"Come all you forsaken and sit down by me,He that plaineth of his false love, mine's falser than she;The Willow wreath weare I, since my love did fleet,A garland for lovers forsaken most meet."
"Come all you forsaken and sit down by me,He that plaineth of his false love, mine's falser than she;The Willow wreath weare I, since my love did fleet,A garland for lovers forsaken most meet."
The ballad is entitled "The Complaint of a Lover Forsaken of His Love—To a Pleasant New Tune," and is printed in the "Roxburghe Ballads." This curious connection of the Willow with forsaken or disappointed lovers stood its ground for a long time. Spenser spoke of the "Willow worne of forlorne paramoures." Drayton says that—
"In love the sad forsaken wightThe Willow garland weareth"—
"In love the sad forsaken wightThe Willow garland weareth"—
Muse's Elysium.
and though we have long given up the custom of wearing garlands of any sort, yet many of us can recollect one of the most popular street songs, that was heard everywhere, and at last passed into a proverb, and which began—
"All round my hat I vears a green WillowIn token," &c.
"All round my hat I vears a green WillowIn token," &c.
It has been suggested by many that this melancholy association with the Willow arose from its Biblical associations; and this may be so, though all the references to the Willow that occur in the Bible are, with one notable exception, connected with joyfulness and fertility. The one exception is the plaintive wail in the 137th Psalm—
"By the streams of Babel, there we sat down,And we wept when we remembered Zion.On the Willows among the rivers we hung our harps."
"By the streams of Babel, there we sat down,And we wept when we remembered Zion.On the Willows among the rivers we hung our harps."
And this one record has been sufficient to alter the emblematic character of the Willow—"this one incident has made the Willow an emblem of the deepest of sorrows, namely, sorrow for sin found out, and visited with its due punishment. From that time the Willow appears never again to have been associated with feelings of gladness. Even among heathen nations, for what reason we know not, it was a tree of evil omen, and was employed to make the torches carried at funerals. Our own poets made the Willow the symbol of despairing woe."—Johns.This is the more remarkable because the tree referred to in the Psalms, the Weeping Willow (Salix Babylonica), which by its habit of growth is to us so suggestive of crushing sorrow, was quite unknown in Europe till a very recent period. "Itgrows abundantly on the banks of the Euphrates, and other parts of Asia, as in Palestine, and also in North Africa;" but it is said to have been introduced into England during the last century, and then in a curious way. "Many years ago, the well-known poet, Alexander Pope, who resided at Twickenham, received a basket of Figs as a present from Turkey. The basket was made of the supple branches of the Weeping Willow, the very same species under which the captive Jews sat when they wept by the waters of Babylon. The poet valued highly the small and tender twigs associated with so much that was interesting, and he untwisted the basket, and planted one of the branches in the ground. It had some tiny buds upon it, and he hoped he might be able to rear it, as none of this species of Willow was known in England. Happily the Willow is very quick to take root and grow. The little branch soon became a tree, and drooped gracefully over the river, in the same manner that its race had done over the waters of Babylon. From that one branch all the Weeping Willows in England are descended."—Kirby'sTrees.[323:1]
There is probably no tree that contributes so largely to the conveniences of English life as the Willow. Putting aside its uses in the manufacture of gunpowder and cricket bats, we may safely say that the most scantily-furnished house can boast of some article of Willow manufacture in the shape of baskets. British basket-making is, as far as we know, the oldest national manufacture; it is the manufacture in connection with which we have the earliest record of the value placed on British work. British baskets were exported to Rome, and it would almost seem as if baskets were unknown in Rome until they were introduced from Britain, for with the article of import came the name also, and the British "basket" became the Latin "bascauda." We have curious evidence of the high value attached to these baskets. Juvenal describes Catullus in fear of shipwreck throwing overboard his most precious treasures: "precipitare volens etiam pulcherrima," and among these "pulcherrima" he mentions "bascaudas." Martial bears a still higher testimony to thevalue set on "British baskets," reckoning them among the many rich gifts distributed at the Saturnalia—
"Barbara de pictis veni bascauda BritannisSed me jam vult dicere Roma suam."—Book xiv, 99.
"Barbara de pictis veni bascauda BritannisSed me jam vult dicere Roma suam."—Book xiv, 99.
Many of the Willows make handsome shrubs for the garden, for besides those that grow into large trees, there are many that are low shrubs, and some so low as to be fairly called carpet plants. Salix Reginæ is one of the most silvery shrubs we have, with very narrow leaves; S. lanata is almost as silvery, but with larger and woolly leaves, and makes a very pretty object when grown on rockwork near water; S. rosmarinifolia is another desirable shrub; and among the lower-growing species, the following will grow well on rockwork, and completely clothe the surface: S. alpina, S. Grahami, S. retusa, S. serpyllifolia, and S. reticulata. They are all easily cultivated and are quite hardy.
[321:1]In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the Willow does not appear to have had any value for its medical uses. In the present day salicine and salicylic acid are produced from the bark, and have a high reputation as antiseptics and in rheumatic cases.
[321:1]In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the Willow does not appear to have had any value for its medical uses. In the present day salicine and salicylic acid are produced from the bark, and have a high reputation as antiseptics and in rheumatic cases.
[323:1]This is the traditional history of the introduction of the Weeping Willow into England, but it is very doubtful.
[323:1]This is the traditional history of the introduction of the Weeping Willow into England, but it is very doubtful.
See alsoDian's Bud.
Wormwood is the product of many species of Artemisia, a family consisting of 180 species, of which we have four in England. The whole family is remarkable for the extreme bitterness of all parts of the plant, so that "as bitter as Wormwood" is one of the oldest proverbs. The plant was named Artemisia from Artemis, the Greek name of Diana, and for this reason: "Verily of these three Worts which we named Artemisia, it is said that Diana should find them, and delivered their powers and leechdom to Chiron the Centaur, who first from these Worts set forth a leechdom, and he named these Worts from the name of Diana, Artemis, that is, Artemisias."—Herbarium Apulæi, Cockayne's translation. The Wormwood was of very high reputation in medicine, and is thus recommended in the Stockholm MS.:
"Lif man or woman, more or lesseIn his head have gret sicknesseOr gruiance or any werkingAwoyne he take wt. owte lettyngIt is called Sowthernwode alsoAnd hony eteys et spurge stamp yer toAnd late hy yis drunk, fastined drinkyAnd his hed werk away schall synkyn."[325:1]
"Lif man or woman, more or lesseIn his head have gret sicknesseOr gruiance or any werkingAwoyne he take wt. owte lettyngIt is called Sowthernwode alsoAnd hony eteys et spurge stamp yer toAnd late hy yis drunk, fastined drinkyAnd his hed werk away schall synkyn."[325:1]
But even in Shakespeare's time this high character had somewhat abated, though it was still used for all medicines in which a strong bitter was recommended. But its chief use seems to have been as a protection against insects of all kinds, who might very reasonably be supposed to avoid such a bitter food. This is Tusser's advice about the plant—
"While Wormwood hath seed get a handful or twaineTo save against March, to make flea to refraine:Where chamber is sweeped and Wormwood is strowne,No flea, for his life, dare abide to be knowne.What saver is better (if physick be true),For places infected than Wormwood and Rue?It is as a comfort for hart and the braine,And therefore to have it, it is not in vaine."
"While Wormwood hath seed get a handful or twaineTo save against March, to make flea to refraine:Where chamber is sweeped and Wormwood is strowne,No flea, for his life, dare abide to be knowne.What saver is better (if physick be true),For places infected than Wormwood and Rue?It is as a comfort for hart and the braine,And therefore to have it, it is not in vaine."
July's Husbandry.
This quality was the origin of the names of Mugwort[326:1]and Wormwood. Its other name (in the Stockholm MS. referred to), Avoyne or Averoyne is a corruption of the specific name of one of the species, A. Abrotanum. Southernwood is the southern Wormwood,i.e., the foreign, as distinguished from the native plant. The modern name for the same species is Boy's Love, or Old Man. The last name may have come from its hoary leaves, though different explanations are given: the other name is given to it, according to Dr. Prior, "from an ointment made with its ashes being used by young men to promote the growth of a beard." There is good authority for this derivation, but I think the name may have been given for other reasons. "Boy's Love" is one of the most favourite cottage-garden plants, and it enters largely into the rustic language of flowers. No posy presented by a young man to his lass is complete without Boy's Love; and it is an emblem of fidelity, at least it was so once. It is, in fact, a Forget-me-Not, from its strong abiding smell; so St. Francis de Sales applied it: "To love in the midst of sweets, little children could do that; but to love in the bitterness of Wormwood is a sure sign of our affectionate fidelity." Not that the Wormwood was ever named Forget-me-Not, for that name was given to the Ground Pine (Ajuga chamæpitys) on account of its unpleasant and long-enduring smell, until it was transferred to the Myosotis (which then lost its old name of Mouse-ear), and the pretty legend was manufactured to account for the name.
In England Wormwood has almost fallen into complete disuse; but in France it is largely used in the shape of Absinthe. As a garden plant, Tarragon, which is a speciesof Wormwood, will claim a place in every herb garden, and there are a few, such as A. sericea, A. cana, and A. alpina, which make pretty shrubs for the rockwork.
[325:1]Wormwood had a still higher reputation among the ancients, as the following extract shows:Ἀρτεμισία μονόκλωνος.Αὐει γὰρ κόπον ἀυδρὸς ὁδοιπόρου, ὅς κ᾽ ένι χέρσιντην μονόκλωνον ἔχη· περὶ δ᾿ ἀυ ποσὶν ἕρπετα πάνταφεύγει, ἤν τις ἔχη ἐν ὁδῶ, κὰι φάσματα δεινά.Anonymi Carmen de Herbis, in "Poetæ Bucolici."
[325:1]Wormwood had a still higher reputation among the ancients, as the following extract shows:
Ἀρτεμισία μονόκλωνος.
Αὐει γὰρ κόπον ἀυδρὸς ὁδοιπόρου, ὅς κ᾽ ένι χέρσιντην μονόκλωνον ἔχη· περὶ δ᾿ ἀυ ποσὶν ἕρπετα πάνταφεύγει, ἤν τις ἔχη ἐν ὁδῶ, κὰι φάσματα δεινά.
Αὐει γὰρ κόπον ἀυδρὸς ὁδοιπόρου, ὅς κ᾽ ένι χέρσιντην μονόκλωνον ἔχη· περὶ δ᾿ ἀυ ποσὶν ἕρπετα πάνταφεύγει, ἤν τις ἔχη ἐν ὁδῶ, κὰι φάσματα δεινά.
Anonymi Carmen de Herbis, in "Poetæ Bucolici."
[326:1]In connection with Mugwort there is a most curious account of the formation of a plant name given in a note in the "Promptorium Parvulorum," s.v. Mugworte: "Mugwort, al on as seyn some, Modirwort; lewed folk that in manye wordes conne no rygt sownyge, but ofte shortyn wordys, and changyn lettrys and silablys, they coruptyn theoin toaanddin tog, and syncopynismytyn a-weyiandrand seyn mugwort."—Arundel MS., 42, f. 35 v.
[326:1]In connection with Mugwort there is a most curious account of the formation of a plant name given in a note in the "Promptorium Parvulorum," s.v. Mugworte: "Mugwort, al on as seyn some, Modirwort; lewed folk that in manye wordes conne no rygt sownyge, but ofte shortyn wordys, and changyn lettrys and silablys, they coruptyn theoin toaanddin tog, and syncopynismytyn a-weyiandrand seyn mugwort."—Arundel MS., 42, f. 35 v.
See alsoHebenon, p.118.
The Yew, though undoubtedly an indigenous British plant, has not a British name. The name is derived from the LatinIva, and "under this name we find theYewso inextricably mixed up with theIvythat, as dissimilar as are the two trees, there can be no doubt that these names are in their origin identical." So says Dr. Prior, and he proceeds to give a long and very interesting account of the origin of the name. The connection of Yew withivaandIvyis still shown in the Frenchif, the Germaneibe, and the Portugueseiva.Yewseems to be quite a modern form; in the old vocabularies the word is variously spelt iw, ewe,[328:1]eugh-tre,[328:2]haw-tre, new-tre, ew, uhe, and iw.
The connection of the Yew with churchyards and funerals is noticed by Shakespeare in Nos.1,5, and6, and its celebrated connection with English bow-making in No.3, where "double-fatal" may probably refer to its noxious qualities when living and its use for deadly weapons afterwards. These noxious qualities, joined to its dismal colour, and to its constant use in churchyards, caused it to enter into the supposed charms and incantations of the quacks of the Middle Ages. Yet Gerard entirely denies its noxious qualities: "They say that the fruit thereof being eaten is not onely dangerous and deadly unto man, but if birds do eat thereof it causeth them to cast their feathers and many times to die—all which I dare boldly affirme is altogether untrue; for when I was yong and went to schoole, divers of my schoolfellowes, and likewise my selfe, did eat our fils of the berries of this tree, and have not only slept under the shadow thereof, but among the branches also, without any hurt at all, and that not at one time but many times." Browne says the same in his "Vulgar Errors:" "That Yew and the berries thereof are harmlesse, we know" (book ii. c. 7). There is no doubt that the Yew berries are almost if not quite harmless,[328:3]and I find them forming an element in an Anglo-Saxon recipe, which may be worth quoting as an example of the medicines to which our forefathers submitted. It is given in a Leech Book of the tenth century or earlier, and is thus translated by Cockayne: "If a man is in the water elf disease, then are the nails of his hand livid, and the eyes tearful, and he will look downwards. Give him this for a leechdom: Everthroat, cassuck, the netherward part of fane, a yew berry, lupin, helenium, a head of marsh mallow, fen, mint, dill, lily,attorlothe, pulegium, marrubium, dock, elder, fel terræ, wormwood, strawberry leaves, consolida; pour them over with ale, add holy water, sing this charm over them thrice [here follow some long charms which I need not extract]; these charms a man may sing over a wound" ("Leech Book," iii. 63).
I need say little of the uses of the Yew wood in furniture, nor of the many grand specimens of the tree which are scattered throughout the churchyards of England, except to say that "the origin of planting Yew trees in churchyards is still a subject of considerable perplexity. As the Yew was of such great importance in war and field sports before the use of gunpowder was known, perhaps the parsons of parishes were required to see that the churchyard was capable of supplying bows to the males of each parish of proper age; but in this case we should scarcely have been left without some evidence on the matter. Others again state that the trees in question were intended solely to furnish branches for use on Palm Sunday"[329:1](seePalm, p.195), "while many suppose that the Yew was naturally selected for planting around churches on account of its emblematic character, as expressive of the solemnity of death, while, from its perennial verdure and long duration, it might be regarded as a pattern of immortality."—Penny Magazine, 1843.
A good list of the largest and oldest Yews in England will be found in Loudon's "Arboretum."
The "dismal Yew" concludes the list of Shakespeare's plants and the first part of my proposed subject; and while I hope that those readers who may have gone with me so far have met with some things to interest them, I hope also they will agree with me that gardening and the love of flowers is not altogether the modern accomplishment that many of our gardeners now fancy it to be. Here are twohundred names of plants in one writer, and that writer not at all writing on horticulture, but only mentioning plants and flowers in the most incidental manner as they happened naturally to fall in his way. I should doubt if there is any similar instance in any modern English writer, and feel very sure that there is no such instance in any modern English dramatist. It shows how familiar gardens and flowers were to Shakespeare, and that he must have had frequent opportunities for observing his favourites (for most surely he was fond of flowers), not only in their wild and native homes, but in the gardens of farmhouses and parsonages, country houses, and noblemen's stately pleasaunces. The quotations that I have been able to make from the early writers in the ninth and tenth centuries, down to gossiping old Gerard, the learned Lord Chancellor Bacon, and that excellent old gardiner Parkinson, all show the same thing, that the love of flowers is no new thing in England, still less a foreign fashion, but that it is innate in us, a real instinct, that showed itself as strongly in our forefathers as in ourselves; and when we find that such men as Shakespeare and Lord Bacon (to mention no others) were almost proud to show their knowledge of plants and love of flowers, we can say that such love and knowledge is thoroughly manly and English.
In the inquiry into Shakespeare's plants I have entered somewhat largely into the etymological history of the names. I have been tempted into this by the personal interest I feel in the history of plant names, and I hope it may not have been uninteresting to my readers; but I do not think this part of the subject could have been passed by, for I agree with Johnston: "That there is more interest and as much utility in settling the nomenclature of our pastoral bards as that of all herbalists and dry-as-dust botanists" ("Botany of the Eastern Border"). I have also at times entered into the botany and physiology of the plants; this may have seemed needless to some, but I have thought that such notices were often necessary to the right understanding of the plants named, and again I shelter myself under the authority of a favourite old author: "Consider (gentle readers) what shiftes he shall be put unto, and how rawe he must needs be in explanation of metaphors, resemblances,and comparisons, that is ignorant of the nature of herbs and plants from whence their similitudes be taken, for the inlightening and garnishing of sentences."—Newton'sHerball for the Bible.
I have said that my subject naturally divides itself into two parts, first, The Plants and Flowers named by Shakespeare; second, His Knowledge of Gardens and Gardening. The first part is now concluded, and I go to the second part, which will be very much shorter, and which may be entitled "The Garden-craft of Shakespeare."
[327:1]The reading of the folio is "young tree," for "Yew tree."
[327:1]The reading of the folio is "young tree," for "Yew tree."
[328:1]"An Eu tre (Ewetre); taxus, taximus."—Catholicon Anglicum.
[328:1]
"An Eu tre (Ewetre); taxus, taximus."—Catholicon Anglicum.
"An Eu tre (Ewetre); taxus, taximus."—Catholicon Anglicum.
[328:2]"The eugh obedient to the bender's will."—Spenser,F. Q., i. 9."So far as eughen bow a shaft may send."—F. Q., ii. 11-19.
[328:2]
"The eugh obedient to the bender's will."—Spenser,F. Q., i. 9.
"The eugh obedient to the bender's will."—Spenser,F. Q., i. 9.
"So far as eughen bow a shaft may send."—F. Q., ii. 11-19.
"So far as eughen bow a shaft may send."—F. Q., ii. 11-19.
[328:3]There are, however, well-recorded instances of death from Yew berries. The poisonous quality, such as it is, resides in the hard seed, and not in the red mucilaginous skin, which is the part eaten by children. (SeeHebenon.)
[328:3]There are, however, well-recorded instances of death from Yew berries. The poisonous quality, such as it is, resides in the hard seed, and not in the red mucilaginous skin, which is the part eaten by children. (SeeHebenon.)
[329:1]"For eucheson we have non Olyfe that bereth grene leves we takon in stede of hit Hew and Palmes wyth, and beroth abowte in procession and so this day we callyn palme sonnenday."—Sermon for "Dominica in ramis palmarum," Cotton MSS.
[329:1]"For eucheson we have non Olyfe that bereth grene leves we takon in stede of hit Hew and Palmes wyth, and beroth abowte in procession and so this day we callyn palme sonnenday."—Sermon for "Dominica in ramis palmarum," Cotton MSS.
wall sconce with leaves and flowers
"The flowers are sweet, the colours fresh and trim."
"The flowers are sweet, the colours fresh and trim."
Venus and Adonis.
"Retired LeisureThat in trim Gardens takes his pleasure."
"Retired LeisureThat in trim Gardens takes his pleasure."
Milton,Il Penseroso.
leaves and flowers scrollwork
ANY account of the "Plant-lore of Shakespeare" would be very incomplete if it did not include his "Garden-craft." There are a great many passages scattered throughout his works, some of them among the most beautiful that he ever wrote, in which no particular tree, herb, or flower is mentioned by name, but which show his intimate knowledge of plants and gardening, and his great affection for them. It is from these passages, even more than from the passages I have already quoted, in which particular flowers are named, that we learn how thoroughly his early country life had influenced and marked his character, and how his whole spirit was most naturally coloured by it. Numberless allusions to flowers and their culture prove that his boyhood and early manhood were spent in the country, and that as he passed through the parks, fields, and lanes of his native county, or spent pleasant days in the gardens and orchards of the manor-houses and farm-houses of the neighbourhood, his eyes and ears were open to all the sights and sounds of a healthy country life, and he was, perhaps unconsciously, laying up in his memory a goodly store of pleasant pictures and homely country talk, to be introduced in his own wonderful way in tragedies and comedies, which, while often professedly treating of very different times and countries,have really given us some of the most faithful pictures of the country life of the Englishman of Queen Elizabeth's time, drawn with all the freshness and simplicity that can only come from a real love of the subject.
"Flowers I noted," is his own account of himself (Sonnet xcix.), and with what love he noted them, and with what carefulness and faithfulness he wrote of them, is shown in every play he published, and almost in every act and every scene. And what I said of his notices of particular flowers is still more true of his general descriptions—that they are never laboured, or introduced as for a purpose, but that each passage is the simple utterance of his ingrained love of the country, the natural outcome of a keen, observant eye, joined to a great power of faithful description, and an unlimited command of the fittest language. It is this vividness and freshness that gives such a reality to all Shakespeare's notices of country life, and which make them such pleasant reading to all lovers of plants and gardening.
These notices of the "Garden-craft of Shakespeare" I now proceed to quote; but my quotations in this part will be made on a different plan to that which I adopted in the account of his "Plant-lore." I shall not here think it necessary to quote all the passages in which he mentions different objects of country life, but I shall content myself with such passages as throw light on his knowledge of horticulture, and which to some extent illustrate the horticulture of his day, and these passages I must arrange under a few general heads. In this way the second part of my subject will be very much shorter than my first, but I have good reasons for hoping that those who have been interested in the long account of the "Plant-lore of Shakespeare" will be equally interested in the shorter account of his "Garden-craft," and will acknowledge that the one would be incomplete without the other. I commence with those passages which treat generally of—
"Of all the vain assumptions of these coxcombical times, that which arrogates the pre-eminence in the true science of gardening is the vainest. True, our conservatories are full of the choicest plants from every clime: we ripen the Grape and the Pine-apple with an art unknown before, and even the Mango, the Mangosteen, and the Guava are made to yield their matured fruits; but the real beauty and poetry of a garden are lost in our efforts after rarity, and strangeness, and variety." So, nearly forty years ago, wrote the author of "The Poetry of Gardening," a pleasant, though somewhat fantastic essay, first published in the "Carthusian," and afterwards re-published in Murray's "Reading for the Rail," in company with an excellent article from the "Quarterly" by the same author under the title of "The Flower Garden;" and I quote it because this "vain assumption" is probably stronger and more widespread now than when that article was written. We often hear and read accounts of modern gardening in which it is coolly assumed, and almost taken for granted, that the science of horticulture, and almost the love of flowers, is a product of the nineteenth century. But the love of flowers is no new taste in Englishmen,and the science of horticulture is in no way a modern science. We have made large progress in botanical science during the present century, and our easy communications with the whole habitable globe have brought to us thousands of new and beautiful plants in endless varieties; and we have many helps in gardening that were quite unknown to our forefathers. Yet there were brave old gardeners in our forefathers' times, and a very little acquaintance with the literature of the sixteenth century will show that in Shakespeare's time there was a most healthy and manly love of flowers for their own sake, and great industry and much practical skill in gardening. We might, indeed, go much further back than the fifteenth century, and still find the same love and the same skill. We have long lists of plants grown in times before the Conquest, with treatises on gardening, in which there is much that is absurd, but which show a practical experience in the art, and which show also that the gardens of those days were by no means ill-furnished either with fruit or flowers. Coming a little later, Chaucer takes every opportunity to speak with a most loving affection for flowers, both wild and cultivated, and for well-kept gardens; and Spenser's poems show a familiar acquaintance with them, and a warm admiration for them. Then in Shakespeare's time we have full records of the gardens and gardening which must have often met his eye; and we find that they were not confined to a few fine places here and there, but that good gardens were the necessary adjunct to every country house, and that they were cultivated with a zeal and a skill that would be a credit to any gardener of our own day. In Harrison's description of "England in Shakespeare's Youth," recently published by the new Shakespeare Society, we find that Harrison himself, though only a poor country parson, "took pains with his garden, in which, though its area covered but 300ft. of ground, there was 'a simple' for each foot of ground, no one of them being common or usually to be had." About the same time Gerard's Catalogues show that he grew in his London garden more than a thousand species of hardy plants; and Lord Bacon's famous "Essay on Gardens" not only shows what a grand idea of gardening he had himself, but also that this idea was not Utopian, but one that sprang from personalacquaintance with stately gardens, and from an innate love of gardens and flowers. Almost at the same time, but a little later, we come to the celebrated "John Parkinson, Apothecary of London, the King's Herbarist," whose "Paradisus Terrestris," first published in 1629, is indeed "a choise garden of all sorts of rarest flowers." His collection of plants would even now be considered an excellent collection, if it could be brought together, while his descriptions and cultural advice show him to have been a thorough practical gardener, who spoke of plants and gardens from the experience of long-continued hard work amongst them. And contemporary with him was Milton, whose numerous descriptions of flowers are nearly all of cultivated plants, as he must have often seen them in English gardens.
And so we are brought to the conclusion that in the passages quoted above in which Shakespeare speaks so lovingly and tenderly of his favourite flowers, these expressions are not to be put down to the fancy of the poet, but that he was faithfully describing what he daily saw or might have seen, and what no doubt he watched with that carefulness and exactness which could only exist in conjunction with a real affection for the objects on which he gazed, "the fresh and fragrant flowers," "the pretty flow'rets," "the sweet flowers," "the beauteous flowers," "the sweet summer buds," "the blossoms passing fair," "the darling buds of May."
The flower-gardens of Shakespeare's time were very different to the flower-gardens of our day; but we have so many good descriptions of them in books and pictures that we have no difficulty in realizing them both in their general form and arrangement. I am now speaking only of the flower-gardens; the kitchen-gardens and orchards were very much like our own, except in the one important difference, that they had necessarily much less glass than our modern gardens can command. In the flower-garden the grand leading principle was uniformity and formality carried out into very minute details. "The garden is best to be square," was Lord Bacon's rule; "the form that men like in general is a square, though roundness beforma perfectissima," was Lawson's rule; and this form was chosen because the garden was considered to be a purtenance and continuation of the house, designed so as strictly to harmonize with the architecture of the building. And Parkinson's advice was to the same effect: "The orbicular or round form is held in its own proper existence to be the most absolute form, containing within it all other forms whatsoever; but few, I think, will chuse such a proportion to be joyned to their habitation. The triangular or three-square form is such a form also as is seldom chosen by any that may make another choise. The four-square form is the most usually accepted with all, and doth best agree with any man's dwelling."
This was the shape of the ideal garden—