XXVlll PREFACE. 



flowers ; and silver vases filled with flowers were placed 

 upon the ark which contained the sacred MS *. 



The ancients used wreaths of flowers in their entertain- 

 ments, not only for pleasure, but also from a notion that 

 their odour prevented the wine from intoxicating them : 

 they used other perfumes on the same account. Beds of 

 flowers are not merely fictitious (see Roses, page 320). 

 The Highlanders of Scotland commonly sleep on heath, 

 which is said to make a delicious bed ; and beds are, in 

 Italy, often filled with the leaves of trees, instead of down 

 or feathers. It is an old joke against the effeminate Sy- 

 barites, that one of them complaining he had not slept 

 all night, and being asked the reason why, said that a rose- 

 leaf had got folded under him. 



In Naples, and in the Vale of Cachemere (I have been 

 told also that it sometimes occurs in Chester), gardens are 

 formed on the roofs of houses : " On a standing roof of 

 wood is laid a covering of fine earth, which shelters the 

 building from the great quantity of snow that falls in the 

 winter season. This fence communicates an equal warmth 

 in winter, as a refreshing coolness in summer, when the 

 tops of the houses, which are planted with a variety of 

 flowers, exhibit at a distance the spacious view of a beau- 

 tifully chequered parterre." (Forster.) The fiimous hang- 

 in» gardens of Babylon were on the enormous waUs of 

 that city. 



A garden usually makes a part of every Paradise, even 

 of Mahomet's, from which women are excluded, — women, 

 whom gallantry has so associated with flowers, that we are 

 told, in the Malay language, one word serves for both f. 

 In Milton's Paradise, the occupation of Adam and Eve 



* See TuUy's Narrative of a Residence in Tripoli, 

 t See Lalla Rookh, page 303. Sixth edition. 



