S8 BRAMBLES AND BAY LEAVES. 



being preserved as a part of religious worship, and of the highest 

 forms of poetry. In Turkey, you may, through the assistance of these 

 emblems, either quarrel, reproach, or send letters of passion, friend- 

 ship, or civility, or even news, without ever inking your fingers; for 

 there is no colour, no weed, no flower, no fruit, herb, nor feather, that 

 has not a verse belonging to it. So, too, no Turkish lady would send 

 a congratulatory message, or a ceremonious invitation, without sending 

 with it some emblematical flowers carefully wrapped in an embroi- 

 dered handkerchief, made fragrant by the odours of flowers, which 

 convey also an emblematical meaning. But these are merely frag- 

 ments of the ancient customs of the eastern nations, where all was 

 symbol, emblem, and allegory ; and where the imagination usurped 

 the power and controlled even the affairs of the state. 



These emblematic verses are in the form of enigmas, and are founded 

 on a sort of crambo or hout rime. M. Hamma has collected about a 

 hundred specimens, but they are exceedingly untranslatable. We 

 quote three of the most manageable — 



Almonde. — Wer bana bit Ominde. 



JPaar. — Let me not despair. 



Rose. — You smile, but still my anguish grows ; 



Ro^e. — For thee my heart with love still glows. 



Tea. — You are both sun and moon to me, 



Tea. — Yours is the light by which I see. 



But these are arbitrary and fancied similarities founded on the mere 



rhyming and jingling of words, and although occasionally conveying 

 an idea, are upon the whole, mere frivolities to fritter away the hours 

 which might be better spent in the growth of ideas, in tracing out the 

 real symbolical expressions of nature, in establishing these as keys to 

 the aesthetics of all beauty, and as the frame-work of the noblest 

 ■poetry. 



To catch a glimpse of floral symbolism, when yet in its pristine 

 vigour and poetical sublimity, we must go back into the dim vista of 

 departed years, and search amid the mighty caves and temples where 

 the early nations of India, Egypt, and Chaldea, knelt fervently in 

 adoration ; and where superstition clothed all things with a wild and 

 terrible grandeur, and rendered natural objects emblematic of the 

 highest spiritual truths. 



Amid these relics of former magnificence, and within the walls of 

 these crumbling temples, are yet to be seen the sculptured symbols 



