THE PINK, 22) 
seems to have allowed her works to bear a temporary improvement 
only, in order to create industrious habits in man, her most noble and 
finished work. . 
The primitive Pink is simple red or white, and scented ; by flori- 
culture its petals have been enlarged and multiplied, and its colours 
infinitely varied, until it has obtained all the colours from the darkest 
purple to the purest white, with all the hues of red from the rich 
crimson to the pale rose, and with which the yellow is frequently 
blended. In some of these flowers we see the eye of the pheasant 
painted, others are beautifully marbled, striped, or figured. In some 
varieties we see two opposite colours abruptly diversified, whilst, in 
others, they seem not only to meet in happy contrast, but to mingle 
and soften off in shades. Thomson speaks of it as the ‘“‘ gay spotted 
Pink ;” but under all its diversities it preserves its delicious spicy 
fragrance, which never leaves it, however incessantly it inclines to 
quit its artificial adornment to take its own simple attire. 
Although our forefathers might not have carried refinement so far as 
to have laid down rules for the government of our admiration towards 
flowers, yet we find Professor Martyn wrong when he states that the 
Pink had not attracted any notice amongst our ancestors; and that it 
is only within the last half of the eighteenth century, that Pinks were 
much improved and varied, so as to be greatly valued amongst florists. 
We have already shown that they were cultivated in the reign of 
Elizabeth ; and Parkinson enumerates many fine varieties that were 
favourites in the time of his unhappy master Charles I. 
The White Pink is one of the flowers which Milton calls for in his 
monody on Lycidus, and London and Wise, so celebrated for having 
laid out the gardens of Blenheim, and improving those of Kensington, 
gives more pages on the cultivation of the Pink than on that of any 
other plant contained in their Retired Gardener of 1706. 
Madame de Genlis tells us, that it was the good king Rene, of 
Anjou, the Henry IV., of Provence, who first enriched the gardens of 
France with the Pink, and to this day it remains a favourite flower in 
the neighbourhood of Toulouse, although it is much less frequent in 
the vicinity of Paris than formerly. 
It is a flower that‘has attracted the particular notice of princes, 
The great Condé, whilst prisoner in the Bastile, amused himself in the 
cultivation of Pinks. 
We have connected with the Pink an anecdote, which shows how 
far the mind may be led away and debased by the arts of flattery. 
The young Duke of Burgundy, grandson of Louis XV., being fond 
of cultivating these flowers, a flatterer persuaded him, by substituting 
other pots of Pinks for those of the Prince, that the Pinks which he 
planted, came and flourished in one night. Thus persuaded, the 
youthful Prince believed that nature obeyed his will. One night, not 
being able to sleep, he expressed a wish to get up, but was told that it 
was then the middle of the night: ‘ Well,” replied he, “I will have it 
be day.” 
It has been observed that the Pink has lost its powerful attractions 
for the nobility of this country, and is degenerated into a mechanic’s 
