“And because the breath of flowers is far sweeter in the air (where it comes and goes like the warbling of music) than in the hand, therefore nothing is more fit for that delight than to know what be the flowers and plants that do best perfume the air. Roses, damask and red, are fast flowers of their smells, so that you may walk by a whole row of them, and find nothing of their sweetness, yea, though it be in a morning’s dew. Bays likewise yield no smell as they grow, rosemary little, nor sweet marjoram. That which above all others yields the sweetest smell in the air is the violet, especially the white double violet, which comes twice a year, about the middle of April and about Bartholomew-tide. Next to that is the musk-rose; then the strawberry leaves dying, which yield a most excellent cordial smell. Then the flower of the vines; it is a little dust like the dust of a bent, which grows upon the cluster in the first coming forth. Then sweetbriar, then wall-flowers, which are very delightful to be set under a parlour or lower chamber window. Then pinks and gilliflowers, especially the matted pink and clove gilliflowers. Then the flowers of the lime-tree. Then the honeysuckles, so they be somewhat afar off; of bean-flowers I speak not, because they are field-flowers. But those which perfume the air most delightfully, not passed by as the rest, but being trodden upon and crushed, are three—that is, burnet, wild thyme, and water-mints. Therefore you are to set whole alleys of them, to have the pleasure when you walk or tread.” In Ordish’s _Shakespeare’s London_ will be found an excellent analysis of Gerard’s _Herbal_ as it deals with the gardens of the City and its suburbs. In it also is an enumeration of the principal gardens of the time, especially those of the Inns of Court. To these may be added the gardens belonging to those of the City Companies whose Halls were in the north part of the City, and those not yet built over which had once formed part of the monastic precincts, not to speak of the private gardens which were in many cases—such as the house of Sir Thomas Gresham in Broad Street—large and spacious. (_See_ Appendix VII.) The allusions to London and to City customs in Shakespeare are numerous, but not, as a rule, instructive. That is to say, he speaks of streets and places which we know from other sources. The Tower, the Bridge, Smithfield, Fish Street, St. Magnus Corner, the Savoy, the Tower Royal (King Richard’s Palace), Westminster Hall, Eastcheap, Bankside, the Temple, Cheapside, London Stone, Baynard’s Castle, Blackfriars, Paris Garden, are mentioned with the familiarity of one who lived in the City and knew all the streets intimately. It is pleasant to find them playing their parts in the immortal plays, but, as I said above, they teach us nothing.