Lord Bacon also associated the scent of delicate flowers with music. He writes: "And because the breath of flowers is far sweeter in the air (whence it comes and goes like the warbling of music) than in the hand, therefore nothing is more fit for 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 sweetbrier, then wall-flowers, which are very delightful to be set under a parlor or lower chamber window; then pinks and 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: burnet, wild thyme and water-mints. Therefore, you are to set whole alleys of them to have the pleasure when you walk or tread." [Illustration: THE KNOT-GARDEN, NEW PLACE, STRATFORD-UPON-AVON] Shakespeare very nearly follows Bacon's order of perfume values in his selection of flowers to adorn the beautiful spot in the wood where _Titania_ sleeps. _Oberon_ describes it: I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows, Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine. There sleeps Titania sometime of the night, Lulled in these flowers with dances and delight. Fairies were thought to be particularly fond of thyme; and it is for this reason that Shakespeare carpeted the bank with this sweet herb. Moreover, as we have just seen, Bacon tells us that thyme is one of those plants which are particularly delightful if trodden upon and crushed. Shakespeare accordingly knew that the pressure of the Fairy Queen's little body upon the thyme would cause it to yield a delicious perfume. The Elizabethans, much more sensitive to perfume than we are to-day, appreciated the scent of what we consider lowly flowers. They did not hesitate to place a sprig of rosemary in a nosegay of choice flowers. They loved thyme, lavender, marjoram, mints, balm, and camomile, thinking that these herbs refreshed the head, stimulated the memory, and were antidotes against the plague.