This I believe to be a complete list of the flowers of Shakespeare arranged according to the plays, and they are mentioned in one of three ways—first, adjectively, as "flaxen was his pole," "hawthorn-brake," "barley-broth," "thou honeysuckle villain," "onion-eyed," "cowslip-cheeks," but the instances of this use by Shakespeare are not many; second, proverbially or comparatively, as "tremble like aspen," "we grew together like to a double cherry seeming parted," "the stinking elder, grief," "thou art an elm, my husband, I a vine," "not worth a gooseberry." There are numberless instances of this use of the names of flowers, fruits, and trees, but neither of these uses give any indication of the seasons; and in one or other of these ways they are used (and only in these ways) in the following plays:—Tempest, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Measure for Measure, Merchant of Venice, As You Like It, Taming of the Shrew, Comedy of Errors, Macbeth, King John, 1st Henry IV., 2nd Henry VI., 3rd Henry VI., Henry VIII., Troilus and Cressida, Coriolanus, Julius Cæsar, Pericles, Othello. These therefore may be dismissed at once. There remain the following plays in which indications of the seasons intended either in the whole play or in the particular act may be traced. In some cases the traces are exceedingly slight (almost none at all); in others they are so strongly marked that there is little doubt that Shakespeare used them of set purpose and carefully:—Merry Wives, Twelfth Night, Much Ado, Midsummer Night's Dream, Love's Labour's Lost, As You Like It, All's Well, Winter's Tale, Richard II., 1st Henry IV., Henry V., 2nd Henry VI., Richard III., Timon of Athens, Antony and Cleopatra, Cymbeline, Titus Andronicus, Romeo and Juliet, King Lear, Hamlet, and Two Noble Kinsmen.
Merry Wives. Herne's oak gives the season intended—
"Herne the hunter,
Sometime a keeper here in Windsor forest,
Doth all the winter time at still midnight
Walk round about an oak with ragged horns."
If Shakespeare really meant to place the scene in mid-winter, there may be a fitness in Mrs. Quickly's looking forward to "a posset at night, at the latter end of a sea-coal fire," for it was a "raw rheumatick day" (act iii, sc. 1), in Pistol's—
"Take heed, ere summer comes, or cuckoo birds do sing,"
in Ford's "birding" and "hawking," and in the concluding words—
"Let us every one go home,
And laugh this sport o'er by a country fire" (act v, sc. 5);
but it is not in accordance with the literature of the day to have fairies dancing at midnight in the depth of winter.
Twelfth Night. We know that the whole of this play occupies but a few days, and is chiefly "matter for a May morning." This gives emphasis to Olivia's oath, "By the roses of the Spring . . . I love thee so" (act ii, sc. 4).
Much Ado. The season must be summer. There is the sitting out of doors in the "still evening, hushed on purpose to grace harmony;" and it is the time of year for the full leafage when Beatrice might