354 
PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE 
botany and physiology of the plants; this may have seemed 
needless to some, but I have thought that such notices were 
often necessary to the right understanding of the plants named, 
and again I shelter under the authority of a favourite old 
author: “ Consider (gentle readers) what shiftes he shall be 
put unto, and how rawe he must needs be in explanation of 
metaphors, resemblances, and comparisons, that is ignorant of 
the nature of herbs and plants from whence their similitudes 
be taken, for the inlightening and garnishing of sentences.”— 
Newton’s Herballfor the Bible. 
I have said that my subject naturally divides itself into two 
parts, first, The Plants and Flowers named by Shakespeare ; 
second, His Knowledge of Gardens and Gardening. The first 
part is now concluded, and I go to the second part, which 
will be very much shorter, and which may be entitled, “ The 
Garden-craft of Shakespeare.” 
