242 THE FLORIST. 



native traits, but in their almost sympathetic habits, flowers come 

 near our affections. How patiently the Ivy binds the disjointed 

 stones of a ruined edifice ; and the Moss creeps over the grey and 

 time-stained roots and rocks, as if to cover their decay, and reheve 

 their steriHty ! With what a wreathing protection clusters the Wood- 

 bine round the humble porch ! The field-flowers, some one has truly 

 said, smile up to us as children to the face of a father ; and the seeds 

 of those destined for birds fly on innumerable wings of down to ger- 

 minate the more abundantly. The warm hues of the Dahlia would 

 be oppressive in any other season than autumn ; and the glitter of 

 the ocean's strand is chastened by the gay weeds, whose variegated 

 tints are freshened by every wave that dies along the beach. 



This herbal, the repository of memorials gleaned from hallowed 

 scenes, or treasured as the fragile trophies of joys as fragile, "strikes 

 the electric chain" of imagination and memory with a deeper vibration 

 than a sketch-book or a diary. That little cluster of thin pale-green 

 leaves with a shade of delicate brown at the edges (called by the 

 Italians the Hair of Venus), which clings to the page as if painted 

 on its surface, once hung from the dark rocky wall of the remarkable 

 cavern in Syracuse called the Ear of Dionysius ; and as I look upon 

 it, the deserted bay, crumbling tombs, and wreck- strewn campagna 

 of that ancient site are vividly before me ; even the flavour of the 

 Hybla honey, and the echo of the mule's tramp, return to my senses. 

 This weed, so common in shape and hue that it needs a reminiscence 

 to justify its preservation, was plucked as I stood tip-toe on the edge 

 of a gondola, and held fast to old Antonio's shoulder, while he checked 

 his oar beneath the Bridge of Sighs, and I snatched it from the inter- 

 stices of the arch ; — the piazza of San Marco, the Adriatic glowing 

 with the flush of sunset, the lonely canals, and all the grey quietude 

 of Venice, are conjured by the withered memento, "as at the touch 

 of an enchanter's wand." More costly acquisitionsJiave yielded less 

 zest in the winning than this slender yellow flower, which, evading 

 the jealous watchfulness of the guard at Pompeii, I gathered, to assure 

 myself thenceforth that 1 had actually walked the streets of the buried 

 city. How venerable seems this bunch of grass and flowers that 

 drew its sustenance from the loamy walls of the Coliseum ! And with 

 how marvellous a freshness do I call up the mediaeval architecture, 

 exquisite campaiiile, and mountain boundaries of Florence, beholding 

 again the Anemone purloined, on a fine Sabbath morning, in the gar- 

 dens of the Boboli ! I cannot see this Cassia-blossom without feeling 

 a certain impulsion to monastic life ; as I think of the kind friars, the 

 noble organ, lava-heaped confines, and soothing retirement of the 

 Benedictine convent at Catania, whence I bore it as the memento of 

 one of those white days in the traveller's experience, that atone for a 

 thousand discomforts. Pleasant was the summer evening at Messina, 

 when, in one of the palaces that line the marina, we kept gay vigil 

 in order to witness the blooming of this faded Cereus ; and high beat 

 the pulses of an entranced multitude on the night this faded nosegay 

 was pressed to the lips of Amina, in that last scewa, when her voice 

 quivered with uncontrollable feeling, and carolled the "Ah! non 



