Flowers And Flower-Gardens Part 38

[042] The oak was dedicated to Jupiter, and the poplar to Hercules.

[043] _Sicker_, surely; Chaucer spells it _siker_.

[044] _Yode_, went.

[045] _Tabreret_, a tabourer.

[046] _Tho_, then

[047] _Attone_, at once--with him.

[048] Cato being present on one occasion at the floral games, the people out of respect to him, forbore to call for the usual exposures; when informed of this he withdrew, that the spectators might not be deprived of their usual entertainment.

[049] What is the reason that an easterly wind is every where unwholesome and disagreeable? I am not sufficiently scientific to answer this question. Pope takes care to notice the fitness of the easterly wind for the _Cave of Spleen_.

No cheerful breeze this sullen region knows, The dreaded east is all the wind that blows.

_Rape of the Lock_.

[050] One sweet scene of early pleasures in my native land I have commemorated in the following sonnet:--

NETLEY ABBEY.

Romantic ruin! who could gaze on thee Untouched by tender thoughts, and glimmering dreams Of long-departed years? Lo! nature seems Accordant with thy silent majesty!

The far blue hills--the smooth reposing sea-- The lonely forest--the meandering streams-- The farewell summer sun, whose mellowed beams Illume thine ivied halls, and tinge each tree, Whose green arms round thee cling--the balmy air-- The stainless vault above, that cloud or storm 'Tis hard to deem will ever more deform-- The season's countless graces,--all appear To thy calm glory ministrant, and form A scene to peace and meditation dear!

D.L.R.

[051] "I was ever more disposed," says Hume, "to see the favourable than the unfavourable side of things; _a turn of mind which it is more happy to possess, than to be born to an estate of ten thousand a year_."

[052] So called, because the grounds were laid out in a tasteful style, under the direction of Lord Auckland's sister, the Honorable Miss Eden.

[053] _Songs of the East by Mrs. W.S. Carsh.o.r.e. D'Rozario & Co, Calcutta_ 1854.

[054] The lines form a portion of a poem published in _Literary Leaves_ in the year 1840.

[055] Perhaps some formal or fashionable wiseacres may p.r.o.nounce such simple ceremonies _vulgar_. And such is the advance of civilization that even the very chimney-sweepers themselves begin to look upon their old May-day merry-makings as beneath the dignity of their profession.

"Suppose now" said Mr. Jonas Hanway to a sooty little urchin, "I were to give you a shilling." "Lord Almighty bless your honor, and thank you."

"And what if I were to give you a fine tie-wig to wear on May-day?" "Ah!

bless your honor, my master wont let me go out on May-day," "Why not?"

"Because, he says, _it's low life_." And yet the merrie makings on May-day which are now deemed _ungenteel_ by chimney-sweepers were once the delight of Princes:--

Forth goth all the court, both most and least, To fetch the flowres fresh, and branch and blome, And namely hawthorn brought both page and grome, And then rejoicing in their great delite Eke ech at others threw the flowres bright, The primrose, violet, and the gold With fresh garlants party blue and white.

_Chaucer_.

[056] The May-pole was usually decorated with the flowers of the hawthorn, a plant as emblematical of the spring as the holly is of Christmas. Goldsmith has made its name familiar even to the people of Bengal, for almost every student in the upper cla.s.ses of the Government Colleges has the following couplet by heart.

The _hawthorn bush_, with seats beneath the shade, For talking age and whispering lovers made.

The hawthorn was amongst Burns's floral pets. "I have," says he, "some favorite flowers in spring, among which are, the mountain daisy, the harebell, the fox-glove, the wild-briar rose, the budding birch and the h.o.a.ry hawthorn, that I view and hang over with particular delight."

L.E.L. speaks of the hawthorn hedge on which "the sweet May has showered its white luxuriance," and the Rev. George Croly has a patriotic allusion to this English plant, suggested by a landscape in France.

'Tis a rich scene, and yet the richest charm That e'er clothed earth in beauty, lives not here.

Winds no green fence around the cultured farm _No blossomed hawthorn shields the cottage dear_: The land is bright; and yet to thine how drear, Unrivalled England! Well the thought may pine For those sweet fields where, each a little sphere, In shaded, sacred fruitfulness doth shine, And the heart higher beats that says; 'This spot is mine.'

[057] On May-day, the Ancient Romans used to go in procession to the grotto of Egeria.

[058] See what is said of palms in a note on page 81.

[059] Phillips's _Flora Historica_.

[060] The word primrose is supposed to be a compound of _prime_ and _rose_, and Spenser spells it prime rose

The pride and prime rose of the rest Made by the maker's self to be admired

The Rev. George Croly characterizes Bengal as a mountainous country--

There's glory on thy _mountains_, proud Bengal--

and Dr. Johnson in his _Journey of a day_, (Rambler No. 65) charms the traveller in Hindustan with a sight of the primrose and the oak.

"As he pa.s.sed along, his ears were delighted with the morning song of the bird of paradise; he was fanned by the last flutters of the sinking breeze, and sprinkled with dew by groves of spices, he sometimes contemplated the towering height of the oak, monarch of the hills; and sometimes caught the gentle fragrance of the primrose, eldest daughter of the spring."

In some book of travels, I forget which, the writer states, that he had seen the primrose in Mysore and in the recesses of the Pyrenees. There is a flower sold by the Bengallee gardeners for the primrose, though it bears but small resemblance to the English flower of that name. On turning to Mr. Piddington's Index to the Plants of India I find under the head of _Primula_--Primula denticula--Stuartii--rotundifolia--with the names in the Mawar or Nepaulese dialect.

[061] In strewing their graves the Romans affected the rose; the Greeks amaranthus and myrtle: the funeral pyre consisted of sweet fuel, cypress, fir, larix, yew, and trees perpetually verdant lay silent expressions of their surviving hopes. _Sir Thomas Browne_.

[062] The allusion to the cowslip in Shakespeare's description of Imogene must not be pa.s.sed over here.--

On her left breast A mole cinque-spotted, like the crimson drop I' the bottom of the cowslip.

[063] The Guelder rose--This elegant plant is a native of Britain, and when in flower, has at first sight, the appearance of a little maple tree that has been pelted with snow b.a.l.l.s, and we almost fear to see them melt away in the warm sunshine--_Glenny_.

[064] In a greenhouse

[065] Some flowers have always been made to a certain degree emblematical of sentiment in England as elsewhere, but it was the Turks who subst.i.tuted flowers for words to such an extent as to ent.i.tle themselves to be regarded as the inventors of the floral language.

[066] The floral or vegetable language is not always the language of love or compliment. It is sometimes severe and scornful. A gentleman sent a lady a rose as a declaration of his pa.s.sion and a slip of paper attached, with the inscription--"If not accepted, I am off to the war."

The lady forwarded in return a mango (man, go!)

[067] No part of the creation supposed to be insentient, exhibits to an imaginative observer such an aspect of spiritual life and such an apparent sympathy with other living things as flowers, shrubs and trees.

A tree of the genus Mimosa, according to Niebuhr, bends its branches downward as if in hospitable salutation when any one approaches near to it. The Arabs, are on this account so fond of the "courteous tree" that the injuring or cutting of it down is strictly prohibited.

[068] It has been observed that the defense is supplied in the following line--_want of sense_--a stupidity that "errs in ignorance and not in cunning."

[069] There is apparently so much doubt and confusion is to the ident.i.ty of the true Hyacinth, and the proper application of its several names that I shall here give a few extracts from other writers on this subject.