6 FLORA HISTURILA. 



stitions of former ages, with a perfect assurance 

 that such of our friends as are members of the Ro- 

 man Catholic church are too liberal to suppose for 

 one moment that we would turn their religion to 

 ridicule sooner than we would offend the Protestant 

 establishment to which we belong. Our duty is to 

 relate ancient anecdotes, by which means the super- 

 stitions of old times are exposed, as far as they 

 relate to the vegetable world, without regard to 

 country or sects ; at the same time we are sure that 

 all good Christians must feel regret when they find 

 the heads of any religious sect imposing upon the 

 credulity of the ignorant by pretended miracles. 



The continental order of the Blessed Lady of the 

 Lily was instituted by Garcias, the fourth King of 

 Navarre, on account of an image of the Holy Vir- 

 gin being miraculously found, as it was believed, 

 in a Lily, which, it is said, cured this Prince of a 

 dangerous disorder. 



It is related by Baylc, that Charles the Fifth, 

 in his religious retirement, planted a Lily at the 

 end of August, in the year 1558. The monarch 

 died on the twenty-first of the following month, and 

 it is pretended that, at the moment of his death, 

 the bulb of this Lily shot out on a sudden a stem 

 with two joints, supporting flowers as full blown 

 and as odoriferous as these flowers are in Spain in 

 their ordinary season. This beautiful flower was 



