The Shakespeare Garden

STRATFORD-UPON-AVON, NEW PLACE, BORDER OF ANNUALS
THE SHAKESPEARE GARDEN BY ESTHER SINGLETON
WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS AND REPRODUCTIONS OF OLD WOOD CUTS
PUBLISHED BY THE CENTURY CO. NEW YORK
M CM XX II
Copyright, 1922, by The Century Co.
Printed in U. S. A.
To the memory of MY MOTHER whose rare artistic tastes and whose cultured intellect led me in early years to the appreciation of shakespeare and all manifestations of beauty in literature and art

PREFACE
In adding another book to the enormous number of works on Shakespeare, I beg indulgence for a few words of explanation.
Having been for many years an ardent and a devoted student of Shakespeare, I discovered long ago that there was no adequate book on the Elizabethan garden and the condition of horticulture in Shakespeare's time. Every Shakespeare student knows how frequently and with what subtle appreciation Shakespeare speaks of flowers. Shakespeare loved all the simple blossoms that paint the meadows with delight : he loved the mossy banks in the forest carpeted with wild thyme and nodding violets and o'er-canopied with eglantine and honeysuckle; he loved the cowslips in their gold coats spotted with rubies, the azured harebells and the daffodils that come before the swallow dares ; he loved the winking mary-buds, or marigolds, that ope their golden eyes in the first beams of the morning sun; he loved the stately flowers of stately gardens—the delicious musk-rose, lilies of all kinds, and the flower-de-luce; and he loved all the new outlandish flowers, such as the crown-imperial just introduced from Constantinople and lark's heels trim from the West Indies.