184 pFant Tsoi*©, TscgeT^/, cmsl TfDijrle/". 



Liitzen ; and thus paid, in the name of the Swedish hero, a dehcate 

 compliment to the bride, who was a professed admirer of his 

 character. According to a statement pubHshed some years since, 

 this magnificent volume, which was called, after the name of the 

 lady, the Garland of Julia, was disposed of, in 1784, at the sale of 

 the Duke de la Valliere's effects, for fifteen thousand five hundred 

 and ten livres (about ^^650), and was brought to England. 



The floral emblems of Shakspeare are evidence of the great 

 poet's fondness for flowers and his delicate appreciation of their 

 uses and similitudes. In ' A Winter's Tale,' Perdita is made to 

 present appropriate flowers to her visitors, symbolical of their 

 various ages ; but the most remarkable of Shakspeare's floral 

 symbols occur where poor Ophelia is wearing, in her madness, 

 " fantastic garlands of wild flowers " — denoting the bewildered 

 state of her faculties. 



The order of these flowers runs thus, with the meaning of each 

 term beneath : — 



Crow Flowers. Nettles. Daisies. Long Purples. 



Fayre Mayde. Stung to tlie Her Virgin Under the cold 



Quick. Bloom. hand of Death. 



" A fair maid, stung to the quick ; her virgin bloom under the cold hand of 

 death." 



Probably no wreath could have been selected more truly 

 typifying the sorrows of this beautiful victim of disappointed love 

 and filial sorrow. 



The most noted code of floral signs, used as a language by the 

 Turkish and Greek women in the Levant, and by the African 

 females on the coast of Barbary, was introduced into Western 

 Europe by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and La Mortraie, the 

 companion in exile of Charles XII., and obtained in France and 

 England much popularity as the " Turkish Language of Flowers." 

 This language is said to be much employed in the Turkish harems, 

 where the women practise it, either for the sake of mere diversion 

 in their seclusion, or for carrying on secret communication. 



In France and Germany, the language of flowers has taken deep 

 root, and in our own country the poetic symbolisms of Shakspeare, 

 Chaucer, Herrick, Drayton, and others of the earlier bards, laid the 

 groundwork for the very complete system of floral emblemism, or lan- 

 guage of flowers, which we now possess. A great many works have 

 been published, containing floral codes, or dicftionaries : most of 

 these, however, possess but little merit as expositions of old 

 symbols or traditions, and have been compiled principally from 

 modern sources. 



An ancient floral vocabulary, taken from Dierbach's Flora 

 Mythologica der Griechen und Rumer, and an approved modern 

 English ' Dicftionary of Flowers,' are appended, in order to make 

 this portion of our subjecft complete. 



