The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare

BACHELOR'S BUTTON.

	Hostess.	What say you to young Master Fenton? he capers, he dances, he has eyes of youth, he writes verses, he speaks holiday, he smells April and May; he will carry't, he will carry't; 'tis in his Buttons; he will carry't.
Merry Wives, act iii, sc. 2 (67).

"Though the Bachelor's Button is not exactly named by Shakespeare, it is believed to be alluded to in this passage; and the supposed allusion is to a rustic divination by means of the flowers, carried in the pocket by men and under the apron by women, as it was supposed to retain or lose its freshness according to the good or bad success of the bearer's amatory prospects."[27:1]

The true Bachelor's Button of the present day is the double Ranunculus acris, but the name is applied very loosely to almost any small double globular flowers. In Shakespeare's time it was probably applied still more loosely to any flowers in bud (according to the derivation from the French bouton). Button is frequently so applied by the old writers—

"The more desire had I to goo
Unto the roser where that grewe
The freshe Bothum so bright of hewe.

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But o thing lyked me right welle;
I was so nygh, I myght fele
Of the Bothom the swote odour
And also see the fresshe colour;
And that right gretly liked me."

Romaunt of the Rose.

And by Shakespeare—

The canker galls the infants of the Spring
Too oft before their Buttons be disclosed.

Hamlet, act i, sc. 3 (54).

FOOTNOTES:

[27:1] Mr. J. Fitchett Marsh, of Hardwicke House, Chepstow, in "The Garden." I have to thank Mr. Marsh for much information kindly given both in "The Garden" and by letter.

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