106 Gleanings in Old Garden Literature. 



and Swelling them at the Bottome, with the Moisture 

 of the Aire ; whereas the drie Aire doth extend them : 

 And they make it a Peece of the wonder, that Garden 

 Clover will hide the Stalke, when the Sunne sheweth 

 bright ; Which is nothing, but a full Expansion of the 

 leaves. For the Bowing 'and Inclining the Head ; it is 

 found in the great Flower of the Sunne; in Marigolds, 

 Wart-wort, Mallow- Flowers j and others. The Cause 

 is somewhat more Obscure than the former ; But I take 

 it to bee no other, but that the Part against which the 

 sunne beateth, waxeth more faint and flaccide in the 

 Stalke ; And therby lesse able to support the Flower" 



Like his contemporary Shakespeare, he 

 did not scruple or disdain to avail himself 

 of all possible vehicles for illustration or 

 comparison. When he wrote the passage 

 which I copy below, he had in his remem- 

 brance a scene at which he had been present; 

 it is a curious bit a fragment of the popu- 

 lar street-life of London, which one would 

 have rather expected to encounter in the 

 pages of Strutt or Brand : 



" What a little Moisture will doe in Vegetables , even 

 though they be dead, and severed from the Earth, 

 appeareth wel in the Experiment of higlers. They 

 take the Beard oi an Oate; which (if you marke it well,) 



