PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE 
115 
(5) Gives not the Hawthorn-bush a sweeter shade 
To shepherds looking on their silly sheep, 
Than doth a rich embroider’d canopy 
To kings that fear their subjects’ treachery ? 
O yes, it doth ; a thousand-fold it doth. 
3 rd Henry VI, ii. 5, 42. 
(6) Through the sharp Hawthorn blows the cold wind (bis).—King Lear, 
iii. 4, 47, 102. 
(7) Againe betake you to yon Hawthorne house .—Two Noble Kinsmen, 
iii. 1, 90. 
Under its many names of Albespeine, Whitethorn, Hay thorn 
or Hawthorn, May, and Quickset, this tree has ever been a 
favourite with all lovers of the country. 
“Among the many buds proclaiming May, 
Decking the field in holiday array, 
Striving who shall surpass in braverie, 
Mark the faire blooming of the Hawthorn tree, 
Who, finely cloathed in a robe of white, 
Fills full the wanton eye with May’s delight. 
Yet for the braverie that she is in 
Doth neither handle card nor wheel to spin, 
Nor changeth robes but twice; is never seen 
In other colours but in white or green.” 
Such is Browne’s advice in his 
“ Britannia’s Pastorals ” (ii. 2). 
He, like the other early poets, 
clearly loved the tree for 
its beauty; and in picturesque 
beauty the Hawthorn yields to 
none, when it can be seen in 
some sheltered valley growing 
with others of its kind, and 
allowed to grow unpruned, for 
then in the early summer it is 
literally a sheet of white, yet 
beautifully relieved by the tender 
green of the young leaves, and 
by the bright crimson of the 
anthers, and loaded with a scent 
