et.

7.--"A Brief Guide to the Gardens of Shakespeare," 1863, 12mo,
12 pages, and

8.--"Shakespeare's Home and Rural Life," by James Walter, with
Illustrations. 1874, folio. These two works are rather
topographical guides than accounts of the flowers of
Shakespeare.

9.--"The Flowers of Shakespeare," depicted by Viola, coloured
plates, 4to, 1882. A drawing-room book of little merit.

10.--"The Shakspere Flora," by Leo H. Grindon, 12mo, 1883. A
collection of very pleasant essays on the poetry of
Shakespeare, and his knowledge of flowers.

PART I.

_THE PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE._

_Perdita._ Here's flowers for you.

_Winter's Tale_, act iv, sc. 4.

_Duke._ Away before me to sweet beds of flowers.

_Twelfth Night_, act i, sc. 1.

ACONITUM.

_K. Henry._

The united vessel of their blood,
Mingled with venom of suggestion--
As, force perforce, the age will pour it in--
Shall never leak, though it do work as strong
As Aconitum or rash gunpowder.

_2nd King Henry IV_, act iv, sc. 4 (44).

There is another place in which it is probable that Shakespeare alludes
to the Aconite; he does not name it, but he compares the effects of the
poison to gunpowder, as in the passage above.

_Romeo._

Let me have
A dram of poison, such soon-speeding gear
As will disperse itself through all the veins,
That the life-weary taker may fall dead
And that the trunk may be discharged of breath
As violently as hasty powder fired
Doth hurry from the fatal cannon's womb.

_Romeo and Juliet_, act v, sc. 1 (59).

The plant here named as being as powerful in its action as gunpowder is
the Aconitum Napellus (the Wolf's bane or Monk's-hood). It is a member
of a large family, all of which are more or less poisonous, and the
common Monk's-hood as much so as any. Two species are found in America,
but, for the most part, the family is confined to the northern portion
of the Eastern Hemisphere, ranging from the Himalaya through Europe to
Great Britain. It is now found wild in a few parts of England, but it is
certainly not indigenous; it was, however, very early introduced into
England, being found in all the English vocabularies of plan