S50 Phillips's Floral Emblems. 



Art. III. Floral Emblems. By Henry Phillips, F.L.S. and 

 F.H.S., Author of Pomarium Britannicum, London. Col. pi. 

 \L 105. ; plain 1/. I*. 



Sir, 

 I COULD wish that you had desired my opinion of any other 

 work, rather than of that you have sent me. For several rea- 

 sons I could wish this : first, because I admire that maxim, 

 which recommends us, where we cannot say any thing favour- 

 able, not to say any thing at all ; next, because it is awkward 

 to point out the defects of others, while we are probably exhi- 

 biting our own at the same moment ; and, lastly, because I 

 am so naturally disposed to think well of, and to feel kindly 

 towards, any person whose mind is accustomed to dwell among 

 flowers and trees, that it is doing a personal unkindness to 

 myself to speak as, in this instance, sincerity compels me to 

 speak. 



From the title of the work. Floral Emblems, I expected 

 to see a neat little pocket volume, light as the subject of which 

 it treated ; or a thin quarto, with finely coloured plates, brought 

 out altogether in a costly, and album-like style, and adapted 

 to take its place among the elegant knick-knacks of a lady of 

 fashion. I expected to have found in it the figures of such 

 plants as have, either in this or any other country, been ge- 

 nerally or poetically associated with certain ideas ; together 

 with some account of each, explaining where or with whom such 

 associations originated ; interspersed with appropriate quota- 

 tions, and, occasionally, with interesting anecdotes. I fancied 

 how agreeably many young ladies, who have more leisure 

 than they know how to enjoy, would amuse themselves in 

 tying up sentimental bouquets, and painting pretty devices ; 

 but when I saw the book, and when I read it (with very much 

 more attention than I should have done, had you not desired 

 my opinion of it), I was led to doubt whether there was any 

 one class of persons with whom it was likely to become a fa- 

 vourite. Those ladies for whom it would seem the best 

 adapted, and who might be supposed to welcome the sort of 

 employment into which it might lure them, would, I suspect, 

 find it troublesome to refer so frequently to its pages, to ascer- 

 tain the signification of the various flowers ; for many of them 

 are so arbitrary and vague, that there is nothing to assist the me- 

 mory in retaining them. They might receive the rose as the em- 

 blem of beauty; the lily, of innocence ; the violet, of modesty or 

 humility; the holly, of Christmas merriment ; or the mistletoe, 

 of a stolen kiss : these would be familiar to them. The author 

 might reasonably expect them to receive, as importations from 



