188 FLORA HISTORICA. 



more celebrated by the historian and the poet than 

 this genus of plants, which so greatly embellishes 

 both the land and the waters, and has at various 

 periods contributed so much towards the sustenance, 

 and added to the medicines of man. 



Bildad, in his remonstrance with Job, uses this 

 plant as a simile. — " Can the Rush grow up with- 

 out mire ? Can the flag grow without water ?" 

 Job viii. 11 ; which was thus versified, in the be- 

 ginning of the seventeenth century, by G. Sandys : — 



Can Bulrushes but by the river grow ? 



Can Flags there nourish where no waters flow ? 



The ancients used the Iris or Flag-flower as the 

 symbol of eloquence ; and on this account it was, 

 we presume, placed by the Egyptians on the brow 

 of the Sphinx, as we have seen in the collection of 

 antique statuary at the Louvre, in Paris, where 

 there are three Sphinxes of great magnitude, 

 Nos. 253, 373, and 375, all of which have the Iris 

 flower sculptured on the brow. May not the 

 Egyptians have represented Moses by the Sphinx, 

 and placed the Flag-flower on the temple of this 

 symbolical figure in allusion to the spot from which 

 he was taken, for the daughter of Pharaoh dis- 

 covered him in an ark of bulrushes (i laid in the 

 flags by the river's brink ?" (Exod. ii. 3.) 



The History of France informs us that the 

 national escutcheon of that country was strewed 



