COLUMBINE 217 



able variation under cultivation/ " They are set and sowne," 

 says Gerard, " in gardens for the beautie and variable colour 

 of the floures : sometimes blew, often white, and other 

 whiles of mixt colours, as nature list to play with her little 

 ones." In the hands of the florists the spurs have been 

 in some varieties greatly modified, and extended to much 

 more than their normal size, thus giving the flowers a 

 charming quaintness of effect. 



The columbine, from its deep purple colour, while it 

 was yet a wildling, and the gardeners had not metamorphosed 

 it" was the symbol of grief and desertion : 



The columbine, by lonely wanderer taken, 

 Is then ascribed to such as are forsaken. 



As such it presented itself to Brown, the author of 

 the 'British Pastorals, from whom we quote, but in almost 

 all symbolism a variation of significance is possible ; ' and to 

 Drayton the flower is no emblem of the love-lorn, but a 



' Bring hither the pink and purple Columbine, 

 With gylliflovvers. 



Spenser. 



The columbine was a favourite plant with Spenser. In his Garden of 

 Beauty, after dwelling on the rosy lips, the ruddy cheeks, and the beautiful 

 eyes of a certain fair damsel, he compares " her neck like to a bunch of 

 cullambines," which seems to come perilously near bathos. 



- In a florist's catalogue before us we see that one variety is marked 

 as having blue, white, and yellow flowers ; another with bright golden 

 blossoms ; another as being vermilion and yellow. 



' In symbolic colour, for instance, white may be the badge of perfect 

 purity or the emblem of craven fear. Red may be the emblem of glowing love 

 or of blood-thirsty cruelty. The peacock, now the emblem of worldly pride, 

 was for centuries the symbol of the Resurrection, and the lion may be the 

 emblem of the Lion of the tribe of Judah, of St. Mark the evangelist, of royal 

 magnanimity, or the symbol of Satan himself seeking whom he may by 

 treacherous wiles and ambuscade devour. 



