xxiv rilEFACE. 



understood in this country as it might be, but Mr. Bowring 

 scarcely does us justice in the following observations: 



" In the peninsula the wildest flowers are the sweetest. 

 There are hedges of myrtles, and geraniums, and pome- 

 granates, and towering aloes. The sunflower and the 

 bloody warrior (Aleli grosero) occupy the parterre : they 

 are no favorites of mine. 



" Flowers ! what a hundred associations the word brings 

 to my mind. Of what countless songs, sweet and sacred, 

 delicate and divine, are they the subject. A flower in 

 England is something to the botanist, — but only if it be 

 rare ; to the florist — but only if it be beautiful; even the 

 poet and the moralizer seldom bend down to its eloquent 

 silence. The peasant never utters to it an ejaculation — the 

 ploughman (all but one) carelessly tears it up with his 

 share — no maiden thinks of wreathing it — no youth aspires 

 to wear it. But in Spain ten to one but it becomes a 

 minister of love, that it hears the voice of poetry, that it 

 crowns the brow of beauty. Thus how sweetly an anony- 

 mous cancionero sings : 



" Put on your brightest, richest dress. 

 Wear all your gems, blest vales of ours ! 

 My fair one comes in her loveUness, 

 She comes to gather flowers. 



'' Garland me wreaths^ thou fertile vale ; 

 Woods of green your coronets bring ; 

 Pinks of red, and lilies pale, 

 Come with your fragrant offering. 

 Mingle your charms of hue and smell. 

 Which Flora wakes in her spring- tide hours ! 

 My fair one comes across the dell. 

 She comes to gather flowers. 



" Twilight of morn ! from thy misty tower 

 Scatter the trembling pearls around. 



