being able to describe what
he saw in a way that few others have arrived at; he could communicate to
others the pleasure that he felt himself, not by long descriptions, but
by a few simple words, a few natural touches, and a few well-chosen
epithets, which bring the plants and flowers before us in the freshest,
and often in a most touching way.

For this reason the study of the Plant-lore of Shakespeare is a very
pleasant study, and there are other things which add to this pleasure.
One especial pleasure arises from the thoroughly English character of
his descriptions. It has often been observed that wherever the scenes of
his plays are laid, and whatever foreign characters he introduces, yet
they really are all Englishmen of the time of Elizabeth, and the scenes
are all drawn from the England of his day. This is certainly true of the
plants and flowers we meet with in the plays; they are thoroughly
English plants that (with very few exceptions) he saw in the hedgerows
and woods of Warwickshire,[2:2] or in his own or his friends' gardens.
The descriptions are thus thoroughly fresh and real; they tell of the
country and of the outdoor life he loved, and they never smell of the
study lamp. In this respect he differs largely from Milton, whose
descriptions (with very few exceptions) recall the classic and Italian
writers. He differs, too, from his contemporary Spenser, who has
certainly some very sweet descriptions of flowers, which show that he
knew and loved them, but are chiefly allusions to classical flowers,
which he names in such a way as to show that he often did not fully know
what they were, but named them because it was the right thing for a
classical poet so to do. Shakespeare never names a flower or plant
unnecessarily; they all come before us, when they do come, in the most
natural way, as if the particular flower named was the only one that
could be named on that occasion. We have nothing in his writings, for
instance, like the long list of trees described (and in the most
interesting way) in the first canto of the First Book of the "Faerie
Queene," and indeed he is curiously distinct from all his
contemporaries. Chaucer, before him, spoke much of flowers and plants,
and drew them as from the life. In the century after him Herrick may be
named as another who sung of flowers as he saw them; but the real
contemporaries of Shakespeare are, with few exceptions,[3:1] very silent
on the subject. One instance will