In My Vicarage Garden 



mending it to all " courteous gentlewomen." Yet 

 Shakespeare never mentions or in any way 

 alludes to it. He must have been well acquainted 

 with it ; no man in his day could have escaped 

 seeing it frequently, " and some cannot forbeare 

 it, no, not in the midst of their dinner," says 

 Gerard. And as a constant companion of Ben 

 Jonson, who was a great smoker, he must often 

 have taken his part in smoking parties, or at least 

 in parties where smoking was carried on. But he 

 has not a word, good or bad, to say about it ; and 

 Mr Stacy Marks tells us in his Pen and Pencil 

 Sketches that when he presented a cigar and 

 cigarette box to the Royal Academy he searched 

 in vain for a Shakespearian motto, and was at 

 last obliged to content himself with twisting to 

 his purpose Othello's passionate address to the 

 sleeping Desdemona : — 



" O thou weed, 

 That art so lovely, fair, and smell'st so sweet." 



But besides these two omissions, which are 

 well known and have been often noticed, there is 

 another which, as far as I know, has not been 

 noticed, but which seems to me very remarkable. 

 On the arts generally he has much to say, and 

 says it as one who had a warm appreciation for 

 art. In music, both vocal and instrumental, he 

 must have been a proficient ; his writings are full 

 of good allusions to music and musical terms well 

 applied ; they are, indeed, so full that I have 

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