REMARKS ON THE LILAC. 187 



they have made it an emblem of the forsaken, because it is the flower 

 that lovers offer the fairer sex when they quit them ; but in this 

 climate, where the charm of the fair is as powerful as this flower is 

 agreeable, the swain is often kept in fear of receiving the lilac. 



However ungallant the Persian beaux may be in giving the lilac, 

 they are not deficient in complimenting the fair in their language, 

 as their expression for a fine woman and a beautiful flower is the 

 same. Lilac, or lilag, is a Persian word, which simply signifies a 

 flower, but which Europe has given to the shrub it has taken from 

 the ancient Elamites ; and from the flower we have given name to 

 one of our most delicate compound colours. 



That a plant of the tropical climes should be so hardy as to stand 

 the severest winters of the greater part of Europe is admirable in the 

 lilac. Its easy propagation, and speedy growth, are no less con- 

 spicuous than its beauty, and which have contributed to its rapid 

 distribution throughout not only the temperate but even some of the 

 colder parts of Europe ; for it has naturalized itself in Scotland and 

 in the mountains of Switzerland, and it is now found in the forests 

 of Germany, although it was unknown in this quarter of the globe 

 before the year 1562, when Angerius de Busbeke obtained it from 

 the east, and transported it from Constantinople to Vienna, whence 

 he had been sent ambassador from the Emperor Ferdinand I. to the 

 Sultan Soliman. 



The generic name of this plant, Syringa, is derived from the 

 Greek 2vpo'£, a pipe, because when the pith is taken from the wood 

 it formed pipes like those which Pan made of the reeds into which 

 the nymph Syrinx was transformed. 



Thou,' he said, 



' Who canst no* be the partner of my bed, 



At least shall be the consort of my mind, 



And often, often to my lips be join'd.' 



lie form'd the reeds, proportion'd as they are, 



Unequal in their length, and wax'd with care, 



They still retain the name of his ungrateful fair." 



Ovid. 



Hence as syrinx and syringa meant a pipe, the lilac was called the 

 Pipe-tree when first known in England ; and under that name 

 Parkinson writes of it in 1640, and Roy in 1665. Although Gerard 

 says, in 1597, " The later phisitions do name the blewpipe-tree 



