Stealing, and giving odor”—
just such a bank as may be seen any April day under the Warwickshire hedge-rows. Every one remembers poor Ophelia and her flowers, the flowers with which Arviragus promises to sweeten the sad grave of Fidele; and, above all, the wonderful scene in the “Winter’s Tale” where Perdita presiding at the sheep-shearing feast sorts the flowers according to the age of the guests, “flowers of winter, rosemary and rue,” to the elders, to men of middle age flowers of middle summer—
“Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram,
The marigold, that goes to bed with the sun,
And with him rises weeping.”
And for her fairest friend—
“I would I had some flowers o’ the spring that might
Become your time of day;
Daffodils, violets, and pale primroses.”
Lastly, the song which winds up “Love’s Labor Lost,”—with what lyric sweetness it condenses how much of flowery spring and of nipping winter into a few easy lines! In this as in all other mentions of wild-flowers in Shakespeare, it has been remarked how true he is to time and season, giving to each flower its proper season and haunt, and sorting them all with the careless ease of one to whom they were among the most familiar things. In this he contrasts with the artistic but not accurate assortment of flowers in the well-known passage of “Lycidas,” where Milton groups in one posy flowers belonging to different seasons.