understood in this country as it might be, but Mr. Bowring scarcely does us justice in the following observations: "In the peninsula the wildest flowers are the sweetest. There are hedges of myrtles, and geraniums, and pomegranates, and towering aloes. The sunflower and the bloody warrior (Aleli grosero) occupy the parterre: they are no favorites of mine. "Flowers! what a hundred associations the word brings to my mind. Of what countless songs, sweet and sacred, delicate and divine, are they the subject. A flower in England is something to the botanist,-but only if it be rare; to the florist-but only if it be beautiful; even the poet and the moralizer seldom bend down to its eloquent silence. The peasant never utters to it an ejaculation-the ploughman (all but one) carelessly tears it up with his share-no maiden thinks of wreathing it-no youth aspires to wear it. But in Spain ten to one but it becomes a minister of love, that it hears the voice of poetry, that it crowns the brow of beauty. Thus how sweetly an anonymous cancionero sings: "Put on your brightest, richest dress, Wear all your gems, blest vales of ours! "Garland me wreaths, thou fertile vale; Come with your fragrant offering. Mingle your charms of hue and smell, Which Flora wakes in her spring-tide hours! My fair one comes across the dell, She comes to gather flowers. "Twilight of morn! from thy misty tower Scatter the trembling pearls around, Hang up thy gems on fruit and flower, Phœbus, rest on thy ruby wheels- "List! for the breeze on wings serene Through the light foliage sails; Hailing the glorious birth of day She comes to gather flowers." LONDON MAGAZINE, Spanish Romances, No. 3. For the most part of our countrymen, I fear they do not allow themselves leisure to admire or enjoy the beauties of nature; yet it cannot be said that they are utterly insensible to them; for with regard to flowers at least we may observe, that on Sundays every village beau, nay every straggling townsman who comes on that day within reach of a flower, has one in his button-hole. It was, perhaps, the general power of sympathy upon the subject of plants, which caused them to be connected with some of the earliest events that history records. The mythologies of all nations are full of them; and in all times they have been associated with the soldiery, the government, and the arts. Thus the patriot was crowned with oak; the hero and the poet with bay; and beauty with the myrtle. Peace had her olive; Bacchus his ivy; and whole groves of oak-trees were thought to send out oracular voices in the winds. One of the most pleasing parts of state-splendor has been associated with flowers, as Shakspeare seems to have had in his mind when he wrote that beautiful line respecting the accomplished prince, Hamlet: "The expectancy and rose of the fair state." It was this that brought the gentle family of roses into such unnatural broils in the civil wars: and still the united countries of Great Britain have each a floral emblem: Scotland has its thistle, Ireland its shamrock, and England the rose. France, under the Bourbons, has the golden lily. It was an annual custom with the Popes to send a golden rose perfumed to the Prince who happened to be most in their good graces. Our different festivals have each their own peculiar plant, or plants, to be used in their celebration: at Easter the willow as a substitute for the palm; at Christmas, the holly and the mistletoe; on May-day every flower in bloom, but particularly the hawthorn or May-bush. In Persia they have a festival called the Feast of Roses, which lasts the whole time they are in bloom-(See Roses, page 321). Formerly it was the custom, and still is in some parts of the country, to scatter flowers on the celebration of a wedding, a christening, or even of a funeral (See Roses, page 315, and ROSEMARY, page 331). It was formerly the custom also to carry garlands before the bier of a maiden, and to hang them, and scatter flowers over her grave: "Her death was dreadful; And, but that great command o'ersways the order, Till the last trumpet; for charitable prayers, Shards, flints, and pebbles should be thrown on her, Yet here she is allowed her virgin crants*, Her maiden strewments, and the bringing home The Queen scattering flowers: "Sweets to the sweet. Farewell! I hoped thy bride-bed to have decked, sweet maid, And not have strewed thy grave." HAMLET, Act v. Scene 1. * Crants is the German word for garlands. In Tripoli, on the celebration of a wedding, the baskets of sweetmeats, &c., sent as wedding presents, are covered with flowers; and although it is well known that they frequently communicate the plague, the inhabitants will even prefer running the risk, when that dreadful disease is abroad, rather than lose the enjoyment they have in their love of flowers. When a woman in Tripoli dies, a large bouquet of fresh flowers, if they can be procured, if not, of artificial, is fastened at the head of her coffin. Upon the death of a Moorish lady of quality, every place is filled with fresh flowers and burning perfumes: at the head of the body is placed a large bouquet, of part artificial, and part natural, and richly ornamented with silver: and additions are continually made to it. The author who describes these customs also mentions a lady of high rank, who regularly attended the tomb of her daughter, who had been three years dead: she always kept it in repair, and, with the exception of the great mosque, it was one of the grandest in Tripoli. From the time of the young lady's death, the tomb had always been supplied with the most expensive flowers, placed in beautiful vases; and, in addition to these, a great quantity of fresh Arabian Jessamines, threaded on thin slips of the Palm-leaf, were hung in festoons and tassels about this revered sepulchre. The mausoleum of the royal family, which is called the Turbar, is of the purest white marble, and is filled with an immense quantity of fresh flowers; most of the tombs being dressed with festoons of Arabian Jessamine and large bunches of variegated flowers, consisting of Orange, Myrtle, Red and White Roses, &c. They afford a perfume which those who are not habituated to such choice flowers can scarcely conceive. The tombs are mostly of white, a few inlaid with coloured marble. A manuscript Bible, which was presented by a Jew to the Synagogue, was adorned with flowers; and silver vases filled with flowers were placed upon the ark which contained the sacred MS*. The ancients used wreaths. of flowers in their entertainments, not only for pleasure, but also from a notion that their odour prevented the wine from intoxicating them: they used other perfumes on the same account. Beds of flowers are not merely fictitious (see ROSES, page 320). The Highlanders of Scotland commonly sleep on heath, which is said to make a delicious bed; and beds are, in Italy, often filled with the leaves of trees, instead of down or feathers. It is an old joke against the effeminate Sybarites, that one of them complaining he had not slept all night, and being asked the reason why, said that a roseleaf had got folded under him. In Naples, and in the Vale of Cachemere (I have been told also that it sometimes occurs in Chester), gardens are formed on the roofs of houses: "On a standing roof of wood is laid a covering of fine earth, which shelters the building from the great quantity of snow that falls in the winter season. This fence communicates an equal warmth in winter, as a refreshing coolness in summer, when the tops of the houses, which are planted with a variety of flowers, exhibit at a distance the spacious view of a beautifully chequered parterre." (FORSTER.) The famous hanging gardens of Babylon were on the enormous walls of that city. A garden usually makes a part of every Paradise, even of Mahomet's, from which women are excluded,-women, whom gallantry has so associated with flowers, that we are told, in the Malay language, one word serves for both t. In Milton's Paradise, the occupation of Adam and Eve *See Tully's Narrative of a Residence in Tripoli. + See Lalla Rookh, page 303. Sixth edition. |