104 THE SHAKESPEARE GARDEN 



we know that rubies do gleam in the cup of the cow- 

 slip, as he has told us through the lips of the fairy. 

 With great appreciation of the beauty of the 

 flower he has Jachimo's description: 



Cinque-spotted like the crimson drops 

 In the bottom of a cowslip. 1 



Most sympathetically did Dr. Forbes Watson, 

 when lying on a bed of fatal illness, put into words 

 what many persons have felt regarding this flower : 



"Few of our wild flowers give intenser pleasure 

 than the cowslip, yet perhaps there is scarcely any 

 whose peculiar beauty depends so much upon locality 

 and surroundings. There is a homely simplicity 

 about the cowslip, much like that of the daisy, 

 though more pensive, the quiet, sober look of an 

 unpretending country girl, not strikingly beautiful 

 in feature or attire, but clean and fresh as if new 

 bathed in milk and carrying us away to thoughts of 

 daisies, flocks and pasturage and the manners of a 

 simple, primitive time, some golden age of shepherd- 

 life long since gone by. And more; in looking at 

 the cowslip we are always most forcibly struck by 

 its apparent wholesomeness and health. This whole- 

 someness is quite unmistakable. It belongs even to 

 "Cymbeline"; Act II, Scene II. 



