noted. And as I pick each flower, I shall let Shakespeare first tell us all he has to say about it; in other words, I shall quote every passage in which he names the plant or flower; for here, again, it would not do to make a selection from the passages, my object not being to give "floral extracts," but to let him say all he can in his own choice words. There is not much difficulty in this, but there is difficulty in determining how much or how little to quote. On the one hand, it often seems cruel to cut short a noble passage in the midst of which some favourite flower is placed; but, on the other hand, to quote at too great a length would extend the book beyond reasonable limits. The rule, therefore, must be to confine the quotations within as small a space as possible, only taking care that the space is not so small as entirely to spoil the beauty of the description. Then, having listened to all that Shakespeare has to say on each flower, I shall follow with illustrations (few and short) from contemporary writers; then with any observations that may present themselves in the identification of Shakespeare's plant with their modern representatives, finishing each with anything in the history or modern uses or cultivation of the plant that I think will interest readers.

For the identification of the plants, we have an excellent and trustworthy guide in John Gerard, who was almost an exact contemporary of Shakespeare. Gerard's life ranged from 1545 to 1612, and Shakespeare's from 1564 to 1616. Whether they were acquainted or not we do not know, but it is certainly not improbable that they were; I should think it almost certain that they must have known each other's published works.[5:1]

My subject naturally divides itself into two parts—

I now go at once to the first division, naming each plant in its alphabetical order.

FOOTNOTES: