THE BOTANY OF SHAKESPEARE. 229 



of March with beauty," and dies ere it beholds " bright Phoebus in 

 his strength," and it is precisely this species that forms the basis of 

 one of Darwin's earliest and most fruitful studies in the cross-fer- 

 tilization of flowers. The styles in one form of the early primrose 

 are three times as long as in the other, the stigmas differ, and the 

 coadaptation of the parts of the different flowers extends even to 

 the grains of pollen. Such flowers in the absence of insects are en- 

 tirely unproductive. Insects are rare so early in the year, and ac- 

 cordingly many of the primroses die, as Perdita says, " unmarried." 



Of course, it is not pretended that Shakespeare knew anything 

 of this; but that he should have discovered the fact that the early 

 primrose bears little or no seed, and that he should have been im- 

 pressed by the truth that this is due to lack of fertilization, is won- 

 derful. This circumstance might well lead to the suspicion that the 

 poet was a gardener. 



We must not forget to notice, too, in this connection, that carna- 

 tions i. e., pinks are remarkable for the great number of their 

 varieties. We have, if I may so say, pinks of every color, from 

 crimson to white, even brown it is said. This was true in Shakes- 

 peare's time, if one may trust Gerarde again ; he says, " A great and 

 large volume would not suffice to write of every one at large consid- 

 ering how infinite they are, and how every year the climate and coun- 

 try bringeth forth new sorts and such as have not heretofore been 

 written of." 



^ Another passage in which the poet has instinctively hit upon a 

 scientific truth is found in Sonnet IV, the last ten lines. The beauty 

 of the passage as a whole is so remarkable that the delicate touches 

 in particular lines are apt to be overlooked : 



" For never-resting time leads summer on 

 To hideous winter and confounds him there; 

 Sap checked with frost and lusty leaves quite gone, 

 Beauty o'ersnowed and bareness everywhere : 

 Then, were not summer's distillation left, 

 A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass. 

 Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft, 



Nor it nor remembrance what it was : 

 But flowers distilled though they with winter meet, 



Lose but their show ; their substance still lives sweet." 



No botanist can read the line " A liquid prisoner pent in walls 

 of glass " and not recognize the exact portrayal of the living vege- 

 table cell. The living protoplasm is a liquid prisoner sure enough, 

 hemmed in by walls transparent. There could be no more striking 

 image. And when in herb and tree, in every living plant, the sum- 

 mer's work is ended and hideous winter falls, the new cells, summer's 

 distillation left, do in all perennials actually survive, lest of the effect 



