The Critics are agreed on one point; that is, that Shakespeare was the most wonderfully many-sided writer the world has ever known. In the scenes of his plays he paints a picture of the world as he knew it, describing every occupation and hobby; every science and art; every phase of the life of his time.

          Flowers, plants and herbs are not neglected. William Shakespeare grew up a country boy and never lost his love for flowers. In his writings, his strong feelings for flowers and gardening, and his wide (though perhaps not deep) knowledge of plants shines through. More than 200 plants, wild and cultivated, are mentioned in his plays and sonnets. In a few simple words and with a few natural touches he brings before his readers the familiar plants he knew in the hedgerows of the Warwickshire countryside.

          Flowers and herbs come before the reader in the most natural way, as if the flower named was the only one that could possibly be cited on that occasion. His descriptions are thoroughly fresh and real, and tell of the pleasure he had in the familiar plants of the English countryside and the local cottage gardens.

          The Elizabethans valued flowers and herbs in a way quite different than today. They depended on plants not only for food and shelter, but for many other purposes. Herbs were required for flavoring, stuffing, garnishing and for seasoning wines. Their clothes were dyed with vegetable dyes. There was no medicine as we know it, and people depended on "simples" concocted of plants with real or imagined virtues. Modern science did not exist, and consequently medicine and magic often overlapped. Additionally, Elizabethan audiences were much more familiar with plant symbolism than are today's audiences, so many of Shakespeare's finest points are made with allusions to floral sentiments and meanings. Cosmetic uses for herbs were numerous, and ranged from sweet-scented oils to fanciful "cures" for baldness. Flowers were used ornamentally in pleasure gardens, first seen in Elizabethan times, both for their fragrance and for their subtle colors. In cooking, strong flavors were needed to mask rancid odors in the days before refrigeration, and herbs and edible flowers were used to vary the sameness of the winter diet. Soothing and refreshing herbal teas were popular in Shakespeare's time-before China tea or South American coffee were widely known-because they were available and could be grown at home, and because water was thought to be unfit to drink! This dependence on plants extended to every aspect of life in Shakespeare's world.

          Shakespeare loved the sweet and humble violet, one of the first flowers to bloom and a harbinger of spring. Dozens of quotes name the demure violet that greets the early spring with fragrant perfume and blue blossoms. One of the important writers on "plants of Shakespeare," F. G. Savage, in The Flora and Folklore of Shakespeare (1923) writes, "Nothing respecting the flower escaped the eye of the poet, its colour, scent, habit of growth, and tender purposes for which it was employed, are all beautifully set forth in the eighteen passages in which it is mentioned with an exactness unsurpassable and quite impossible to anyone not thoroughly conversant with the hidden charm and beauties of this, most modest of coy flowers.".

          A favorite quotation from A Midsummer Night's Dream names the violet along with several other fragrant flowers:

          Or another bank of violets: