PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. SINCE the publication of the First Edition I have received many kind criticisms both from the public critics and from private friends. For these criticisms I am very thankful, and they have enabled me to correct some errors and to make some additions, which I hope will make the book more acceptable and useful. For convenience of reference I have added the line numbers to the passages quoted, taking both the quotations and the line numbers from the Globe Shakespeare. In a few instances I have not kept exactly to the text of the Globe Edition, but these are noted; and I have added the "Two Noble Kinsmen," which is not in that Edition. In other respects this Second Edition is substantially the same as the First. BITTON VICARAGE, GLOUCESTERSHIRE, February, 1884. H. N. E. PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION. THE following Notes on the "Plant-lore and Garden-craft of Shakespeare" were published in "The Garden" from March to September, 1877. They are now republished with additions and with such corrections as the altered form of publication required or allowed. As the Papers appeared from week to week, I had to thank many correspondents (mostly complete strangers to myself) for useful suggestions and inquiries; and I would again invite any further suggestions or remarks, especially in the way of correction of any mistakes or omissions that I may have made, and I should feel thankful to any one that would kindly do me this favour. In republishing the Papers, I have been very doubtful whether I ought not to have rejected the cultural remarks on several of the plants, which I had added with a special reference to the horticultural character of "The Garden' newspaper. But I decided to retain them, on finding that they interested some readers, by whom the literary and Shakespearean notices were less valued. The weekly preparation of the Papers was a very pleasant study to myself, and introduced me to much literary and horticultural information of which I was previously ignorant. In republishing them I hope that some of my readers may meet with equal pleasure, and with some little information that may be new to them. BITTON VICARAGE, GLOUCESTERSHIRE, H. N. E. LL the commentators on Shakespeare are agreed upon one point, that he was the most wonderfully many-sided writer that the world has yet seen. Every art and science are more or less noticed by him, so far as they were known in his day; every business and profession are more or less accurately described; and so it has come to pass that, though the main circumstances of his life are pretty well known, yet the students of every art and science, and the members of every business and profession, have delighted to claim him as their fellow-labourer. Books have been written at various times by various writers, which have proved (to the complete satisfaction of the writers) that he was a soldier,1 a sailor, a lawyer, an astronomer, a physician,3 a divine,+ a printer,5 an "Was Shakespeare ever a Soldier?" by W. J. Thoms, F.S.A., 1865, 8vo. 266 'Shakespeare's legal acquirements considered in a letter to J. P. Collier," by John, Lord Campbell, 1859, 12mo. "Shakespeare a Lawyer," by W. L. Rushton, 1858, 12mo. 3" Remarks on the Medical Knowledge of Shakespeare," by J. C. Bucknill, 1860, 8vo. 4 Eaton's "Shakespeare and the Bible," 1858, 8vo. 5" Shakespere and Typography; being an attempt to show Shakespere's personal connection with, and technical knowledge of, the Art of Printing," by William Blades, 1872, 8vo. 2 |