14 THE LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS. 



address them as, " Athenians i crowned with 

 the Violet." 



There was a most poetic fancy in the sen- 

 timent that linked this flower with the name 

 of Napoleon. Springing in obscurity, and 

 retaining its perfume in death, it was a won- 

 derful emblem of him who rose from the 

 valleys of Corsica to the throne of the golden 

 lilies, and whose name has been a spell of 

 power long after he ceased to breathe the air 

 of earth. 



It remained for the East to give us a 

 language of perfume and beauty, by bestow- 

 ing a meaning on buds and blossoms ; though 

 the Turkish and Arabic flower-language does 

 not much resemble ours. It is formed, not 

 by an idea or sentiment originating in the 

 flower itself, but by its capacity for rhyming 

 with another word, i.e. the word with which 

 the flower rhymes becomes its significa- 

 tion. 



La Mottraie, the companion of Charles 

 XII., brought the Eastern language of flowers 

 to Europe ; but it was the gifted Lady Mary 



