PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE 
xii 
actor, a courtier, a sportsman, an angler , 1 and I know not 
what else besides . 2 
I also propose to claim him as a fellow-labourer. A lover 
of flowers and gardening myself, I claim Shakespeare as 
equally a lover of flowers and gardening; and this I pro¬ 
pose to prove by showing how, in all his writings, he exhibits 
his strong love for flowers, and a very fair, though not perhaps 
a very deep, knowledge of plants; but I do not intend to go 
further. That he was a lover of plants I shall have no diffi¬ 
culty in showing; but I do not, therefore, believe that he was 
a professed gardener, and I am quite sure he can in no sense 
be claimed as a botanist in the scientific sense of the term. 
His knowledge of plants was simply the knowledge that every 
man may have who goes through the world with his eyes open 
to the many beauties of Nature that surround him, and who 
does not content himself with simply looking, and then passing 
on, but tries to find out something of the inner meaning of 
the beauties he sees, and to carry away with him some of 
the lessons which they were doubtless meant to teach. But 
Shakespeare was able to go further than this. He had the 
great gift of being able to describe what he saw in a way that 
few others have arrived at; he could communicate to others 
the pleasure that he felt himself, not by long descriptions, but 
by a few simple words, a few natural touches, and a few well- 
chosen epithets, which bring the plants and flowers before us 
in the freshest, and often in a most touching way. 
For this reason the study of the Plant-lore of Shakespeare 
is a very pleasant study, and there are other things which 
add to this pleasure. One especial pleasure arises from the 
thoroughly English character of his descriptions. It has often 
been observed that wherever the scenes of his plays are laid, 
and whatever foreign characters he introduces, yet they really 
are all Englishmen of the time of Elizabeth, and the scenes 
are all drawn from the England of his day. This is certainly 
1 “Was Shakespeare an Angler?” by H. N. Ellacombe, 1883, i2mo. 
“Shakespeare’s Knowledge of Field Sports:” Edinburgh Review , Oct. 
1872. 
2 “ Shakespeare a Freemason,” by J. C. Parkinson, 8vc, 1872. 
