SEPTKMBER. 223 



trembled in the hair of the bride, and cheered the invaHd's solitude. 

 They have been offered at the shrine of beauty, and claimed as the 

 pledges of love, nor ceased to adorn the banquet, or be scattered over 

 the grave. Thus domesticated, even without intrinsic beauty, and 

 exclusive of any appeal to taste, flowers are blended in the memories 

 of the least poetical with scenes of unwonted delight, keen emotion, 

 and profound sorrow. Hence they have a language for each, not 

 recognised in any alphabet, and their incense is alHed with the issues 

 of destiny. M'Gregor's foot was more firmly planted, because upon 

 his " native heather;'' the Syrian, in the Jardin des Plantes, wept as 

 he clasped his country's Palm-tree ; Keats said in his last illness that 

 he felt the Daisies growing over him ; and one who, even in renowned 

 maturity, had wandered little from the singleness of childhood, de- 

 clared that he could never see a Marigold without his mouth's water- 

 ing at the idea of those swimming in the broth Simple Susan pre- 

 pared for her mother, in Miss Edge worth's little story. There is 

 no end to the caressing allusions of Petrarch to the Violet and the 

 Laurel, so identified with the dress and name of his beloved. Indeed, 

 we might scan biography and the poets for years, and continually 

 find new evidences of the familiar and endearing relation of flowers 

 to sentiment. Each of the latter have celebrated some favourite of 

 the race in their choicest numbers ; and the very names of Ophelia 

 and Perdita are fragrant with the flowers that Shakspeare, with the 

 rarest and most apposite grace, has entwined with their history. 



The Venetian painters must have studied colour in the hues of 

 flowers ; for the brilhant, distinct, and warm tone of their works 

 affects the spectator exactly as these rainbow gems ; especially when 

 they strike the eye in an isolated position, or surrounded by dim 

 umbrage. Nor is this effect confined to the domesticated flowers ; 

 for the richest and most delicate gradations of tint occur among un- 

 cultivated and indigenous plants, such as the Lobelia of the swamp, 

 the Saffron of the meadow, and the nameless variety of prairie blos- 

 soms. There are few more curious subjects of speculation than 

 the modus operandi by which such an infinite diversity of colours 

 are obtained from the same apparent source. This is an exquisite 

 secret of Nature's laboratory. The physiology of plants has been 

 successfully investigated ; and it is interesting to consider that 

 the vitality of flowers is much the same as our own as regards 

 its process, though so different in kind. They have affinities of sen- 

 sibility ; they germinate and fructify ; but the elements they assimi- 

 late are more subtle than those which sustain animal organisation ; 

 yet sun, earth, and air, nourish them according to a nutritive prin- 

 ciple not unlike that by which our frames are sustained. The reci- 

 procal action between vegetable and organic life, and their respective 

 absorption and diffusion of gases, is one of the most beautiful exposi^ 

 tions of science. But the instinct of flowers is not less curious j 

 some fold their leaves at the approach of a storm, and others open 

 and shut at particular hours, so that botanists have rejoiced in floral 

 dials and barometers. Their relation to sight and smell is very ob- 

 vious, but that to touch is less regarded ; and yet it is extraordinary 



