ly mentioned by itself.

[487] See "Winter's Tale," iv. 4:

"Lawn as white as driven snow;
Cyprus black as e'er was crow."

Its transparency is alluded to in "Twelfth Night," iii. 1:

"a cyprus, not a bosom,
Hides my heart."

[488] See Dyce's "Glossary," 1872, p. 113.

[489] Douce's "Illustrations of Shakespeare," 1839, p. 56. See
Mr. Gough's "Introduction to Sepulchral Monuments," p. lxvi.;
also Nares's "Glossary," vol. i. p. 221.

_Daffodil._ The daffodil of Shakespeare is the wild daffodil which grows
so abundantly in many parts of England. Perdita, in "Winter's Tale" (iv.
4), mentions a little piece of weather-lore, and tells us how

"daffodils,
That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty."

And Autolycus, in the same play (iv. 3), sings thus:

"When daffodils begin to peer,--
With, heigh! the doxy over the dale,
Why, then comes in the sweet o' the year."

_Darnel._ This plant, like the cockle, was used in Shakespeare's day to
denote any hurtful weed. Newton,[490] in his "Herbal to the Bible," says
that "under the name of cockle and darnel is comprehended all vicious,
noisome, and unprofitable graine, encombring and hindering good corne."
Thus Cordelia, in "King Lear" (iv. 4), says:

"Darnel, and all the idle weeds that grow
In our sustaining corn."

[490] See Dr. Prior's "Popular Names of British Plants," 1870,
p. 63.

According to Gerarde, "darnel hurteth the eyes, and maketh them dim, if
it happen either in corne for breade or drinke." Hence, it is said,
originated the old proverb, "lolio victitare"--applied to such as were
dim-sighted. Steevens considers that Pucelle, in the following passage
from "1 Henry VI." (iii. 2), alludes to this property of the
darnel--meaning to intimate that the corn she carried with her had
produced the same effect on the guards of Rouen, otherwise they would
have seen through her disguise and defeated her stratagem:

"Good morrow, gallants! want ye corn for bread?
I think the Duke of Burgundy will fast,
Before he'll buy again at such a rate:
'Twas full of darnel: do you like the taste?"

_Date._ This fruit of the palm-tree was once a common ingredient in all
kinds of pastry, and some other dishes, and often supplied a pun for
comedy, as, for example, in "All's Well That Ends We