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known to the Greeks, and it was also a stranger 

 to the Romans until the time of Augustus Caesar, 

 when it was discovered in that part of Spain then 

 inhabited by a ferocious and warlike people 

 called Cantabri, and which country is now named 

 Biscay. These people having rebelled against 

 the then masters of the world, were conquered 

 by Augustus, and during these struggles the plant 

 was discovered and conveyed to Rome, where it 

 was called Cantabrica, after the country from 

 whence it was procured. (PHny, lib. 25. c. 8.) 

 Our readers will not be surprised that a people 

 whose principal profession was the art of war, 

 should have attended to so simple a flower as the 

 Pink then was in its natural state, when they re- 

 flect that flowers were esteemed one of the lux- 

 uries of those people, who seldom sat at their 

 meals without wearing chaplets of fragrant blos- 

 soms, and as novelty has ever had its charms, a 

 new flower possessing a spicy fragrance would 

 naturally excite considerable attention. 



Dr. Turner, one of our earliest writers on 

 plants, calls it Cantabrica Gelouer, and from him 

 we learn that it was then cultivated in our gar- 

 dens, since he says — " The gardin Gelouers are 

 made so pleasant and swete with the labours and 

 witt of man, and not by nature." 



Monsieur PiroUe seems of opinion that it was 



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