s
that in the north, "being difficult to cut in the harvest time, or to
pull in the process of weeding, it has obtained the sobriquet of the
Deil's-lingels." From this it may well be called "hindering," just as
the Ononis, from the same habit of catching the plough and harrow, has
obtained the prettier name of "Rest-harrow."

But though Shakespeare's Knot-grass is undoubtedly the Polygonum, yet
the name was also given to another plant, for this cannot be the plant
mentioned by Milton--

"The chewing flocks
Had ta'en their supper on the savoury herb
Of Knot-grass dew-besprent."--_Comus._

In this case it must be one of the pasture Grasses, and may be Agrostis
stolonifera, as it is said to be in Aubrey's "Natural History of Wilts"
(Dr. Prior).

LADY-SMOCKS.

_Song of Spring._

And Lady-smocks all silver-white,
And Cuckoo-buds of yellow hue,
Do paint the meadows with delight.

_Love's Labour's Lost_, act v, sc. 2 (905).

Lady-smocks are the flowers of Cardamine pratensis, the pretty early
meadow flower of which children are so fond, and of which the popularity
is shown by its many names: Lady-smocks, Cuckoo-flower,[134:1] Meadow
Cress, Pinks, Spinks, Bog-spinks, and May-flower, and "in Northfolke,
Canterbury Bells." The origin of the name is not very clear. It is
generally explained from the resemblance of the flowers to smocks hung
out to dry, but the resemblance seems to me rather far-fetched.
According to another explanation, "the Lady-smock, a corruption of Our
Lady's-smock, is so called from its first flowering about Lady-tide. It
is a pretty purplish white, tetradynamous plant, which blows from
Lady-tide till the end of May, and which during the latter end of April
covers the moist meadows with its silvery-white, which looks at a
distance like a white sheet spread over the fields."--_Circle of the
Seasons._ Those who adopt this view called the plant Our Lady's-smock,
but I cannot find that name in any old writers. Drayton, coeval with
Shakespeare, says--

"Some to grace the show,
Of Lady-smocks most white do rob each neighbouring mead,
Wherewith their loose locks most curiously they braid."

And Isaac Walton, in the next century, drew that pleasant picture of
himself sitting quietly by the waterside--"looking down the meadows I
could see here a boy gathering Lilies and Lady