III.

Man's heart may change, but Nature's glory never,-- Strange features throng around me, and the shore Is not my own dear land. Yet why deplore This change of doom? All mortal ties must sever. The pang is past,--and now with blest endeavour I check the ready tear, the rising sigh The common earth is here--the common sky-- The common FATHER. And how high soever O'er other tribes proud England's hosts may seem, God's children, fair or sable, equal find A FATHER'S love. Then learn, O man, to deem All difference idle save of heart or mind Thy duty, love--each cause of strife, a dream-- Thy home, the world--thy family, mankind.

D.L.R.

For the sake of my home readers I must now say a word or two on the effect produced upon the mind of a stranger on his approach to Calcutta from the Sandheads.

As we run up the Bay of Bengal and approach the dangerous Sandheads, the beautiful deep blue of the ocean suddenly disappears. It turns into a pale green. The sea, even in calm weather, rolls over soundings in long swells. The hue of the water is varied by different depths, and in passing over the edge of soundings, it is curious to observe how distinctly the form of the sands may be traced by the different shades of green in the water above and beyond them. In the lower part of the bay, the crisp foam of the dark sea at night is instinct with phosphoric lustre. The ship seems to make her way through galaxies of little ocean stars. We lose sight of this poetical phenomenon as we approach the mouth of the Hooghly. But the passengers, towards the termination of their voyage, become less observant of the changeful aspect of the sea. Though amused occasionally by flights of sea-gulls, immense shoals of porpoises, apparently tumbling or rolling head over tail against the wind, and the small sprat-like fishes that sometimes play and glitter on the surface, the stranger grows impatient to catch a glimpse of an Indian jungle; and even the swampy tiger-haunted Saugor Island is greeted with that degree of interest which novelty usually inspires.

At first the land is but little above the level of the water. It rises gradually as we pass up further from the sea. As we come still nearer to Calcutta, the soil on shore seems to improve in richness and the trees to increase in size. The little clusters of nest-like villages snugly sheltered in foliage--the groups of dark figures in white garments--the cattle wandering over the open plain--the emerald-colored fields of rice--the rich groves of mangoe trees--the vast and magnificent banyans, with straight roots dropping from their highest branches, (hundreds of these branch-dropped roots being fixed into the earth and forming "a pillared shade"),--the tall, slim palms of different characters and with crowns of different forms, feathery or fan-like,--the many-stemmed and long, sharp-leaved bamboos, whose thin pliant branches swing gracefully under the weight of the lightest bird,--the beautifully rounded and bright green peepuls, with their burnished leaves glittering in the sunshine, and trembling at the zephyr's softest touch with a pleasant rustling sound, suggestive of images of coolness and repose,--form a striking and singularly interesting scene (or rather succession of scenes) after the monotony of a long voyage during which nothing has been visible but sea and sky.

But it is not until he arrives at a bend of the river called _Garden Reach_, where the City of Palaces first opens on the view, that the stranger has a full sense of the value of our possessions in the East. The princely mansions on our right;--(residences of English gentry), with their rich gardens and smooth slopes verdant to the water's edge,--the large and rich Botanic Garden and the Gothic edifice of Bishop's College on our left--and in front, as we advance a little further, the countless masts of vessels of all sizes and characters, and from almost every clime,--Fort William, with its grassy ramparts and white barracks,--the Government House, a magnificent edifice in spite of many imperfections,--the substantial looking Town Hall--the Supreme Court House--the broad and ever verdant plain (or _madaun_) in front--and the noble lines of buildings along the Esplanade and Chowringhee Road,--the new Cathedral almost at the extremity of the plain, and half-hidden amidst the trees,--the suburban groves and buildings of Kidderpore beyond, their outlines softened by the haze of distance, like scenes contemplated through colored glass--the high-sterned budgerows and small trim bauleahs along the edge of the river,--the neatly-painted palanquins and other vehicles of all sorts and sizes,--the variously-hued and variously-clad people of all conditions; the fair European, the black and nearly naked Cooly, the clean-robed and lighter-skinned native Baboo, the Oriental nobleman with his jewelled turban and kincob vest, and costly necklace and twisted cummerbund, on a horse fantastically caparisoned, and followed in barbaric state by a train of attendants with long, golden-handled punkahs, peacock feather chowries, and golden chattahs and silver sticks,--present altogether a scene that is calculated to at once delight and bewilder the traveller, to whom all the strange objects before him have something of the enchantment and confusion of an Arabian Night's dream. When he recovers from his surprise, the first emotion in the breast of an Englishman is a feeling of national pride. He exults in the recognition of so many glorious indications of the power of a small and remote nation that has founded a splendid empire in so strange and vast a land.

When the first impression begins to fade, and he takes a closer view of the great metropolis of India--and observes what miserable straw huts are intermingled with magnificent palaces--how much Oriental filth and squalor and idleness and superstition and poverty and ignorance are associated with savage splendour, and are brought into immediate and most incongruous contact with Saxon energy and enterprize and taste and skill and love of order, and the amazing intelligence of the West in this nineteenth century--and when familiarity breeds something like contempt for many things that originally excited a vague and pleasing wonder--the English traveller in the East is apt to dwell too exclusively on the worst side of the picture, and to become insensible to the real interest, and blind to the actual beauty of much of the scene around him. Extravagant astonishment and admiration, under the influence of novelty, a strong re-action, and a subsequent feeling of unreasonable disappointment, seem, in some degree, natural to all men; but in no other part of the world, and under no other circumstances, is this peculiarity of our condition more conspicuously displayed than in the case of Englishmen in India. John Bull, who is always a grumbler even on his own shores, is sure to become a still more inveterate grumbler in other countries, and perhaps the climate of Bengal, producing lassitude and low spirits, and a yearning for their native land, of which they are so justly proud, contribute to make our countrymen in the East even more than usually unsusceptible of pleasurable emotions until at last they turn away in positive disgust from the scenes and objects which remind them that they are in a state of exile.

"There is nothing," says Hamlet, "either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." At every change of the mind's colored optics the scene before it changes also. I have sometimes contemplated the vast metropolis of England--or rather _of the world_--multitudinous and mighty LONDON--with the pride and hope and exultation, not of a patriot only, but of a cosmopolite--a man. Its grand national structures that seem built for eternity--its noble institutions, charitable, and learned, and scientific, and artistical--the genius and science and bravery and moral excellence within its countless walls--have overwhelmed me with a sense of its glory and majesty and power. But in a less admiring mood, I have quite reversed the picture. Perhaps the following sonnet may seem to indicate that the writer while composing it, must have worn his colored spectacles.

LONDON, IN THE MORNING.

The morning wakes, and through the misty air In sickly radiance struggles--like the dream Of sorrow-shrouded hope. O'er Thames' dull stream, Whose sluggish waves a wealthy burden bear From every port and clime, the pallid glare Of early sun-light spreads. The long streets seem Unpeopled still, but soon each path shall teem With hurried feet, and visages of care. And eager throngs shall meet where dusky marts Resound like ocean-caverns, with the din Of toil and strife and agony and sin. Trade's busy Babel! Ah! how many hearts By lust of gold to thy dim temples brought In happier hours have scorned the prize they sought?

D.L.R.

I now give a pair of sonnets upon the City of Palaces as viewed through somewhat clearer glasses.

VIEW OF CALCUTTA.

Here Passion's restless eye and spirit rude May greet no kindred images of power To fear or wonder ministrant. No tower, Time-struck and tenantless, here seems to brood, In the dread majesty of solitude, O'er human pride departed--no rocks lower O'er ravenous billows--no vast hollow wood Rings with the lion's thunder--no dark bower The crouching tiger haunts--no gloomy cave Glitters with savage eyes! But all the scene Is calm and cheerful. At the mild command Of Britain's sons, the skilful and the brave, Fair palace-structures decorate the land, And proud ships float on Hooghly's breast serene!

D.L.R.

SONNET, ON RETURNING TO CALCUTTA AFTER A VOYAGE TO THE STRAITS OF MALACCA.

Umbrageous woods, green dells, and mountains high, And bright cascades, and wide cerulean seas, Slumbering, or snow-wreathed by the freshening breeze, And isles like motionless clouds upon the sky In silent summer noons, late charmed mine eye, Until my soul was stirred like wind-touched trees, And passionate love and speechless ecstasies Up-raised the thoughts in spiritual depths that lie. Fair scenes, ye haunt me still! Yet I behold This sultry city on the level shore Not all unmoved; for here our fathers bold Won proud historic names in days of yore, And here are generous hearts that ne'er grow cold, And many a friendly hand and open door.

D.L.R.

There are several extremely elegant customs connected with some of the Indian Festivals, at which flowers are used in great profusion. The surface of the "sacred river" is often thickly strewn with them. In Mrs. Carshore's pleasing volume of _Songs of the East_[053] there is a long poem (too long to quote entire) in which the _Beara Festival_ is described. I must give the introductory passage.

"THE BEARA FESTIVAL.

"Upon the Ganges' overflowing banks, Where palm trees lined the shore in graceful ranks, I stood one night amidst a merry throng Of British youths and maidens, to behold A witching Indian scene of light and song, Crowds of veiled native loveliness untold, Each streaming path poured duskily along. The air was filled with the sweet breath of flowers, And music that awoke the silent hours, It was the BEARA FESTIVAL and feast When proud and lowly, loftiest and least, Matron and Moslem maiden pay their vows, With impetratory and votive gift, And to the Moslem Jonas bent their brows. _Each brought her floating lamp of flowers_, and swift A thousand lights along the current drift, Till the vast bosom of the swollen stream, Glittering and gliding onward like a dream, Seems a wide mirror of the starry sphere Or more as if the stars had dropt from air, And in an earthly heaven were shining here, And far above were, but reflected there Still group on group, advancing to the brink, As group on group retired link by link; For one pale lamp that floated out of view Five brighter ones they quickly placed anew; At length the slackening multitudes grew less, And the lamps floated scattered and apart. As stars grow few when morning's footsteps press When a slight girl, shy as the timid halt, Not far from where we stood, her offering brought. Singing a low sweet strain, with lips untaught. Her song proclaimed, that 'twas not many hours Since she had left her childhood's innocent home; And now with Beara lamp, and wreathed flowers, To propitiate heaven, for wedded bliss had come"

To these lines Mrs. Carshore (who has been in this country, I believe, from her birth, and who ought to know something of Indian customs) appends the following notes.

"_It was the Beara festival_." Much has been said about the Beara or floating lamp, but I have never yet seen a correct description. Moore mentions that Lalla Rookh saw a solitary Hindoo girl bring her lamp to the river. D.L.R. says the same, whereas the Beara festival is a Moslem feast that takes place once a year in the monsoons, when thousands of females offer their vows to the patron of rivers.

"_Moslem Jonas_" Khauj Khoddir is the Jonas of the Mussulman; he, like the prophet of Nineveh, was for three days inside a fish, and for that reason is called the patron of rivers."

I suppose Mrs. Carshore alludes, in the first of these notes, to the following passage in the prose part of Lalla Rookh:--

"As they passed along a sequestered river after sunset, they saw a young Hindoo girl upon the bank whose employment seemed to them so strange that they stopped their palanquins to observe her. She had lighted a small lamp, filled with oil of cocoa, and placing it in an earthern dish, adorned with a wreath of flowers, had committed it with a trembling hand to the stream: and was now anxiously watching its progress down the current, heedless of the gay cavalcade which had drawn up beside her. Lalla Rookh was all curiosity;--when one of her attendants, who had lived upon the banks of the Ganges, (where this ceremony is so frequent that often, in the dusk of evening, the river is seen glittering all over with lights, like the Oton-Jala or Sea of Stars,) informed the Princess that it was the usual way, in which the friends of those who had gone on dangerous voyages offered up vows for their safe return. If the lamp sunk immediately, the omen was disastrous; but if it went shining down the stream, and continued to burn till entirely out of sight, the return of the beloved object was considered as certain.

Lalla Rookh, as they moved on, more than once looked back, to observe how the young Hindoo's lamp proceeded: and while she saw with pleasure that it was unextinguished, she could not help fearing that all the hopes of this life were no better than that feeble light upon the river."

Moore prepared himself for the writing of Lalla Rookh by "long and laborious reading." He himself narrates that Sir James Mackintosh was asked by Colonel Wilks, the Historian of British India, whether it was true that the poet had never been in the East. Sir James replied, "_Never_." "Well, that shows me," said Colonel Wilks, "that reading over D'Herbelot is as good as riding on the back of a camel." Sir John Malcolm, Sir William Ouseley and other high authorities have testified to the accuracy of Moore's descriptions of Eastern scenes and customs.

The following lines were composed on the banks of the Hooghly at Cossipore, (many long years ago) just after beholding the river one evening almost covered with floating lamps.[054]

A HINDU FESTIVAL.

Seated on a bank of green, Gazing on an Indian scene, I have dreams the mind to cheer, And a feast for eye and ear. At my feet a river flows, And its broad face richly glows With the glory of the sun, Whose proud race is nearly run

Ne'er before did sea or stream Kindle thus beneath his beam, Ne'er did miser's eye behold Such a glittering mass of gold 'Gainst the gorgeous radiance float Darkly, many a sloop and boat, While in each the figures seem Like the shadows of a dream Swiftly, passively, they glide As sliders on a frozen tide.

Sinks the sun--the sudden night Falls, yet still the scene is bright Now the fire-fly's living spark Glances through the foliage dark, And along the dusky stream Myriad lamps with ruddy gleam On the small waves float and quiver, As if upon the favored river, And to mark the sacred hour, Stars had fallen in a shower.

For many a mile is either shore Illumined with a countless store Of lustres ranged in glittering rows, Each a golden column throws To light the dim depths of the tide, And the moon in all her pride Though beauteously her regions glow, Views a scene as fair below

D.L.R.

Mrs. Carshore alludes, I suppose to the above lines, or the following sonnet, or both perhaps, when she speaks of my erroneous Orientalism--

SCENE ON THE GANGES.

The shades of evening veil the lofty spires Of proud Benares' fanes! A thickening haze Hangs o'er the stream. The weary boatmen raise Along the dusky shore their crimson fires That tinge the circling groups. Now hope inspires Yon Hindu maid, whose heart true passion sways, To launch on Gungas flood the glimmering rays Of Love's frail lamp,--but, lo the light expires! Alas! what sudden sorrow fills her breast! No charm of life remains. Her tears deplore A lover lost and never, never more Shall hope's sweet vision yield her spirit rest! The cold wave quenched the flame--an omen dread That telleth of the faithless--_or the dead_!

D.L.R.

Horace Hayman Wilson, a high authority on all Oriental customs, clearly alludes in the following lines to the launching of floating lamps by _Hindu_ females.

Grave in the tide the Brahmin stands, And folds his cord or twists his hands, And tells his beads, and all unheard Mutters a solemn mystic word With reverence the Sudra dips, And fervently the current sips, That to his humbler hope conveys A future life of happier days. But chief do India's simple daughters Assemble in these hallowed waters, With vase of classic model laden Like Grecian girl or Tuscan maiden, Collecting thus their urns to fill From gushing fount or trickling rill, And still with pious fervour they To Gunga veneration pay And with pretenceless rite prefer, The wishes of their hearts to her The maid or matron, as she throws _Champae_ or lotus, _Bel_ or rose, Or sends the quivering light afloat In shallow cup or paper boat, Prays for a parent's peace and wealth Prays for a child's success and health, For a fond husband breathes a prayer, For progeny their loves to share, For what of good on earth is given To lowly life, or hoped in heaven,

H.H.W.

On seeing Miss Carshore's criticism I referred the subject to an intelligent Hindu friend from whom I received the following answer:--

My dear Sir,

The _Beara_, strictly speaking, is a Mahomedan festival. Some of the lower orders of the Hindus of the NW Provinces, who have borrowed many of their customs from the Mahomedans, celebrate the _Beara_. But it is not observed by the Hindus of Bengal, who have a festival of their own, similar to the _Beara_. It takes place on the evening of the _Saraswati Poojah_, when a small piece of the bark of the Plantain Tree is fitted out with all the necessary accompaniments of a boat, and is launched in a private tank with a lamp. The custom is confined to the women who follow it in their own house or in the same neighbourhood. It is called the _Sooa Dooa Breta_.

Yours truly,

* * * * *

Mrs. Carshore it would seem is partly right and partly wrong. She is right in calling the _Beara_ a _Moslem_ Festival. It is so; but we have the testimony of Horace Hayman Wilson to the fact that _Hindu maids and matrons also launch their lamps upon the river_. My Hindu friend acknowledges that his countrymen in the North West Provinces have borrowed many of their customs from the Mahomedans, and though he is not aware of it, it may yet be the case, that some of the Hindus of _Bengal_, as elsewhere, have done the same, and that they set lamps afloat upon the stream to discover by their continued burning or sudden extinction the fate of some absent friend or lover. I find very few Natives who are able to give me any exact and positive information concerning their own national customs. In their explanations of such matters they differ in the most extraordinary manner amongst themselves. Two most respectable and intelligent Native gentlemen who were proposing to lay out their grounds under my directions, told me that I must not cut down a single cocoa-nut tree, as it would be dreadful sacrilege--equal to cutting the throats of seven brahmins! Another equally respectable and intelligent Native friend, when I mentioned the fact, threw himself back in his chair to give vent to a hearty laugh. When he had recovered himself a little from this risible convulsion he observed that his father and his grandfather had cut down cocoa-nut trees in considerable numbers without the slightest remorse or fear. And yet again, I afterwards heard that one of the richest Hindu families in Calcutta, rather than suffer so sacred an object to be injured, piously submit to a very serious inconvenience occasioned by a cocoa-nut tree standing in the centre of the carriage road that leads to the portico of their large town palace. I am told that there are other sacred trees which must not be removed by the hands of Hindus of inferior caste, though in this case there is a way of getting over the difficulty, for it is allowable or even meritorious to make presents of these trees to Brahmins, who cut them down for their own fire-wood. But the cocoa-nut tree is said to be too sacred even for the axe of a Brahmin.

I have been running away again from my subject;--I was discoursing upon May-day in England. The season there is still a lovely and a merry one, though the most picturesque and romantic of its ancient observances, now live but in the memory of the "oldest inhabitants," or on the page of history.[055]

See where, amidst the sun and showers, The Lady of the vernal hours, Sweet May, comes forth again with all her flowers.

_Barry Cornwall_.

The _May-pole_ on these days is rarely seen to rise up in English towns with its proper floral decorations[056]. In remote rural districts a solitary May-pole is still, however, occasionally discovered. "A May-pole," says Washington Irving, "gave a glow to my feelings and spread a charm over the country for the rest of the day: and as I traversed a part of the fair plains of Cheshire, and the beautiful borders of Wales and looked from among swelling hills down a long green valley, through which the Deva wound its wizard stream, my imagination turned all into a perfect Arcadia. One can readily imagine what a gay scene old London must have been when the doors were decked with hawthorn; and Robin Hood, Friar Tuck, Maid Marian, Morris dancers, and all the other fantastic dancers and revellers were performing their antics about the May-pole in every part of the city. I value every custom which tends to infuse poetical feeling into the common people, and to sweeten and soften the rudeness of rustic manners without destroying their simplicity."

Another American writer--a poet--has expressed his due appreciation of the pleasures of the season. He thus addresses the merrie month of MAY.[057]

MAY.

Would that thou couldst laugh for aye, Merry, ever merry May! Made of sun gleams, shade and showers Bursting buds, and breathing flowers, Dripping locked, and rosy vested, Violet slippered, rainbow crested; Girdled with the eglantine, Festooned with the dewy vine Merry, ever Merry May, Would that thou could laugh for aye!

_W.D. Gallagher._

I must give a dainty bit of description from the poet of the poets--our own romantic Spenser.

Then comes fair May, the fayrest mayde on ground, Decked with all dainties of the season's pryde, And throwing flowres out of her lap around. Upon two brethren's shoulders she did ride, The twins of Leda, which, on eyther side, Supported her like to their Sovereign queene Lord! how all creatures laught when her they spide, And leapt and danced as they had ravisht beene! And Cupid's self about her fluttred all in greene.

Here are a few lines from Herrick.

Fled are the frosts, and now the fields appeare Re-clothed in freshe and verdant diaper; Thawed are the snowes, and now the lusty spring Gives to each mead a neat enameling, The palmes[058] put forth their gemmes, and every tree Now swaggers in her leavy gallantry.

The Queen of May--Lady Flora--was the British representative of the Heathen Goddess Flora. May still returns and ever will return at her proper season, with all her bright leaves and fragrant blossoms, but men cease to make the same use of them as of yore. England is waxing utilitarian and prosaic.

The poets, let others neglect her as they will, must ever do fitting observance, in songs as lovely and fresh as the flowers of the hawthorn,

To the lady of the vernal hours.

Poor Keats, who was passionately fond of flowers, and everything beautiful or romantic or picturesque, complains, with a true poet's earnestness, that in _his_ day in England there were

No crowds of nymphs, soft-voiced and young and gay In woven baskets, bringing ears of corn, Roses and pinks and violets, to adorn The shrine of Flora in her early May.

The Floral Games--_Jeux Floraux_--of Toulouse--first celebrated at the commencement of the fourteenth century, are still kept up annually with great pomp and spirit. Clemence Isaure, a French lady, bequeathed to the Academy of Toulouse a large sum of money for the annual celebration of these games. A sort of College Council is formed, which not only confers degrees on those poets who do most honor to the Goddess Flora, but sometimes grants them more substantial favors. In 1324 the poets were encouraged to compete for a golden violet and a silver eglantine and pansy. A century later the prizes offered were an amaranthus of gold of the value of 400 livres, for the best ode, a violet of silver, valued at 250 livres, for an essay in prose, a silver pansy, worth 200 livres, for an eclogue, elegy or idyl, and a silver lily of the value of sixty livres, for the best sonnet or hymn in honor of the Virgin Mary,--for religion is mixed up with merriment, and heathen with Christian rites. He who gained a prize three times was honored with the title of Doctor _en gaye science_, the name given to the poetry of the Provencal troubadours. A mass, a sermon, and alms-giving, commence the ceremonies. The French poet, Ronsard who had gained a prize in the floral games, so delighted Mary Queen of Scots with his verses on the Rose that she presented him with a silver rose worth L500, with this inscription--"_A Ronsard, l'Apollon de la source des Muses_."

At Ghent floral festivals are held twice a year when amateur and professional florists assemble together and contribute each his share of flowers to the grand general exhibition which is under the direct patronage of the public authorities. Honorary medals are awarded to the possessors of the finest flowers.

The chief floral festival of the Chinese is on their new year's day, when their rivers are covered with boats laden with flowers, and gay flags streaming from every mast. Their homes and temples are richly hung with festoons of flowers. Boughs of the peach and plum trees in blossom, enkianthus quinque-flora, camelias, cockscombs, magnolias, jonquils are then exposed for sale in all the streets of Canton. Even the Chinese ladies, who are visible at no other season, are seen on this occasion in flower-boats on the river or in the public gardens on the shore.

The Italians, it is said, still have artificers called _Festaroli_, whose business it is to prepare festoons and garlands. The ancient Romans were very tasteful in their nosegays and chaplets. Pliny tells us that the Sicyonians were especially celebrated for the graceful art exhibited in the arrangement of the varied colors of their garlands, and he gives us the story of Glycera who, to please her lover Pausias, the painter of Sicyon, used to send him the most exquisite chaplets of her own braiding, which he regularly copied on his canvas. He became very eminent as a flower-painter. The last work of his pencil, and his master-piece, was a picture of his mistress in the act of arranging a chaplet. The picture was called the _Garland Twiner_. It is related that Antony for some time mistrusting Cleopatra made her taste in the first instance every thing presented to him at her banquets. One day "the Serpent of old Nile" after dipping her own coronet of flowers into her goblet drank up the wine and then directed him to follow her example. He was off his guard. He dipped his chaplet in his cup. The leaves had been touched with poison. He was just raising the cup to his lips when she seized his arm, and said "Cease your jealous doubts, for know, that if I had desired your death or wished to live without you, I could easily have destroyed you." The Queen then ordered a prisoner to be brought into their presence, who being made to drink from the cup, instantly expired.[059]

Some of the nosegays made up by "flower-girls" in London and its neighbourhood are sold at such extravagant prices that none but the very wealthy are in the habit of purchasing them, though sometimes a poor lover is tempted to present his mistress on a ball-night with a bouquet that he can purchase only at the cost of a good many more leaves of bread or substantial meals than he can well spare. He has to make every day a banian-day for perhaps half a month that his mistress may wear a nosegay for a few hours. However, a lover is often like a cameleon and can almost live on air--_for a time_--"promise-crammed." 'You cannot feed capons so.'

At Covent Garden Market, (in London) and the first-rate Flower-shops, a single wreath or nosegay is often made up for the head or hand at a price that would support a poor labourer and his family for a month. The colors of the wreaths are artfully arranged, so as to suit different complexions, and so also as to exhibit the most rare and costly flowers to the greatest possible advantage.

All true poets

--The sages Who have left streaks of light athwart their pages--

have contemplated flowers--with a passionate love, an ardent admiration; none more so than the sweet-souled Shakespeare. They are regarded by the imaginative as the fairies of the vegetable world--the physical personifications of etherial beauty. In _The Winter's Tale_ our great dramatic bard has some delightful floral allusions that cannot be too often quoted.

Here's flowers for you, Hot lavender, mint, savory, majoram, The marigold, that goes to bed with the sun, And with him rises weeping these are flowers Of middle summer, and I think they are given To men of middle age.

* * * * *

O, Proserpina, For the flowers now that, frighted, thou lett'st fall From Dis's waggon! Daffodils, That come before the swallow dares, and take The winds of March with beauty, violets dim, But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes, Or Cytherea's breath, pale primroses, That die unmarried ere they can behold Great Phoebus in his strength,--a malady Most incident to maids, bold oxlips and The crown imperial, lilies of all kinds, The flower de luce being one

Shakespeare here, as elsewhere, speaks of "_pale_ primroses." The poets almost always allude to the primrose as a _pale_ and interesting invalid. Milton tells us of

The yellow cowslip and the _pale_ primrose[060]

The poet in the manuscript of his _Lycidas_ had at first made the primrose "_die unwedded_," which was a pretty close copy of Shakespeare. Milton afterwards struck out the word "_unwedded_," and substituted the word "_forsaken_." The reason why the primrose was said to "die unmarried," is, according to Warton, because it grows in the shade uncherished or unseen by the sun, who was supposed to be in love with certain sorts of flowers. Ben Jonson, however, describes the primrose as _a wedded lady_--"the Spring's own _Spouse_"--though she is certainly more commonly regarded as the daughter of Spring not the wife. J Fletcher gives her the true parentage:--

Primrose, first born child of Ver

There are some kinds of primroses, that are not _pale_. There is a species in Scotland, which is of a deep purple. And even in England (in some of the northern counties) there is a primrose, the bird's-eye primrose, (Primula farinosa,) of which the blossom is lilac colored and the leaves musk-scented.

In Sweden they call the Primrose _The key of May_.

The primrose is always a great favorite with imaginative and sensitive observers, but there are too many people who look upon the beautiful with a utilitarian eye, or like Wordsworth's Peter Bell regard it with perfect indifference.

A primrose by the river's brim A yellow primrose was to him. And it was nothing more.

I have already given one anecdote of a utilitarian; but I may as well give two more anecdotes of a similar character. Mrs. Wordsworth was in a grove, listening to the cooing of the stock-doves, and associating their music with the remembrance of her husband's verses to a stock-dove, when a farmer's wife passing by exclaimed, "Oh, I do like stock-doves!" The woman won the heart of the poet's wife at once; but she did not long retain it. "Some people," continued the speaker, "like 'em in a pie; for my part I think there's nothing like 'em stewed in inions." This was a rustic utilitarian. Here is an instance of a very different sort of utilitarianism--the utilitarianism of men who lead a gay town life. Sir W.H. listened, patiently for some time to a poetical-minded friend who was rapturously expatiating upon the delicious perfume of a bed of violets; "Oh yes," said Sir W. at last, "its all very well, but for my part I very much prefer the smell of a flambeau at the theatre." But intellects far more capacious than that of Sir W.H. have exhibited the same indifference to the beautiful in nature. Locke and Jeremy Bentham and even Sir Isaac Newton despised all poetry. And yet God never meant man to be insensible to the beautiful or the poetical. "Poetry, like truth," says Ebenezer Elliot, "is a common flower: God has sown it over the earth, like the daisies sprinkled with tears or glowing in the sun, even as he places the crocus and the March frosts together and beautifully mingles life and death." If the finer and more spiritual faculties of men were as well cultivated or exercised as are their colder and coarser faculties there would be fewer utilitarians. But the highest part of our nature is too much neglected in all our systems of education. Of the beauty and fragrance of flowers all earthly creatures except man are apparently meant to be unconscious. The cattle tread down or masticate the fairest flowers without a single "compunctious visiting of nature." This excites no surprize. It is no more than natural. But it is truly painful and humiliating to see any human being as insensible as the beasts of the field to that poetry of the world which God seems to have addressed exclusively to the heart and soul of man.

In South Wales the custom of strewing all kinds of flowers over the graves of departed friends, is preserved to the present day. Shakespeare, it appears, knew something of the customs of that part of his native country and puts the following _flowery_ speech into the mouth of the young Prince, Arviragus, who was educated there.

With fairest flowers, While summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele, I'll sweeten thy sad grave. Thou shalt not lack The flower that's like thy face, pale Primrose, nor The azured Harebell, like thy veins; no, nor The leaf of Eglantine; whom not to slander, Out-sweetened not thy breath.

_Cymbeline_.

Here are two more flower-passages from Shakespeare.

Here's a few flowers; but about midnight more; The herbs that have on them cold dew o' the night Are strewings fitt'st for graves.--Upon their faces:-- You were as flowers; now withered; even so These herblets shall, which we upon you strow.

_Cymbeline_.

Sweets to the sweet. Farewell! I hoped thou shoulds't have been my Hamlet's wife; I thought thy bride-bed to have decked, sweet maid, And not t' have strewed thy grave.

_Hamlet_.

Flowers are peculiarly suitable ornaments for the grave, for as Evelyn truly says, "they are just emblems of the life of man, which has been compared in Holy Scripture to those fading creatures, whose roots being buried in dishonor rise again in glory."[061]

This thought is natural and just. It is indeed a most impressive sight, a most instructive pleasure, to behold some "bright consummate flower" rise up like a radiant exhalation or a beautiful vision--like good from evil--with such stainless purity and such dainty loveliness, from the hot-bed of corruption.

Milton turns his acquaintance with flowers to divine account in his Lycidas.

Return; Sicilian Muse, And call the vales, and bid them hither cast Their bells and flowerets of a thousand hues. Ye vallies low, where the mild whispers use Of shades and wanton winds, and gushing brooks, On whose fresh lap the swart-star sparely looks; Throw hither all your quaint enamelled eyes, That on the green turf suck the honied showers. And purple all the ground with vernal flowers. Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies. The tufted crow-toe, and pale jessamine, The white pink, and the pansy freaked with jet, The glowing violet, The musk-rose and the well-attired woodbine, With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head,[062] And every flower that sad embroidery wears; Bid Amaranthus all his beauty shed, And daffodillies fill their cups with tears, To strew the laureate hearse where Lycid lies, For, so to interpose a little ease, Let our frail thoughts dally with faint surmise

Here is a nosegay of spring-flowers from the hand of Thomson:--

Fair handed Spring unbosoms every grace, Throws out the snow drop and the crocus first, the daisy, primrose, violet darkly blue, And polyanthus of unnumbered dyes, The yellow wall flower, stained with iron brown, And lavish stock that scents the garden round, From the soft wing of vernal breezes shed, Anemonies, auriculas, enriched With shining meal o'er all their velvet leaves And full ranunculus of glowing red Then comes the tulip race, where Beauty plays Her idle freaks from family diffused To family, as flies the father dust, The varied colors run, and while they break On the charmed eye, the exulting Florist marks With secret pride, the wonders of his hand Nor gradual bloom is wanting, from the bird, First born of spring, to Summer's musky tribes Nor hyacinth, of purest virgin white, Low bent, and, blushing inward, nor jonquils, Of potent fragrance, nor Narcissus fair, As o'er the fabled fountain hanging still, Nor broad carnations, nor gay spotted pinks; Nor, showered from every bush, the damask rose. Infinite varieties, delicacies, smells, With hues on hues expression cannot paint, The breath of Nature and her endless bloom.

Here are two bouquets of flowers from the garden of Cowper

Laburnum, rich In streaming gold, syringa, ivory pure, The scentless and the scented rose, this red, And of an humbler growth, the other[063] tall, And throwing up into the darkest gloom Of neighboring cypress, or more sable yew, Her silver globes, light as the foamy surf That the wind severs from the broken wave, The lilac, various in array, now white, Now sanguine, and her beauteous head now set With purple spikes pyramidal, as if Studious of ornament yet unresolved Which hue she most approved, she chose them all, Copious of flowers the woodbine, pale and wan, But well compensating her sickly looks With never cloying odours, early and late, Hypericum all bloom, so thick a swarm Of flowers, like flies clothing her slender rods, That scarce a loaf appears, mezereon too, Though leafless, well attired, and thick beset With blushing wreaths, investing every spray, Althaea with the purple eye, the broom Yellow and bright, as bullion unalloy'd, Her blossoms, and luxuriant above all The jasmine, throwing wide her elegant sweets, The deep dark green of whose unvarnish'd leaf Makes more conspicuous, and illumines more, The bright profusion of her scatter'd stars

* * * * *

Th' amomum there[064] with intermingling flowers And cherries hangs her twigs. Geranium boasts Her crimson honors, and the spangled beau Ficoides, glitters bright the winter long All plants, of every leaf, that can endure The winter's frown, if screened from his shrewd bite, Live their and prosper. Those Ausonia claims, Levantine regions those, the Azores send Their jessamine, her jessamine remote Caffraia, foreigners from many lands, They form one social shade as if convened By magic summons of the Orphean lyre

Here is a bunch of flowers laid before the public eye by Mr. Proctor--

There the rose unveils Her breast of beauty, and each delicate bud O' the season comes in turn to bloom and perish, But first of all the violet, with an eye Blue as the midnight heavens, the frail snowdrop, Born of the breath of winter, and on his brow Fixed like a full and solitary star The languid hyacinth, and wild primrose And daisy trodden down like modesty The fox glove, in whose drooping bells the bee Makes her sweet music, the Narcissus (named From him who died for love) the tangled woodbine, Lilacs, and flowering vines, and scented thorns, And some from whom the voluptuous winds of June Catch their perfumings

_Barry Cornwall_

I take a second supply of flowers from the same hand

Here, this rose (This one half blown) shall be my Maia's portion, For that like it her blush is beautiful And this deep violet, almost as blue As Pallas' eye, or thine, Lycemnia, I'll give to thee for like thyself it wears Its sweetness, never obtruding. For this lily Where can it hang but it Cyane's breast? And yet twill wither on so white a bed, If flowers have sense of envy.--It shall be Amongst thy raven tresses, Cytheris, Like one star on the bosom of the night The cowslip and the yellow primrose,--they Are gone, my sad Leontia, to their graves, And April hath wept o'er them, and the voice Of March hath sung, even before their deaths The dirge of those young children of the year But here is hearts ease for your woes. And now, The honey suckle flower I give to thee, And love it for my sake, my own Cyane It hangs upon the stem it loves, as thou Hast clung to me, through every joy and sorrow, It flourishes with its guardian growth, as thou dost, And if the woodman's axe should droop the tree, The woodbine too must perish.

_Barry Cornwall_

Let me add to the above heap of floral beauty a basket of flowers from Leigh Hunt.

Then the flowers on all their beds-- How the sparklers glance their heads, Daisies with their pinky lashes And the marigolds broad flashes, Hyacinth with sapphire bell Curling backward, and the swell Of the rose, full lipped and warm, Bound about whose riper form Her slender virgin train are seen In their close fit caps of green, Lilacs then, and daffodillies, And the nice leaved lesser lilies Shading, like detected light, Their little green-tipt lamps of white; Blissful poppy, odorous pea, With its wing up lightsomely; Balsam with his shaft of amber, Mignionette for lady's chamber, And genteel geranium, With a leaf for all that come; And the tulip tricked out finest, And the pink of smell divinest; And as proud as all of them Bound in one, the garden's gem Hearts-ease, like a gallant bold In his cloth of purple and gold.

Lady Mary Wortley Montague, who introduced inoculation into England--a practically useful boon to us,--had also the honor to be amongst the first to bring from the East to the West an elegant amusement--the Language of Flowers.[065]

Then he took up his garland, and did show What every flower, as country people hold, Did signify; and how all, ordered thus, Expressed his grief: and, to my thoughts, did read The prettiest lecture of his country art That could be wished.

_Beaumont's and Fletcher's "Philaster."_

* * * * *

There from richer banks Culling out flowers, which in a learned order Do become characters, whence they disclose Their mutual meanings, garlands then and nosegays Being framed into epistles.

_Cartwright's "Love's Covenant."_

* * * * *

An exquisite invention this, Worthy of Love's most honied kiss, This art of writing _billet-doux_ In buds and odours and bright hues, In saying all one feels and thinks In clever daffodils and pinks, Uttering (as well as silence may,) The sweetest words the sweetest way.

_Leigh Hunt_.

* * * * *

Yet, no--not words, for they But half can tell love's feeling; Sweet flowers alone can say What passion fears revealing.[066] A once bright rose's withered leaf-- A towering lily broken-- Oh, these may paint a grief No words could e'er have spoken.

_Moore_.

* * * * *

By all those token flowers that tell What words can ne'er express so well.

_Byron_.

* * * * *

A mystic language, perfect in each part. Made up of bright hued thoughts and perfumed speeches.

_Adams_.

If we are to believe Shakespeare it is not human beings only who use a floral language:--

Fairies use flowers for their charactery.

Sir Walter Scott tells us that:--

The myrtle bough bids lovers live--

A sprig of hawthorn has the same meaning as a sprig of myrtle: it gives hope to the lover--the sweet heliotrope tells the depth of his passion,--if he would charge his mistress with levity he presents the larkspur,--and a leaf of nettle speaks her cruelty. Poor Ophelia (in _Hamlet_) gives rosemary for remembrance, and pansies (_pensees_) for thoughts. The laurel indicates victory in war or success with the Muses,

"The meed of mighty conquerors and poets sage."

The ivy wreathes the brows of criticism. The fresh vine-leaf cools the hot forehead of the bacchanal. Bergamot and jessamine imply the fragrance of friendship.

The Olive is the emblem of peace--the Laurel, of glory--the Rue, of grace or purification (Ophelia's _Herb of Grace O'Sundays_)--the Primrose, of the spring of human life--the Bud of the White Rose, of Girl-hood,--the full blossom of the Red Rose, of consummate beauty--the Daisy, of innocence,--the Butter-cup, of gold--the Houstania, of content--the Heliotrope, of devotion in love--the Cross of Jerusalem, of devotion in religion--the Forget-me-not, of fidelity--the Myrrh, of gladness--the Yew, of sorrow--the Michaelmas Daisy, of cheerfulness in age--the Chinese Chrysanthemum, of cheerfulness in adversity--the Yellow Carnation, of disdain--the Sweet Violet, of modesty--the white Chrysanthemum, of truth--the Sweet Sultan, of felicity--the Sensitive Plant, of maiden shyness--the Yellow Day Lily, of coquetry--the Snapdragon, of presumption--the Broom, of humility--the Amaryllis, of pride--the Grass, of submission--the Fuschia, of taste--the Verbena, of sensibility--the Nasturtium, of splendour--the Heath, of solitude--the Blue Periwinkle, of early friendship--the Honey-suckle, of the bond of love--the Trumpet Flower, of fame--the Amaranth, of immortality--the Adonis, of sorrowful remembrance,--and the Poppy, of oblivion.

The Witch-hazel indicates a spell,--the Cape Jasmine says _I'm too happy_--the Laurestine, _I die if I am neglected_--the American Cowslip, _You are a divinity_--the Volkamenica Japonica, _May you be happy_--the Rose-colored Chrysanthemum, _I love_,--and the Venus' Car, _Fly with me_.

For the following illustrations of the language of flowers I am indebted to a useful and well conducted little periodical published in London and entitled the _Family Friend_;--the work is a great favorite with the fair sex.

"Of the floral grammar, the first rule to be observed is, that the pronoun _I_ or _me_ is expressed by inclining the symbol flower to the _left_, and the pronoun _thou_ or _thee_ by inclining it to the _right_. When, however, it is not a real flower offered, but a representation upon paper, these positions must be reversed, so that the symbol leans to the heart of the person whom it is to signify.

The second rule is, that the opposite of a particular sentiment expressed by a flower presented upright is denoted when the symbol is reversed; thus a rose-bud sent upright, with its thorns and leaves, means, "_I fear, but I hope_." If the bud is returned upside down, it means, "_You must neither hope nor fear_." Should the thorns, however, be stripped off, the signification is, "_There is everything to hope_;" but if stript of its leaves, "_There is everything to fear_." By this it will be seen that the expression of almost all flowers may be varied by a change in their positions, or an alteration of their state or condition. For example, the marigold flower placed in the hand signifies "_trouble of spirits_;" on the heart, "_trouble or love_;" on the bosom, "_weariness_." The pansy held upright denotes "_heart's ease_;" reversed, it speaks the contrary. When presented upright, it says, "_Think of me_;" and when pendent, "_Forget me_." So, too, the amaryllis, which is the emblem of pride, may be made to express, "_My pride is humbled_," or, "_Your pride is checked_," by holding it downwards, and to the right or left, as the sense requires. Then, again, the wallflower, which is the emblem of fidelity in misfortune, if presented with the stalk upward, would intimate that the person to whom it was turned was unfaithful in the time of trouble.

The third rule has relation to the manner in which certain words may be represented; as, for instance, the articles, by tendrils with single, double, and treble branches, as under--

[Illustration of _The_, _An_ & _A_.]

The numbers are represented by leaflets running from one to eleven, as thus--

[Illustration of '1', '2', '3', '4', '5', & '6'.]

From eleven to twenty, berries are added to the ten leaves thus--

[Illustration of '12' & '15'.]

From twenty to one hundred, compound leaves are added to the other ten for the decimals, and berries stand for the odd numbers so--

[Illustration of '20', '34' & '56'.]

A hundred is represented by ten tens; and this may be increased by a third leaflet and a branch of berries up to 999.

[Illustration of '100'.]

A thousand may be symbolized by a frond of fern, having ten or more leaves, and to this a common leaflet may be added to increase the number of thousands. In this way any given number may be represented in foliage, such as the date of a year in which a birthday, or other event, occurs, to which it is desirable to make allusion, in an emblematic wreath or floral picture. Thus, if I presented my love with a mute yet eloquent expression of good wishes on her eighteenth birthday, I should probably do it in this wise:--Within an evergreen wreath (_lasting as my affection_), consisting of ten leaflets and eight berries (_the age of the beloved_), I would place a red rose bud (_pure and lovely_), or a white lily (_pure and modest_), its spotless petals half concealing a ripe strawberry (_perfect excellence_); and to this I might add a blossom of the rose-scented geranium (_expressive of my preference_), a peach blossom to say "_I am your captive_" fern for sincerity, and perhaps bachelor's buttons for _hope in love_"--_Family Friend_.

There are many anecdotes and legends and classical fables to illustrate the history of shrubs and flowers, and as they add something to the peculiar interest with which we regard individual plants, they ought not to be quite passed over by the writers upon Floriculture.

THE FLOS ADONIS.

The Flos Adonis, a blood-red flower of the Anemone tribe, is one of the many plants which, according to ancient story sprang from the tears of Venus and the blood of her coy favorite.

Rose cheeked Adonis hied him to the chase Hunting he loved, but love he laughed to scorn

_Shakespeare_.

Venus, the Goddess of Beauty, the mother of Love, the Queen of Laughter, the Mistress of the Graces and the Pleasures, could make no impression on the heart of the beautiful son of Myrrha, (who was changed into a myrrh tree,) though the passion-stricken charmer looked and spake with the lip and eye of the fairest of the immortals. Shakespeare, in his poem of _Venus and Adonis_, has done justice to her burning eloquence, and the lustre of her unequalled loveliness. She had most earnestly, and with all a true lover's care entreated Adonis to avoid the dangers of the chase, but he slighted all her warnings just as he had slighted her affections. He was killed by a wild boar. Shakespeare makes Venus thus lament over the beautiful dead body as it lay on the blood-stained grass.

Alas, poor world, what treasure hast thou lost! What face remains alive that's worth the viewing? Whose tongue is music now? What can'st thou boast Of things long since, or any thing ensuing? The flowers are sweet, their colors fresh and trim, But true sweet beauty lived and died with him.

In her ecstacy of grief she prophecies that henceforth all sorts of sorrows shall be attendants upon love,--and alas! she was too correct an oracle.

The course of true love never does run smooth.

Here is Shakespeare's version of the metamorphosis of Adonis into a flower.

By this the boy that by her side lay killed Was melted into vapour from her sight, And in his blood that on the ground lay spilled, A purple flower sprang up, checquered with white, Resembling well his pale cheeks, and the blood Which in round drops upon their whiteness stood.

She bows her head, the new sprung flower to smell, Comparing it to her Adonis' breath, And says, within her bosom it shall dwell Since he himself is reft from her by death; She crops the stalk, and in the branch appears Green dropping sap which she compares to tears.

The reader may like to contrast this account of the change from human into floral beauty with the version of the same story in Ovid as translated by Eusden.

Then on the blood sweet nectar she bestows, The scented blood in little bubbles rose; Little as rainy drops, which fluttering fly, Borne by the winds, along a lowering sky, Short time ensued, till where the blood was shed, A flower began to rear its purple head

Such, as on Punic apples is revealed Or in the filmy rind but half concealed, Still here the fate of lonely forms we see, _So sudden fades the sweet Anemone_. The feeble stems to stormy blasts a prey Their sickly beauties droop, and pine away The winds forbid the flowers to flourish long Which owe to winds their names in Grecian song.

The concluding couplet alludes to the Grecian name of the flower ([Greek: anemos], _anemos_, the wind.)

It is said of the Anemone that it never opens its lips until Zephyr kisses them. Sir William Jones alludes to its short-lived beauty.

Youth, like a thin anemone, displays His silken leaf, and in a morn decays.

Horace Smith speaks of

The coy anemone that ne'er discloses Her lips until they're blown on by the wind

Plants open out their leaves to breathe the air just as eagerly as they throw down their roots to suck up the moisture of the earth. Dr. Linley, indeed says, "they feed more by their leaves than their roots." I lately met with a curious illustration of the fact that plants draw a larger proportion of their nourishment from light and air than is commonly supposed. I had a beautiful convolvulus growing upon a trellis work in an upper verandah with a south-western aspect. The root of the plant was in pots. The convolvulus growing too luxuriantly and encroaching too much upon the space devoted to a creeper of another kind, I separated its upper branches from the root and left them to die. The leaves began to fade the second day and most of them were quite dead the third or fourth day, but two or three of the smallest retained a sickly life for some days more. The buds or rather chalices outlived the leaves. The chalices continued to expand every morning, for--I am afraid to say how long a time--it might seem perfectly incredible. The convolvulus is a plant of a rather delicate character and I was perfectly astonished at its tenacity of life in this case. I should mention that this happened in the rainy season and that the upper part of the creeper was partially protected from the sun.

The Anemone seems to have been a great favorite with Mrs. Hemans. She thus addresses it.

Flower! The laurel still may shed Brightness round the victor's head, And the rose in beauty's hair Still its festal glory wear; And the willow-leaves droop o'er Brows which love sustains no more But by living rays refined, Thou the trembler of the wind, Thou, the spiritual flower Sentient of each breeze and shower,[067] Thou, rejoicing in the skies And transpierced with all their dyes; Breathing-vase with light o'erflowing, Gem-like to thy centre flowing, Thou the Poet's type shall be Flower of soul, Anemone!

The common anemone was known to the ancients but the finest kind was introduced into France from the East Indies, by Monsieur Bachelier, an eminent Florist. He seems to have been a person of a truly selfish disposition, for he refused to share the possession of his floral treasure with any of his countrymen. For ten years the new anemone from the East was to be seen no where in Europe but in Monsieur Bachelier's parterre. At last a counsellor of the French Parliament disgusted with the florist's selfishness, artfully contrived when visiting the garden to drop his robe upon the flower in such a manner as to sweep off some of the seeds. The servant, who was in his master's secret, caught up the robe and carried it away. The trick succeeded; and the counsellor shared the spoils with all his friends through whose agency the plant was multiplied in all parts of Europe.

THE OLIVE.

The OLIVE is generally regarded as an emblem of peace, and should have none but pleasant associations connected with it, but Ovid alludes to a wild species of this tree into which a rude and licentious fellow was converted as a punishment for "banishing the fair," with indecent words and gestures. The poet tells us of a secluded grotto surrounded by trembling reeds once frequented by the wood-nymphs of the sylvan race:--

Till Appulus with a dishonest air And gross behaviour, banished thence the fair. The bold buffoon, whene'er they tread the green, Their motion mimics, but with jest obscene; Loose language oft he utters; but ere long A bark in filmy net-work binds his tongue; Thus changed, a base wild olive he remains; The shrub the coarseness of the clown retains.

_Garth's Ovid_.

The mural of this is excellent. The sentiment reminds me of the Earl of Roscommon's well-known couplet in his _Essay on Translated Verse_, a poem now rarely read.

Immodest words admit of no defense,[068] For want of decency is want of sense,

THE HYACINTH.

The HYACINTH has always been a great favorite with the poets, ancient and modern. Homer mentions the Hyacinth as forming a portion of the materials of the couch of Jove and Juno.

Thick new-born Violets a soft carpet spread, And clustering Lotos swelled the rising bed, And sudden _Hyacinths_[069] the turf bestrow, And flaming Crocus made the mountains glow

_Iliad, Book 14_

Milton gives a similar couch to Adam and Eve.

Flowers were the couch Pansies, and Violets, and Asphodel And _Hyacinth_, earth's freshest, softest lap

With the exception of the lotus (so common in Hindustan,) all these flowers, thus celebrated by the greatest of Grecian poets, and represented as fit luxuries for the gods, are at the command of the poorest peasant in England. The common Hyacinth is known to the unlearned as the Harebell, so called from the bell shape of its flowers and from its growing so abundantly in thickets frequented by hares. Shakespeare, as we have seen, calls it the _Blue_-bell.

The curling flowers of the Hyacinth, have suggested to our poets the idea of clusters of curling tresses of hair.

His fair large front and eye sublime declared Absolute rule, and hyacinthine locks Round from his parted forelock manly hung, Clustering

_Milton_

The youths whose locks divinely spreading Like vernal hyacinths in sullen hue

_Collins_

Sir William Jones describes--

The fragrant hyacinths of Azza's hair, That wanton with the laughing summer air.

A similar allusion may also be found in prose.

"It was the exquisitely fair queen Helen, whose jacinth[070] hair, curled by nature, intercurled by art, like a brook through golden sands, had a rope of fair pearl, which, now hidden by the hair, did, as it were play at fast and loose each with the other, mutually giving and receiving richness."--_Sir Philip Sidney_

"The ringlets so elegantly disposed round the fair countenances of these fair Chiotes [071] are such as Milton describes by 'hyacinthine locks' crisped and curled like the blossoms of that flower"

_Dallaway_

The old fable about Hyacinthus is soon told. Apollo loved the youth and not only instructed him in literature and the arts, but shared in his pastimes. The divine teacher was one day playing with his pupil at quoits. Some say that Zephyr (Ovid says it was Boreas) jealous of the god's influence over young Hyacinthus, wafted the ponderous iron ring from its right course and caused it to pitch upon the poor boy's head. He fell to the ground a bleeding corpse. Apollo bade the scarlet hyacinth spring from the blood and impressed upon its leaves the words _Ai Ai_, (_alas! alas!_) the Greek funeral lamentation. Milton alludes to the flower in _Lycidas_,

Like to that sanguine flower inscribed with woe.

Drummond had before spoken of

That sweet flower that bears In sanguine spots the tenor of our woes

Hurdis speaks of:

The melancholy Hyacinth, that weeps All night, and never lifts an eye all day.

Ovid, after giving the old fable of Hyacinthus, tells us that "the time shall come when a most valiant hero shall add his name to this flower." "He alludes," says Mr. Riley, "to Ajax, from whose blood when he slew himself, a similar flower[072] was said to have arisen with the letters _Ai Ai_ on its leaves, expressive either of grief or denoting the first two letters of his name [Greek: Aias]."

As poets feigned from Ajax's streaming blood Arose, with grief inscribed, a mournful flower.

_Young_.

Keats has the following allusion to the old story of Hyacinthus,

Or they might watch the quoit-pitchers, intent On either side; pitying the sad death Of Hyacinthus, when the cruel breath Of Zephyr slew him,--Zephyr penitent, Who now, ere Phoebus mounts the firmament Fondles the flower amid the sobbing rain.

_Endymion_.

Our English Hyacinth, it is said, is not entitled to its legendary honors. The words _Non Scriptus_ were applied to this plant by Dodonaeus, because it had not the _Ai Ai_ upon its petals. Professor Martyn says that the flower called _Lilium Martagon_ or the _Scarlet Turk's Cap_ is the plant alluded to by the ancients.

Alphonse Karr, the eloquent French writer, whose "_Tour Round my Garden_" I recommend to the perusal of all who can sympathize with reflections and emotions suggested by natural objects, has the following interesting anecdote illustrative of the force of a floral association:--

"I had in a solitary corner of my garden _three hyacinths_ which my father had planted and which death did not allow him to see bloom. Every year the period of their flowering was for me a solemnity, a funeral and religious festival, it was a melancholy remembrance which revived and reblossomed every year and exhaled certain thoughts with its perfume. The roots are dead now and nothing lives of this dear association but in my own heart. But what a dear yet sad privilege man possesses above all created beings, while thus enabled by memory and thought to follow those whom he loved to the tomb and there shut up the living with the dead. What a melancholy privilege, and yet is there one amongst us who would lose it? Who is he who would willingly forget all"

Wordsworth, suddenly stopping before a little bunch of harebells, which along with some parsley fern, grew out of a wall, he exclaimed, 'How perfectly beautiful that is!

Would that the little flowers that grow could live Conscious of half the pleasure that they give

The Hyacinth has been cultivated with great care and success in Holland, where from two to three hundred pounds have been given for a single bulb. A florist at Haarlem enumerates 800 kinds of double-flowered Hyacinths, besides about 400 varieties of the single kind. It is said that there are altogether upwards of 2000 varieties of the Hyacinth.

The English are particularly fond of the Hyacinth. It is a domestic flower--a sort of parlour pet. When in "close city pent" they transfer the bulbs to glass vases (Hyacinth glasses) filled with water, and place them in their windows in the winter.

An annual solemnity, called Hyacinthia, was held in Laconia in honor of Hyacinthus and Apollo. It lasted three days. So eagerly was this festival honored, that the soldiers of Laconia even when they had taken the field against an enemy would return home to celebrate it.

THE NARCISSUS

Foolish Narcisse, that likes the watery shore

_Spenser_

With respect to the NARCISSUS, whose name in the floral vocabulary is the synonyme of _egotism_, there is a story that must be familiar enough to most of my readers. Narcissus was a beautiful youth. Teresias, the Soothsayer, foretold that he should enjoy felicity until he beheld his own face but that the first sight of that would be fatal to him. Every kind of mirror was kept carefully out of his way. Echo was enamoured of him, but he slighted her love, and she pined and withered away until she had nothing left her but her voice, and even that could only repeat the last syllables of other people's sentences. He at last saw his own image reflected in a fountain, and taking it for that of another, he fell passionately in love with it. He attempted to embrace it. On seeing the fruitlessness of all his efforts, he killed himself in despair. When the nymphs raised a funeral pile to burn his body, they found nothing but a flower. That flower (into which he had been changed) still bears his name.

Here is a little passage about the fable, from the _Two Noble Kinsmen_ of Beaumont and Fletcher.

_Emilia_--This garden hath a world of pleasure in it, What flower is this?

_Servant_--'Tis called Narcissus, Madam.

_Em._--That was a fair boy certain, but a fool To love himself, were there not maids, Or are they all hard hearted?

_Ser_--That could not be to one so fair.

Ben Jonson touches the true moral of the fable very forcibly.

'Tis now the known disease That beauty hath, to hear too deep a sense Of her own self conceived excellence Oh! had'st thou known the worth of Heaven's rich gift, Thou would'st have turned it to a truer use, And not (with starved and covetous ignorance) Pined in continual eyeing that bright gem The glance whereof to others had been more Than to thy famished mind the wide world's store.

Gay's version of the fable is as follows:

Here young Narcissus o'er the fountain stood And viewed his image in the crystal flood The crystal flood reflects his lovely charms And the pleased image strives to meet his arms. No nymph his inexperienced breast subdued, Echo in vain the flying boy pursued Himself alone, the foolish youth admires And with fond look the smiling shade desires, O'er the smooth lake with fruitless tears he grieves, His spreading fingers shoot in verdant leaves, Through his pale veins green sap now gently flows, And in a short lived flower his beauty glows

Addison has given a full translation of the story of Narcissus from Ovid's Metamorphoses, Book the third.

The common daffodil of our English fields is of the genus Narcissus. "Pray," said some one to Pope, "what is this _Asphodel_ of Homer?" "Why, I believe," said Pope "if one was to say the truth, 'twas nothing else but that poor yellow flower that grows about our orchards, and, if so, the verse might be thus translated in English

--The stern Achilles Stalked through a mead of daffodillies"

THE LAUREL

Daphne was a beautiful nymph beloved by that very amorous gentleman, Apollo. The love was not reciprocal. She endeavored to escape his godship's importunities by flight. Apollo overtook her. She at that instant solicited aid from heaven, and was at once turned into a laurel. Apollo gathered a wreath from the tree and placing it on his own immortal brows, decreed that from that hour the laurel should be sacred to his divinity.

THE SUN-FLOWER

Who can unpitying see the flowery race Shed by the morn then newflushed bloom resign, Before the parching beam? So fade the fair, When fever revels in their azure veins But one, _the lofty follower of the sun_, Sad when he sits shuts up her yellow leaves, Drooping all night, and when he warm return, Points her enamoured bosom to his ray

_Thomson_.

THE SUN-FLOWER (_Helianthus_) was once the fair nymph Clytia. Broken-hearted at the falsehood of her lover, Apollo, (who has so many similar sins to answer for) she pined away and died. When it was too late Apollo's heart relented, and in honor of true affection he changed poor Clytia into a _Sun-flower_.[073] It is sometimes called _Tourne-sol_--a word that signifies turning to the sun. Thomas Moore helps to keep the old story in remembrance by the concluding couplet of one of his sweetest ballads.

Oh! the heart that has truly loved never forgets, But as truly loves on to its close As the sun flower turns on her god when he sets The same look that she turned when he rose

But Moore has here poetized a vulgar error. Most plants naturally turn towards the light, but the sun-flower (in spite of its name) is perhaps less apt to turn itself towards Apollo than the majority of other flowers for it has a stiff stem and a number of heavy heads. At all events it does not change its attitude in the course of the day. The flower-disk that faces the morning sun has it back to it in the evening.

Gerard calls the sun-flower "The Flower of the Sun or the Marigold of Peru". Speaking of it in the year 1596 he tells us that he had some in his own garden in Holborn that had grown to the height of fourteen feet.

THE WALL-FLOWER

The weed is green, when grey the wall, And blossoms rise where turrets fall

Herrick gives us a pretty version of the story of the WALL-FLOWER, (_cheiranthus cheiri_)("the yellow wall-flower stained with iron brown")

Why this flower is now called so List sweet maids and you shall know Understand this firstling was Once a brisk and bonny lass Kept as close as Danae was Who a sprightly springal loved, And to have it fully proved, Up she got upon a wall Tempting down to slide withal, But the silken twist untied, So she fell, and bruised and died Love in pity of the deed And her loving, luckless speed, Turned her to the plant we call Now, 'The Flower of the Wall'

The wall-flower is the emblem of fidelity in misfortune, because it attaches itself to fallen towers and gives a grace to ruin. David Moir (the Delta of _Blackwood's Magazine_) has a poem on this flower. I must give one stanza of it.

In the season of the tulip cup When blossoms clothe the trees, How sweet to throw the lattice up And scent thee on the breeze; The butterfly is then abroad, The bee is on the wing, And on the hawthorn by the road The linnets sit and sing.

Lord Bacon observes that wall-flowers are very delightful when set under the parlour window or a lower chamber window. They are delightful, I think, any where.

THE JESSAMINE.

The Jessamine, with which the Queen of flowers, To charm her god[074] adorns his favorite bowers, Which brides, by the plain hand of neatness dressed-- Unenvied rivals!--wear upon their breast; Sweet as the incense of the morn, and chaste As the pure zone which circles Dian's waist.

_Churchill._

The elegant and fragrant JESSAMINE, or Jasmine, (_Jasmimum Officinale_) with its "bright profusion of scattered stars," is said to have passed from East to West. It was originally a native of Hindustan, but it is now to be found in every clime, and is a favorite in all. There are many varieties of it in Europe. In Italy it is woven into bridal wreaths and is used on all festive occasions. There is a proverbial saying there, that she who is worthy of being decorated with jessamine is rich enough for any husband. Its first introduction into that sunny land is thus told. A certain Duke of Tuscany, the first possessor of a plant of this tribe, wished to preserve it as an unique, and forbade his gardener to give away a single sprig of it. But the gardener was a more faithful lover than servant and was more willing to please a young mistress than an old master. He presented the young girl with a branch of jessamine on her birth-day. She planted it in the ground; it took root, and grew and blossomed. She multiplied the plant by cuttings, and by the sale of these realized a little fortune, which her lover received as her marriage dowry.

In England the bride wears a coronet of intermingled orange blossom and jessamine. Orange flowers indicate chastity, and the jessamine, elegance and grace.

THE ROSE.

For here the rose expands Her paradise of leaves.

_Southey._

The ROSE, (_Rosa_) the Queen of Flowers, was given by Cupid to Harpocrates, the God of Silence, as a bribe, to prevent him from betraying the amours of Venus. A rose suspended from the ceiling intimates that all is strictly confidential that passes under it. Hence the phrase--_under the Rose_[075].

The rose was raised by Flora from the remains of a favorite nymph. Venus and the Graces assisted in the transformation of the nymph into a flower. Bacchus supplied streams of nectar to its root, and Vertumnus showered his choicest perfumes on its head.

The loves of the Nightingale and the Rose have been celebrated by the Muses of many lands. An Eastern poet says "You may place a hundred handfuls of fragrant herbs and flowers before the Nightingale; yet he wishes not, in his constant heart, for more than the sweet breath of his beloved Rose."

The Turks say that the rose owes its origin to a drop of perspiration that fell from the person of their prophet Mahommed.

The classical legend runs that the rose was at first of a pure white, but a rose-thorn piercing the foot of Venus when she was hastening to protect Adonis from the rage of Mars, her blood dyed the flower. Spenser alludes to this legend:

White as the native rose, before the change Which Venus' blood did on her leaves impress.

_Spenser_.

Milton says that in Paradise were,

Flowers of all hue, and _without thorns the rose_.

According to Zoroaster there was no thorn on the rose until Ahriman (the Evil One) entered the world.

Here is Dr. Hooker's account of the origin of the red rose.

To sinless Eve's admiring sight The rose expanded snowy white, When in the ecstacy of bliss She gave the modest flower a kiss, And instantaneous, lo! it drew From her red lip its blushing hue; While from her breath it sweetness found, And spread new fragrance all around.

This reminds me of a passage in Mrs. Barrett Browning's _Drama of Exile_ in which she makes Eve say--

--For was I not At that last sunset seen in Paradise, When all the westering clouds flashed out in throngs Of sudden angel-faces, face by face, All hushed and solemn, as a thought of God Held them suspended,--was I not, that hour The lady of the world, princess of life, Mistress of feast and favour? _Could I touch A Rose with my white hand, but it became Redder at once?_

Another poet. (Mr. C. Cooke) tells us that a species of red rose with all her blushing honors full upon her, taking pity on a very pale maiden, changed complexions with the invalid and became herself as white as snow.

Byron expressed a wish that all woman-kind had but one _rosy_ mouth, that he might kiss all woman-kind at once. This, as some one has rightly observed, is better than Caligula's wish that all mankind had but one head that he might cut it off at a single blow.

Leigh Hunt has a pleasant line about the rose:

And what a red mouth hath the rose, the woman of the flowers!

In the Malay language the same word signifies _flowers_ and _women_.

Human beauty and the rose are ever suggesting images of each other to the imagination of the poets. Shakespeare has a beautiful description of the two little princes sleeping together in the Tower of London.

Their lips were four red roses on a stalk That in their summer beauty kissed each other.

William Browne (our Devonshire Pastoral Poet) has a _rosy_ description of a kiss:--

To her Amyntas Came and saluted; never man before More blest, nor like this kiss hath been another But when two dangling cherries kist each other; Nor ever beauties, like, met at such closes, But in the kisses of two damask roses.

Here is something in the same spirit from Crashaw.

So have I seen Two silken sister-flowers consult and lay Their bashful cheeks together; newly they Peeped from their buds, showed like the garden's eyes Scarce waked, like was the crimson of their joys, Like were the tears they wept, so like that one Seemed but the other's kind reflection.

Loudon says that there is a rose called the _York and Lancaster_ which when, it comes true has one half of the flower red and the other half white. It was named in commemoration of the two houses at the marriage of Henry VII. of Lancaster with Elizabeth of York.

Anacreon devotes one of his longest and best odes to the laudation of the Rose. Such innumerable translations have been made of it that it is now too well known for quotation in this place. Thomas Moore in his version of the ode gives in a foot-note the following translation of a fragment of the Lesbian poetess.

If Jove would give the leafy bowers A queen for all their world of flowers The Rose would be the choice of Jove, And blush the queen of every grove Sweetest child of weeping morning, Gem the vest of earth adorning, Eye of gardens, light of lawns, Nursling of soft summer dawns June's own earliest sigh it breathes, Beauty's brow with lustre wreathes, And to young Zephyr's warm caresses Spreads abroad its verdant tresses, Till blushing with the wanton's play Its cheeks wear e'en a redder ray.

From the idea of excellence attached to this Queen of Flowers arose, as Thomas Moore observes, the pretty proverbial expression used by Aristophanes--_you have spoken roses_, a phrase adds the English poet, somewhat similar to the _dire des fleurettes_ of the French.

The Festival of the Rose is still kept up in many villages of France and Switzerland. On a certain day of every year the young unmarried women assemble and undergo a solemn trial before competent judges, the most virtuous and industrious girl obtains a crown of roses. In the valley of Engandine, in Switzerland, a man accused of a crime but proved to be not guilty, is publicly presented by a young maiden with a white rose called the Rose of Innocence.

Of the truly elegant Moss Rose I need say nothing myself; it has been so amply honored by far happier pens than mine. Here is a very ingenious and graceful story of its origin. The lines are from the German.

THE MOSS ROSE

The Angel of the Flowers one day, Beneath a rose tree sleeping lay, The spirit to whom charge is given To bathe young buds in dews of heaven, Awaking from his light repose The Angel whispered to the Rose "O fondest object of my care Still fairest found where all is fair, For the sweet shade thou givest to me Ask what thou wilt 'tis granted thee" "Then" said the Rose, "with deepened glow On me another grace bestow." The spirit paused in silent thought What grace was there the flower had not? 'Twas but a moment--o'er the rose A veil of moss the Angel throws, And robed in Nature's simple weed, Could there a flower that rose exceed?

Madame de Genlis tells us that during her first visit to England she saw a moss-rose for the first time in her life, and that when she took it back to Paris it gave great delight to her fellow-citizens, who said it was the first that had ever been seen in that city. Madame de Latour says that Madame de Genlis was mistaken, for the moss-rose came originally from Provence and had been known to the French for ages.

The French are said to have cultivated the Rose with extraordinary care and success. It was the favorite flower of the Empress Josephine, who caused her own name to be traced in the parterres at Malmaison with a plantation of the rarest roses. In the royal rosary at Versailles there are standards eighteen feet high grafted with twenty different varieties of the rose.

With the Romans it was no metaphor but an allusion to a literal fact when they talked of sleeping upon beds of roses. Cicero in his third oration against Verres, when charging the proconsul with luxurious habits, stated that he had made the tour of Sicily seated upon roses. And Seneca says, of course jestingly, that a Sybarite of the name of Smyrndiride was unable to sleep if one of the rose-petals on his bed happened to be curled! At a feast which Cleopatra gave to Marc Antony the floor of the hall was covered with fresh roses to the depth of eighteen inches. At a fete given by Nero at Baiae the sum of four millions of sesterces or about 20,000_l_. was incurred for roses. The Natives of India are fond of the rose, and are lavish in their expenditure at great festivals, but I suppose that no millionaire amongst them ever spent such an amount of money as this upon flowers alone.[076]

I shall close the poetical quotations on the Rose with one of Shakespeare's sonnets.

O how much more doth beauty beauteous seem, By that sweet ornament which truth doth give. The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem For that sweet odour which doth in it live. The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye As the perfumed tincture of the roses, Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly, When summer's breath their masked buds discloses; But for their virtue only is their show, They live unwoo'd and unrespected fade; Die to themselves. Sweet Roses do not so; Of then sweet deaths are sweetest odours made: And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth, When that shall fade, my verse distils your truth.

There are many hundred acres of rose trees at Ghazeepore which are cultivated for distillation, and making "attar." There are large fields of roses in England also, for the manufacture of rose-water.

There is a story about the origin of attar of Roses. The Princess Nourmahal caused a large tank, on which she used to be rowed about with the great Mogul, to be filled with rose-water. The heat of the sun separating the water from the essential oil of the rose, the latter was observed to be floating on the surface. The discovery was immediately turned to good account. At Ghazeepoor, the _essence_, _atta_ or _uttar_ or _otto_, or whatever it should be called, is obtained with great simplicity and ease. After the rose water is prepared it is put into large open vessels which are left out at night. Early in the morning the oil that floats upon the surface is skimmed off, or sucked up with fine dry cotton wool, put into bottles, and carefully sealed. Bishop Heber says that to produce one rupee's weight of atta 200,000 well grown roses are required, and that a rupee's weight sells from 80 to 100 rupees. The atta sold in Calcutta is commonly adulterated with the oil of sandal wood.

LINNAEA BOREALIS

The LINNAEA BOREALIS, or two horned Linnaea, though a simple Lapland flower, is interesting to all botanists from its association with the name of the Swedish Sage. It has pretty little bells and is very fragrant. It is a wild, unobtrusive plant and is very averse to the trim lawn and the gay flower-border. This little woodland beauty pines away under too much notice. She prefers neglect, and would rather waste her sweetness on the desert air, than be introduced into the fashionable lists of Florist's flowers. She shrinks from exposure to the sun. A gentleman after walking with Linnaeus on the shores of the lake near Charlottendal on a lovely evening, writes thus "I gathered a small flower and asked if it was the _Linnaea borealis_. 'Nay,' said the philosopher, 'she lives not here, but in the middle of our largest woods. She clings with her little arms to the moss, and seems to resist very gently if you force her from it. She has a complexion like a milkmaid, and ah! she is very, very sweet and agreeable!"

THE FORGET-ME-NOT

The dear little FORGET-ME-NOT, (_myosotis palustris_)[077] with its eye of blue, is said to have derived its touching appellation from a sentimental German story. Two lovers were walking on the bank of a rapid stream. The lady beheld the flower growing on a little island, and expressed a passionate desire to possess it. He gallantly plunged into the stream and obtained the flower, but exhausted by the force of the tide, he had only sufficient strength left as he neared the shore to fling the flower at the fair one's feet, and exclaim "_Forget-me-not!_" (_Vergiss-mein-nicht_.) He was then carried away by the stream, out of her sight for ever.

THE PERIWINKLE.

The PERIWINKLE (_vinca_ or _pervinca_) has had its due share of poetical distinction. In France the common people call it the Witch's violet. It seems to have suggested to Wordsworth an idea of the consciousness of flowers.

Through primrose tufts, in that sweet bower, The Periwinkle trailed its wreaths, _And 'tis my faith that every flower Enjoys the air it breathes._

Mr. J.L. Merritt, has some complimentary lines on this flower.

The Periwinkle with its fan-like leaves All nicely levelled, is a lovely flower Whose dark wreath, myrtle like, young Flora weaves; There's none more rare Nor aught more meet to deck a fairy's bower Or grace her hair.

The little blue Periwinkle is rendered especially interesting to the admirers of the genius of Rousseau by an anecdote that records his emotion on meeting it in one of his botanical excursions. He had seen it thirty years before in company with Madame de Warens. On meeting its sweet face again, after so long and eventful an interim, he fell upon his knees, crying out--_Ah! voila de la pervanche!_ "It struck him," says Hazlitt, "as the same little identical flower that he remembered so well; and thirty years of sorrow and bitter regret were effaced from his memory."

The Periwinkle was once supposed to be a cure for many diseases. Lord Bacon says that in his time people afflicted with cramp wore bands of green periwinkle tied about their limbs. It had also its supposed moral influences. According to Culpepper the leaves of the flower if eaten by man and wife together would revive between them a lost affection.

THE BASIL.

Sweet marjoram, with her like, _sweet basil_, rare for smell.

_Drayton._

The BASIL is a plant rendered poetical by the genius which has handled it. Boccaccio and Keats have made the name of the _sweet basil_ sound pleasantly in the ears of many people who know nothing of botany. A species of this plant (known in Europe under the botanical name of _Ocymum villosum_, and in India as the _Toolsee_) is held sacred by the Hindus. Toolsee was a disciple of Vishnu. Desiring to be his wife she excited the jealousy of Lukshmee by whom she was transformed into the herb named after her.[078]

THE TULIP.

Tulips, like the ruddy evening streaked.

_Southey_.

The TULIP (_tulipa_) is the glory of the garden, as far as color without fragrance can confer such distinction. Some suppose it to be 'The Lily of the Field' alluded to in the Sermon on the Mount. It grows wild in Syria.

The name of the tulip is said to be of Turkish origin. It was called Tulipa from its resemblance to the tulipan or turban.

What crouds the rich Divan to-day With turbaned heads, of every hue Bowing before that veiled and awful face Like Tulip-beds of different shapes and dyes, Bending beneath the invisible west wind's sighs?

_Moore_.

The reader has probably heard of the Tulipomania once carried to so great an excess in Holland.

With all his phlegm, it broke a Dutchman's heart, At a vast price, with one loved root to part.

_Crabbe_.

About the middle of the 17th century the city of Haarlem realized in three years ten millions sterling by the sale of tulips. A single tulip (the _Semper Augustus_) was sold for one thousand pounds. Twelve acres of land were given for a single root and engagements to the amount of L5,000 were made for a first-class tulip when the mania was at its height. A gentleman, who possessed a tulip of great value, hearing that some one was in possession of a second root of the same kind, eagerly secured it at a most extravagant price. The moment he got possession of it, he crushed it under his foot. "Now," he exclaimed, "my tulip is unique!"

A Dutch Merchant gave a sailor a herring for his breakfast. Jack seeing on the Merchant's counter what he supposed to be a heap of onions, took up a handful of them and ate them with his fish. The supposed onions were tulip bulbs of such value that they would have paid the cost of a thousand Royal feasts.[079]

The tulip mania never leached so extravagant a height in England as in Holland, but our country did not quite escape the contagion, and even so late as the year 1836 at the sale of Mr. Clarke's tulips at Croydon, seventy two pounds were given for a single bulb of the _Fanny Kemble_; and a Florist in Chelsea in the same year, priced a bulb in his catalogue at 200 guineas.

The Tulip is not endeared to us by many poetical associations. We have read, however, one pretty and romantic tale about it. A poor old woman who lived amongst the wild hills of Dartmoor, in Devonshire, possessed a beautiful bed of Tulips, the pride of her small garden. One fine moonlight night her attention was arrested by the sweet music which seemed to issue from a thousand Liliputian choristers. She found that the sounds proceeded from her many colored bells of Tulips. After watching the flowers intently she perceived that they were not swayed to and fro by the wind, but by innumerable little beings that were climbing on the stems and leaves. They were pixies. Each held in its arms an elfin baby tinier than itself. She saw the babies laid in the bells of the plant, which were thus used as cradles, and the music was formed of many lullabies. When the babies were asleep the pixies or fairies left them, and gamboled on the neighbouring sward on which the old lady discovered the day after, several new green rings,--a certain evidence that her fancy had not deceived her! At earliest dawn the fairies had returned to the tulips and taken away their little ones. The good old woman never permitted her tulip bed to be disturbed. She regarded it as holy ground. But when she died, some Utilitarian gardener turned it into a parsley bed! The parsley never flourished. The ground was now cursed. In gratitude to the memory of the benevolent dame who had watched and protected the floral nursery, every month, on the night before the full moon, the fairies scattered flowers on her grave, and raised a sweet musical dirge--heard only by poetic ears--or by maids and children who

Hold each strange tale devoutly true.

For as the poet says:

What though no credit doubting wits may give, The fair and innocent shall still believe.

Men of genius are often as trustful as maids and children. Collins, himself a lover of the wonderful, thus speaks of Tasso:--

Prevailing poet! whose undoubting mind Believed the magic wonders that he sung.

All nature indeed is full of mystery to the imaginative.

And visions as poetic eyes avow Hang on each leaf and cling to every bough.

The Hindoos believe that the Peepul tree of which the foliage trembles like that of the aspen, has a spirit in every leaf.

"Did you ever see a fairy's funeral, Madam?" said Blake, the artist. "Never Sir." "_I_ have," continued that eccentric genius, "One night I was walking alone in my garden. There was great stillness amongst the branches and flowers and more than common sweetness in the air. I heard a low and pleasant sound, and knew not whence it came: at last I perceived _the broad leaf of a flower move_, and underneath I saw a procession of creatures the size and color of green and gray grasshoppers, _bearing a body laid out on a rose leaf_, which they buried with song, and then disappeared."

THE PINK.

The PINK (_dianthus_) is a very elegant flower. I have but a short story about it. The young Duke of Burgundy, grandson of Louis the Fifteenth, was brought up in the midst of flatterers as fulsome as those rebuked by Canute. The youthful prince was fond of cultivating pinks, and one of his courtiers, by substituting a floral changeling, persuaded him that one of those pinks planted by the royal hand had sprung up into bloom in a single night! One night, being unable to sleep, he wished to rise, but was told that it was midnight; he replied "_Well then, I desire it to be morning_."

The pink is one of the commonest of the flowers in English gardens. It is a great favorite all over Europe. The botanists have enumerated about 400 varieties of it.

THE PANSY OR HEARTS-EASE.

The PANSY (_viola tricolor_) commonly called _Hearts-ease_, or _Love-in-idleness_, or _Herb-Trinity_ (_Flos Trinitarium_), or _Three-faces-under-a-hood_, or _Kit-run-about_, is one of the richest and loveliest of flowers.

The late Mrs. Siddons, the great actress, was so fond of this flower that she thought she could never have enough of it. Besides round beds of it she used it as an edging to all the flower borders in her garden. She liked to plant a favorite flower in large masses of beauty. But such beauty must soon fatigue the eye with its sameness. A round bed of one sort of flowers only is like a nosegay composed of one sort of flowers or of flowers of the same hue. She was also particularly fond of evergreens because they gave her garden a pleasant aspect even in the winter.

"Do you hear him?"--(John Bunyan makes the guide enquire of Christiana while a shepherd boy is singing beside his sheep)--"I will dare to say this boy leads a merrier life, and wears more of the herb called _hearts-ease_ in his bosom, than he that is clothed in silk and purple."

Shakespeare has connected this flower with a compliment to the maiden Queen of England.

That very time I saw (but thou couldst not) Flying between the cold moon and the earth, Cupid all armed, a certain aim he took At a fair Vestal, throned by the west; And loosed his love-shaft smartly from his bow As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts. But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft Quenched in the chaste beams of the watery moon-- And the imperial votaress passed on In maiden meditation fancy free, Yet marked I where the bolt of Cupid fell. It fell upon _a little western flowers, Before milk white, now purple with love's wound-- And maidens call it_ LOVE IN IDLENESS Fetch me that flower, the herb I showed thee once, The juice of it on sleeping eyelids laid, Will make or man or woman madly dote Upon the next live creature that it sees. Fetch me this herb and be thou here again, Ere the leviathan can swim a league.

_Midsummer Night's Dream._

The hearts-ease has been cultivated with great care and success by some of the most zealous flower-fanciers amongst our countrymen in India. But it is a delicate plant in this clime, and requires most assiduous attention, and a close study of its habits. It always withers here under ordinary hands.

THE MIGNONETTE.

The MIGNONETTE, (_reseda odorato_,) the Frenchman's _little darling_, was not introduced into England until the middle of the 17th century. The Mignonette or Sweet Reseda was once supposed capable of assuaging pain, and of ridding men of many of the ills that flesh is heir to. It was applied with an incantation. This flower has found a place in the armorial bearings of an illustrious family of Saxony. I must tell the story: The Count of Walsthim loved the fair and sprightly Amelia de Nordbourg. She was a spoilt child and a coquette. She had an humble companion whose christian name was Charlotte. One evening at a party, all the ladies were called upon to choose a flower each, and the gentlemen were to make verses on the selections. Amelia fixed upon the flaunting rose, Charlotte the modest mignonette. In the course of the evening Amelia coquetted so desperately with a dashing Colonel that the Count could not suppress his vexation. On this he wrote a verse for the Rose:

Elle ne vit qu'un jour, et ne plait qu'un moment. (She lives but for a day and pleases but for a moment)

He then presented the following line on the Mignonette to the gentle Charlotte:

"Ses qualities surpassent ses charmes."

The Count transferred his affections to Charlotte, and when he married her, added a branch of the Sweet Reseda to the ancient arms of his family, with the motto of

Your qualities surpass your charms.

VERVAIN.

The vervain-- That hind'reth witches of their will.

_Drayton_

VERVAIN (_verbena_) was called by the Greeks _the sacred herb_. It was used to brush their altars. It was supposed to keep off evil spirits. It was also used in the religious ceremonies of the Druids and is still held sacred by the Persian Magi. The latter lay branches of it on the altar of the sun.

The ancients had their _Verbenalia_ when the temples were strewed with vervain, and no incantation or lustration was deemed perfect without the aid of this plant. It was supposed to cure the bite of a serpent or a mad dog.

THE DAISY.

The DAISY or day's eye (_bellis perennis_) has been the darling of the British poets from Chaucer to Shelley. It is not, however, the darling of poets only, but of princes and peasants. And it is not man's favorite only, but, as Wordsworth says, Nature's favorite also. Yet it is "the simplest flower that blows." Its seed is broadcast on the land. It is the most familiar of flowers. It sprinkles every field and lane in the country with its little mimic stars. Wordsworth pays it a beautiful compliment in saying that

Oft alone in nooks remote _We meet it like a pleasant thought When such is wanted._

But though this poet dearly loved the daisy, in some moods of mind he seems to have loved the little celandine (common pilewort) even better. He has addressed two poems to this humble little flower. One begins with the following stanza.

Pansies, Lilies, Kingcups, Daisies, Let them live upon their praises; Long as there's a sun that sets Primroses will have their glory; Long as there are Violets, They will have a place in story: There's a flower that shall be mine, 'Tis the little Celandine.

No flower is too lowly for the affections of Wordsworth. Hazlitt says, "the daisy looks up to Wordsworth with sparkling eye as an old acquaintance; a withered thorn is weighed down with a heap of recollections; and even the lichens on the rocks have a life and being in his thoughts."

The Lesser Celandine, is an inodorous plant, but as Wordsworth possessed not the sense of smell, to him a deficiency of fragrance in a flower formed no objection to it. Miss Martineau alludes to a newspaper report that on one occasion the poet suddenly found himself capable of enjoying the fragrance of a flower, and gave way to an emotion of tumultuous rapture. But I have seen this contradicted. Miss Martineau herself has generally no sense of smell, but we have her own testimony to the fact that a brief enjoyment of the faculty once actually occurred to her. In her case there was a simultaneous awakening of two dormant faculties--the sense of smell and the sense of taste. Once and once only, she enjoyed the scent of a bottle of Eau de Cologne and the taste of meat. The two senses died away again almost in their birth.

Shelley calls Daisies "those pearled Arcturi of the earth"--"the constellated flower that never sets."

The Father of English poets does high honor to this star of the meadow in the "Prologue to the Legend of Goode Women."

He tells us that in the merry month of May he was wont to quit even his beloved books to look upon the fresh morning daisy.

Of all the floures in the mede Then love I most these floures white and red, Such that men callen Daisies in our town, To them I have so great affection. As I sayd erst, when comen is the Maie, That in my bedde there dawneth me no daie That I nam up and walking in the mede To see this floure agenst the Sunne sprede, When it up riseth early by the morrow That blisfull sight softeneth all my sorrow.

_Chaucer_.

The poet then goes on with his hearty laudation of this lilliputian luminary of the fields, and hesitates not to describe it as "of all floures the floure." The famous Scottish Peasant loved it just as truly, and did it equal honor. Who that has once read, can ever forget his harmonious and pathetic address to a mountain daisy on turning it up with the plough? I must give the poem a place here, though it must be familiar to every reader. But we can read it again and again, just as we can look day after day with undiminished interest upon the flower that it commemorates.

Mrs. Stowe (the American writer) observes that "the daisy with its wide plaited ruff and yellow centre is not our (that is, an American's) flower. The English flower is the

Wee, modest, crimson tipped flower

which Burns celebrated. It is what we (in America) raise in green-houses and call the Mountain Daisy. Its effect, growing profusely about fields and grass-plats, is very beautiful."

TO A MOUNTAIN DAISY.

ON TURNING ONE DOWN WITH THE PLOUGH IN APRIL, 1786

Wee, modest, crimson tipped flow'r, Thou's met me in an evil hour, For I maun[080] crush amang the stoure[081] Thy slender stem, To spare thee now is past my pow'r, Thou bonnie gem.

Alas! its no thy neobor sweet, The bonnie lark, companion meet, Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet[082] Wi' speckled breast, When upward springing, blythe, to greet The purpling east

Cauld blew the bitter biting north Upon thy early, humble, birth, Yet cheerfully thou glinted[083] forth Amid the storm, Scarce reared above the patient earth Thy tender form

The flaunting flowers our gardens yield, High sheltering woods and wa's[084] maun shield, But thou beneath the random bield[085] O' clod or stane, Adorns the histie[086] stibble field[087] Unseen, alane.

There, in thy scanty mantle clad, Thy snawye bosom sun ward spread, Thou lifts thy unassuming head In humble guise, But now the share up tears thy bed, And low thou lies!

Such is the fate of artless Maid, Sweet flow'ret of the rural shade! By love's simplicity betrayed, And guileless trust, Till she, like thee, all soiled is laid Low i' the dust.

Such is the fate of simple Bard, On Life's rough ocean luckless starred! Unskilful he to note the card Of prudent lore, Till billows rage, and gales blow hard And whelm him o'er!

Such fate to suffering worth is given Who long with wants and woes has striven By human pride or cunning driven To misery's brink, Till wrenched of every stay but Heaven, He, ruined, sink!

Ev'n thou who mourn'st the Daisy's fate, That fate is thine--no distant date; Stern Ruin's plough-share drives elate, Full on thy bloom; Till crushed beneath the furrow's weight Shall be thy doom.

_Burns._

The following verses though they make no pretension to the strength and pathos of the poem by the great Scottish Peasant, have a grace and simplicity of their own, for which they have long been deservedly popular.

A FIELD FLOWER.

ON FINDING ONE IN FULL BLOOM, ON CHRISTMAS DAY, 1803.

There is a flower, a little flower, With silver crest and golden eye, That welcomes every changing hour, And weathers every sky.

The prouder beauties of the field In gay but quick succession shine, Race after race their honours yield, They flourish and decline.

But this small flower, to Nature dear, While moons and stars their courses run, Wreathes the whole circle of the year, Companion of the sun.

It smiles upon the lap of May, To sultry August spreads its charms, Lights pale October on his way, And twines December's arms.

The purple heath and golden broom, On moory mountains catch the gale, O'er lawns the lily sheds perfume, The violet in the vale.

But this bold floweret climbs the hill, Hides in the forest, haunts the glen, Plays on the margin of the rill, Peeps round the fox's den.

Within the garden's cultured round It shares the sweet carnation's bed; And blooms on consecrated ground In honour of the dead.

The lambkin crops its crimson gem, The wild-bee murmurs on its breast, The blue-fly bends its pensile stem, Light o'er the sky-lark's nest.

'Tis FLORA'S page,--in every place, In every season fresh and fair; It opens with perennial grace. And blossoms everywhere.

On waste and woodland, rock and plain, Its humble buds unheeded rise; The rose has but a summer-reign; The DAISY never dies.

_James Montgomery_.

Montgomery has another very pleasing poetical address to the daisy. The poem was suggested by the first plant of the kind which had appeared in India. The flower sprang up unexpectedly out of some English earth, sent with other seeds in it, to this country. The amiable Dr. Carey of Serampore was the lucky recipient of the living treasure, and the poem is supposed to be addressed by him to the dear little flower of his home, thus born under a foreign sky. Dr. Carey was a great lover of flowers, and it was one of his last directions on his death-bed, as I have already said, that his garden should be always protected from the intrusion of Goths and Vandals in the form of Bengallee goats and cows. I must give one stanza of Montgomery's second poetical tribute to the small flower with "the silver crest and golden eye."

Thrice-welcome, little English flower! To this resplendent hemisphere Where Flora's giant offsprings tower In gorgeous liveries all the year; Thou, only thou, art little here Like worth unfriended and unknown, Yet to my British heart more dear Than all the torrid zone.

It is difficult to exaggerate the feeling with which an exile welcomes a home-flower. A year or two ago Dr. Ward informed the Royal Institution of London, that a single primrose had been taken to Australia in a glass-case and that when it arrived there in full bloom, the sensation it excited was so great that even those who were in the hot pursuit of gold, paused in their eager career to gaze for a moment upon the flower of their native fields, and such immense crowds at last pressed around it that it actually became necessary to protect it by a guard.

My last poetical tribute to the Daisy shall be three stanzas from Wordsworth, from two different addresses to the same flower.

With little here to do or see Of things that in the great world be, Sweet Daisy! oft I talk to thee, For thou art worthy, Thou unassuming Common-place Of Nature, with that homely face, And yet with something of a grace, Which Love makes for thee!

* * * * *

If stately passions in me burn, And one chance look to Thee should turn, I drink out of an humbler urn A lowlier pleasure; The homely sympathy that heeds The common life, our nature breeds; A wisdom fitted to the needs Of hearts at leisure.

When, smitten by the morning ray, I see thee rise, alert and gay, Then, cheerful Flower! my spirits play With kindred gladness; And when, at dusk, by dews opprest Thou sink'st, the image of thy rest Hath often eased my pensive breast Of careful sadness.

It is peculiarly interesting to observe how the profoundest depths of thought and feeling are sometimes stirred in the heart of genius by the smallest of the works of Nature. Even more ordinarily gifted men are similarly affected to the utmost extent of their intellect and sensibility. We grow tired of the works of man. In the realms of art we ever crave something unseen before. We demand new fashions, and when the old are once laid aside, we wonder that they should ever have excited even a moment's admiration. But Nature, though she is always the same, never satiates us. The simple little Daisy which Burns has so sweetly commemorated is the same flower that was "of all flowres the flowre," in the estimation of the Patriarch of English poets, and which so delighted Wordsworth in his childhood, in his middle life, and in his old age. He gazed on it, at intervals, with unchanging affection for upwards of fourscore years.

The Daisy--the miniature sun with its tiny rays--is especially the favorite of our earliest years. In our remembrances of the happy meadows in which we played in childhood, the daisy's silver lustre is ever connected with the deeper radiance of its gay companion, the butter-cup, which when held against the dimple on the cheek or chin of beauty turns it into a little golden dell. The thoughtful and sensitive frequenter of rural scenes discovers beauty every where; though it is not always the sort of beauty that would satisfy the taste of men who recognize no gaiety or loveliness beyond the walls of cities. To the poet's eye even the freckles on a milk-maid's brow are not without a grace, associated as they are with health, and the open sunshine.

Chaucer tells us that the French call the Daisy _La belle Marguerite_. There is a little anecdote connected with the appellation. Marguerite of Scotland, the Queen of Louis the Eleventh, presented Marguerite Clotilde de Surville, a poetess, with a bouquet of daisies, with this inscription; "Marguerite d'Ecosse a Marguerite (_the pearl_) d'Helicon."

The country maidens in England practise a kind of sortilege with this flower. They pluck off leaf by leaf, saying alternately "_He loves me_" and "_He loves me not_." The omen or oracle is decided by the fall of either sentence on the last leaf.

It is extremely difficult to rear the daisy in India. It is accustomed to all weathers in England, but the long continued sultriness of this clime makes it as delicate as a languid English lady in a tropical exile, and however carefully and skilfully nursed, it generally pines for its native air and dies.[088]

THE PRICKLY GORSE.

--Yon swelling downs where the sweet air stirs The harebells, and where prickly furze Buds lavish gold.

_Keat's Endymion_.

Fair maidens, I'll sing you a song, I'll tell of the bonny wild flower, Whose blossoms so yellow, and branches so long, O'er moor and o'er rough rocky mountains are flung Far away from trim garden and bower

_L.A. Tuamley_.

The PRICKLY GORSE or Goss or Furze, (_ulex_)[089] I cannot omit to notice, because it was the plant which of all others most struck Dillenius when he first trod on English ground. He threw himself on his knees and thanked Heaven that he had lived to see the golden undulation of acres of wind-waved gorse. Linnaeus lamented that he could scarcely keep it alive in Sweden even in a greenhouse.

I have the most delightful associations connected with this plant, and never think of it without a summer feeling and a crowd of delightful images and remembrances of rural quietude and blue skies and balmy breezes. Cowper hardly does it justice:

The common, over-grown with fern, and rough With prickly gorse, that shapeless and deformed And dangerous to the touch, has yet its bloom And decks itself with ornaments of gold, Yields no unpleasing ramble.

The plant is indeed irregularly shaped, but it is not _deformed_, and if it is dangerous to the touch, so also is the rose, unless it be of that species which Milton places in Paradise--"_and without thorns the rose_."

Hurdis is more complimentary and more just to the richest ornament of the swelling hill and the level moor.

And what more noble than the vernal furze With golden caskets hung?

I have seen whole _cotees_ or _coteaux_ (sides of hills) in the sweet little island of Jersey thickly mantled with the golden radiance of this beautiful wildflower. The whole Vallee des Vaux (_the valley of vallies_) is sometimes alive with its lustre.

VALLEE DES VAUX.

AIR--THE MEETING OF THE WATERS.

If I dream of the past, at fair Fancy's command, Up-floats from the blue sea thy small sunny land! O'er thy green hills, sweet Jersey, the fresh breezes blow, And silent and warm is the Vallee des Vaux!

There alone have I loitered 'mid blossoms of gold, And forgot that the great world was crowded and cold, Nor believed that a land of enchantment could show A vale more divine than the Vallee des Vaux.

A few scattered cots, like white clouds in the sky, Or like still sails at sea when the light breezes die, And a mill with its wheel in the brook's silver glow, Form thy beautiful hamlet, sweet Vallee des Vaux!

As the brook prattled by like an infant at play, And each wave as it passed stole a moment away, I thought how serenely a long life would flow, By the sweet little brook in the Vallee des Vaux.

D.L.R.

Jersey is not the only one of the Channel Islands that is enriched with "blossoms of gold." In the sister island of Guernsey the prickly gorse is much used for hedges, and Sir George Head remarks that the premises of a Guernsey farmer are thus as impregnably fortified and secured as if his grounds were surrounded by a stone wall. In the Isle of Man the furze grows so high that it is sometimes more like a fir tree than the ordinary plant.

There is an old proverb:--"When gorse is out of blossom, kissing is out of fashion"--that is _never_. The gorse blooms all the year.

FERN.

I'll seek the shaggy fern-clad hill And watch, 'mid murmurs muttering stern, The seed departing from the fern Ere wakeful demons can convey The wonder-working charm away.

_Leyden_.

"The green and graceful Fern" (_filices_) with its exquisite tracery must not be overlooked. It recalls many noble home-scenes to British eyes. Pliny says that "of ferns there are two kinds, and they bear neither flowers nor seed." And this erroneous notion of the fern bearing no seed was common amongst the English even so late as the time of Addison who ridicules "a Doctor that had arrived at the knowledge of the green and red dragon, _and had discovered the female fern-seed_." The seed is very minute and might easily escape a careless eye. In the present day every one knows that the seed of the fern lies on the under side of the leaves, and a single leaf will often bear some millions of seeds. Even those amongst the vulgar who believed the plant bore seed, had an idea that the seeds were visible only at certain mysterious seasons and to favored individuals who by carrying a quantity of it on their person, were able, like those who wore the helmet of Pluto or the ring of Gyges, to walk unseen amidst a crowd. The seed was supposed to be best seen at a certain hour of the night on which St. John the Baptist was born.

We have the receipt of fern-seed; we walk invisible,

_Shakespeare's Henry IV. Part I_.

In Beaumont's and Fletcher's _Fair Maid of the Inn_, is the following allusion to the fern.

--Had you Gyges' ring, _Or the herb that gives invisibility_.

Ben Jonson makes a similar allusion to it:

I had No medicine, sir, to go invisible, _No fern-seed in my pocket_.

Pope puts a branch of spleen-wort, a species of fern, (_Asplenium trichomanes_) into the hand of a gnome as a protection from evil influences in the Cave of Spleen.

Safe passed the gnome through this fantastic band A branch of healing spleen-wort in his hand.

The fern forms a splendid ornament for shadowy nooks and grottoes, or fragments of ruins, or heaps of stones, or the odd corners of a large garden or pleasure-ground.

I have had many delightful associations with this plant both at home and abroad. When I visited the beautiful Island of Penang, Sir William Norris, then the Recorder of the Island, and who was a most indefatigable collector of ferns, obligingly presented me with a specimen of every variety that he had discovered in the hills and vallies of that small paradise; and I suppose that in no part of the world could a finer collection of specimens of the fern be made for a botanist's _herbarium_. Fern leaves will look almost as well ten years after they are gathered as on the day on which they are transferred from the dewy hillside to the dry pages of a book.

Jersey and Penang are the two loveliest islands on a small scale that I have yet seen: the latter is the most romantic of the two and has nobler trees and a richer soil and a brighter sky--but they are both charming retreats for the lovers of peace and nature. As I have devoted some verses to Jersey I must have some also on

THE ISLAND OF PENANG.