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Transcriber's Notes: Some typographical and punctuation errors have been
corrected. A complete list follows the text. Variations in spelling and
hyphenation have been left as in the original. Words in Greek in the
original are transliterated and placed between +plus signs+. Words
italicized in the original are surrounded by _underscores_. Words in
bold in the original are surrounded by =equal signs=. Characters
superscripted in the original are inclosed in {} brackets.

There are diacritic accents in the original. In this text, they are
represented as follows:

  [=a] = "a" with a macron
  [=e] = "e" with a macron
  [=i] = "i" with a macron
  [=o] = "o" with a macron
  [=u] = "u" with a macron
  [=w] = "w" with a macron




_THE PLANT-LORE AND GARDEN-CRAFT OF SHAKESPEARE._




PRESS NOTICES OF FIRST EDITION.


"It would be hard to name a better commonplace book for summer
lawns.... The lover of poetry, the lover of gardening, and the lover
of quaint, out-of-the-way knowledge will each find something to please
him.... It is a delightful example of gardening literature."--_Pall
Mall Gazette._

"Mr. Ellacombe, with a double enthusiasm for Shakespeare and for his
garden, has produced a very readable and graceful volume on the
Plant-Lore of Shakespeare."--_Saturday Review._

"Mr. Ellacombe brings to his task an enthusiastic love of horticulture,
wedded to no inconsiderable practical and theoretical knowledge of it; a
mind cultivated by considerable acquaintance with the Greek and Latin
classics, and trained for this special subject by a course of extensive
reading among the contemporaries of his author: and a capacity for
patient and unwearied research, which he has shown by the stores of
learning he has drawn from a class of books rarely dipped into by the
student--Saxon and Early English herbals and books of leechcraft; the
result is a work which is entitled from its worth to a place in every
Shakesperian library."--_Spectator._

"The work has fallen into the hands of one who knows not only the
plants themselves, but also their literary history; and it may be
said that Shakespeare's flowers now for the first time find an
historian."--_Field._

"A delightful book has been compiled, and it is as accurate as it is
delightful."--_Gardener's Chronicle._

"Mr. Ellacombe's book well deserves a place on the shelves of both the
student of Shakespeare and the lover of plant lore."--_Journal of
Botany._

"By patient industry, systematically bestowed, Mr. Ellacombe has
produced a book of considerable interest;... full of facts, grouped
on principles of common sense about quotations from our great
poet."--_Guardian._

"Mr. Ellacombe is an old and faithful labourer in this field of
criticism. His 'Plant-lore and Garden-craft of Shakespeare'... is the
fullest and best book on the subject."--_The Literary World (American)._




                                 THE

                      PLANT-LORE & GARDEN-CRAFT

                                  OF

                             SHAKESPEARE.


                                  BY

                    REV. HENRY N. ELLACOMBE, M.A.,

                      OF ORIEL COLLEGE, OXFORD,
     VICAR OF BITTON, GLOUCESTERSHIRE, AND HON. CANON OF BRISTOL.


                           SECOND EDITION.


                             PRINTED FOR
                         W. SATCHELL AND CO.,
                             AND SOLD BY,
                     SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, AND CO.,
                               LONDON.

                                1884.




     "My Herbale booke in Folio I unfold.
      I pipe of plants, I sing of somer flowers."

                               CUTWODE, _Caltha Poetarum_, st. 1.




TO THE READER.


"Faultes escaped in the Printing, correcte with your pennes; omitted by
my neglygence, overslippe with patience; committed by ignorance, remit
with favour."

                  LILY, _Euphues and his England_, Address to the
                                 gentlemen Readers.




CONTENTS.


     INTRODUCTION                                      1

     PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE                         7

     GARDEN-CRAFT OF SHAKESPEARE                     333

     APPENDIX--

         I. THE DAISY                                359

        II. THE SEASONS OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS       379

       III. NAMES OF PLANTS                          391

     INDEX OF PLAYS                                  421

     GENERAL INDEX                                   431




PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.


Since the publication of the First Edition I have received many kind
criticisms both from the public critics and from private friends. For
these criticisms I am very thankful, and they have enabled me to correct
some errors and to make some additions, which I hope will make the book
more acceptable and useful.

For convenience of reference I have added the line numbers to the
passages quoted, taking both the quotations and the line numbers from
the Globe Shakespeare. In a few instances I have not kept exactly to the
text of the Globe Edition, but these are noted; and I have added the
"Two Noble Kinsmen," which is not in that Edition.

In other respects this Second Edition is substantially the same as the
First.

                                                         H. N. E.

     BITTON VICARAGE, GLOUCESTERSHIRE,
     _February, 1884_.




PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION.


The following Notes on the "Plant-lore and Garden-craft of Shakespeare"
were published in "The Garden" from March to September, 1877.

They are now republished with additions and with such corrections as the
altered form of publication required or allowed.

As the Papers appeared from week to week, I had to thank many
correspondents (mostly complete strangers to myself) for useful
suggestions and inquiries; and I would again invite any further
suggestions or remarks, especially in the way of correction of any
mistakes or omissions that I may have made, and I should feel thankful
to any one that would kindly do me this favour.

In republishing the Papers, I have been very doubtful whether I ought
not to have rejected the cultural remarks on several of the plants,
which I had added with a special reference to the horticultural
character of "The Garden" newspaper. But I decided to retain them, on
finding that they interested some readers, by whom the literary and
Shakespearean notices were less valued.

The weekly preparation of the Papers was a very pleasant study to
myself, and introduced me to much literary and horticultural information
of which I was previously ignorant. In republishing them I hope that
some of my readers may meet with equal pleasure, and with some little
information that may be new to them.

                                                         H. N. E.

     BITTON VICARAGE, GLOUCESTERSHIRE,
     _May, 1878_.




INTRODUCTION.


All the commentators on Shakespeare are agreed upon one point, that he
was the most wonderfully many-sided writer that the world has yet seen.
Every art and science are more or less noticed by him, so far as they
were known in his day; every business and profession are more or less
accurately described; and so it has come to pass that, though the main
circumstances of his life are pretty well known, yet the students of
every art and science, and the members of every business and profession,
have delighted to claim him as their fellow-labourer. Books have been
written at various times by various writers, which have proved (to the
complete satisfaction of the writers) that he was a soldier,[1:1] a
sailor, a lawyer,[1:2] an astronomer, a physician,[1:3] a divine,[1:4] a
printer,[1:5] an actor, a courtier, a sportsman, an angler,[2:1] and I
know not what else besides.

I also propose to claim him as a fellow-labourer. A lover of flowers and
gardening myself, I claim Shakespeare as equally a lover of flowers and
gardening; and this I propose to prove by showing how, in all his
writings, he exhibits his strong love for flowers, and a very fair,
though not perhaps a very deep, knowledge of plants; but I do not intend
to go further. That he was a lover of plants I shall have no difficulty
in showing; but I do not, therefore, believe that he was a professed
gardener, and I am quite sure he can in no sense be claimed as a
botanist, in the scientific sense of the term. His knowledge of plants
was simply the knowledge that every man may have who goes through the
world with his eyes open to the many beauties of Nature that surround
him, and who does not content himself with simply looking, and then
passing on, but tries to find out something of the inner meaning of the
beauties he sees, and to carry away with him some of the lessons which
they were doubtless meant to teach. But Shakespeare was able to go
further than this. He had the great gift of being able to describe what
he saw in a way that few others have arrived at; he could communicate to