TULIP. 137 



luxurious display of their light and sparkling 

 attire, who sometimes encircle and at others glide 

 around the vases of Tulips, whose beauty they 

 celebrate in song and action. During these fes- 

 tivals, Cupid often urges his votaries to dare the 

 bowstring of the Sultan, by making a sighing 

 Selim present a Tulip to a languishing Fatima. 



This gay flower having been obtained from the 

 Turks, was called Tulipa, from the resemblance of 

 its corolla to the eastern head-dress called Tulipaa 

 or Turban, and from hence our name of Tulip, as 

 well as that of the French Tulipe, the Italian 

 Tulipano, and the German Tulpe. 



Moore alludes to the similarity of the Tulip to 

 the turban in his Lalla Rookh. 



What triumph crowds the rich Divan to-day 

 With turban'd heads of every hue and race, 

 Bowing before that veil'd and awful face, 

 Like Tulip-beds, of different shape and dyes, 

 Bending beneath th' invisible west wind's sighs. 



We are not able to discover any mention of the 

 Tulip in the works of Pliny, which induces us to 

 think that it is not an indigenous plant of the 

 Levant, but that it was introduced from Persia and 

 other eastern parts in later days, and that it has since 

 so naturalized itself as to appear like an indigenous 

 plant. Where the climate allows the Tulip to pro- 

 pagate itself by seed so readily as in the neighbour- 



