214 On the Campus 



the plants that share in the splendor of his pageantry; 

 he is not content at all with the flashes of color, the 

 breathings of odor; he generally gives us a single detail 

 that flashes the individual plant unmistakably upon our 

 sight. In his quick description he shows an exactitude, 

 a discriminating perception that, had it been turned to 

 Nature's problems seriously at all, must at once have 

 transformed the science of his age. But Shakespeare 

 was not a man of science; he was a poet. In his views 

 of nature he resembles the great poets of the world, 

 notably Lucretius ; and like Lucretius he not infrequently 

 outruns the science of his time, uses his imagination, di- 

 vining things invisible. Moreover, consistent with the 

 necessities of action, Shakespeare's plants are living 

 things; they form a garden, not an herbarium. They 

 stand before us in multitudes so that it is difficult for 

 the present purpose to know what to select. We shall 

 have to be satisfied with a few specimen forms brought 

 out in quotation no more extensive than seems necessary 

 to the argument. Of course, there are many plants to- 

 day discussed of which Shakespeare never heard. He 

 does not speak of many sorts of fungi, of slime moulds, 

 microbes ; he knew nothing about these. The microscope 

 had hardly been invented, and the unseen world was as 

 yet largely personified. And yet Shakespeare has not 

 failed to note the visible signs of some of our microscopic 

 forms. 



Critics have wasted their time and the patience of 

 mankind in an effort to identify hebona, the "lep- 

 erous distilment" poured into the porches of the royal 

 ear. Almost profitless are such discussions. Yet we may 



