COVENT GARDEN MARKET. 381 



they are sent here from the greenhouses ; at more genial seasons, 

 from various gardens and conservatories in the neighborhood. 

 They are displayed in the greatest profusion and perfection, and are, 

 undoubtedly, a large source of income to the cultivators. The 

 English appear to me to have a strong passion for flowers, and 

 I commend their taste. A country house, without its plantation 

 of flowers and flowering shrubs, would be quite an anomaly ; 

 and many of the humble and moss-grown cottages have their 

 small gardens of flowers, their doors trellised with wood 

 bines and honeysuckles, and their outer walls covered with a 

 thick mantling of ivy, and made gay with the sweetbrier and 

 the monthly rose. The door-yards of the English, in the coun 

 try, their windows, their halls, their palaces, are all decorated 

 with flowers ; they are among the most beautiful ornaments at 

 their festivals ; and even the highest charms of female loveliness 

 are studiously augmented by these innocent and splendid adorn 

 ments. 



Looking out of my window a short time since, I saw that the 

 laborer wheeling his barrow before the door had his button-hole 

 decorated with a beautiful geranium. I went into the street, and the 

 driver of the omnibus, whom I first met, wore a handsome nosegay. 

 I met a bridal party, and, besides the white favors worn by all the 

 servants in attendance, each one had a bunch of flowers at his 

 breast. I met the crowd of magnificent equipages hastening to 

 a drawing-room to pay their courtly homage to a sovereign queen, 

 whose virtues and most exemplary demeanor render her worthy 

 of the homage of true affection and respect ; and every lady bears 

 in her hand a magnificent bouquet ; and the coachmen and the 

 footmen seem to emulate each other in the gayety and beauty of 

 the flowers which they all wear. At St. Paul s, at the opening 

 of the term of courts, the long procession of grave and learned 

 judges, who then go in state to church, appears, each one, with an 

 elegant nosegay in his hand. At the opera, upon the breathless 

 and successful competitors for public favor, in the midst of a tem 

 pest of applause, descends a perfect shower of floral wreaths and 

 rich bouquets. 



I sympathize heartily in this taste of the English for flowers, 

 which thus pervades all ranks, and, flowers being accessible to all, 

 ind among the most innocent and the cheapest of all pleasures, 

 diffuses a vast amount of enjoyment. They are, indeed, among 



