78 FLORA HTSTOR1CA. 



It is'f the flower with which the romance-writers 

 embellish all their decaying battlements, falling 

 towers, and monastic ruins, and it seems as neces- 

 sary to their stories as the dark ivy, the screeching 

 owl, and the gliding spectre itself. 



Why loves my flower — the sweetest flower 



That swells the golden breast of INI ay — 

 Thrown rudely o'er this ruin'd tower, 



To waste her solitary day? 

 Why, when the mead, the spicy vale, 



The grove and genial garden call, 

 "Will she her fragrant soul exhale 



Unheeded on the lonely wall ? 



Langhorxe. 



Our northern poet says — 



And well the lonely infant knew 

 Recesses where the Wall-flower grew, 

 And Honey-suckle loved to crawl 

 Up the low crag and ruin'd wall, 

 I deem'd such nooks the sweetest shade 

 The sun in all his round survey "d ; 

 And still I thought that shatter'd tower 

 The mightiest work of human power. 



Walter Scott. 



During the reign of terror in France, the mis- 

 guided populace of Paris, not satisfied with the 

 devastation their frenzy occasioned in the capital, 

 flew to Saint Denis, with an intent to destroy every 

 vestige of the royal monuments, and to scatter in 

 the wind the ashes of their sovereigns, which were 

 deposited in the sacred abbey of that place. Some 

 time after, this spot was visited by the poet Treneuil, 



