136 MAY. 



beauty. The affecting mention of the influence of 

 a flower upon his mind in a time of suffering and 

 despondency, in the heart of the same savage con- 

 tinent, by Mungo Park, is familiar to every one. 



In the East, flowers are made to speak the 

 language of sentiment. The custom of embel- 

 lishing houses and garnishing tables with them is 

 unquestionably eastern. Perhaps the warmer coun- 

 tries of Europe are less in the use of them than 

 they were formerly. Boccaccio talks of them 

 being disposed even in bed-chambers : " E nelle 

 camere i letti fatti, e ogni cosa di fiori, quali nella 

 stagione si potevanto avere, piena:" and at the 

 table of the narrators of the Decameron stories, as 

 " Ogni cosa di fiori di ginestra coperta." In Eng- 

 land they are much less used than on the Continent, 

 and much less than they were by our ancestors. 

 On May-day, at Whitsuntide, and on other holiday 

 occasions, the houses were profusely decorated 

 with them, and they were strewn before the door. 

 Over the extinction of many popular customs I 

 cannot bring myself to grieve ; but there is some- 

 thing so pure and beautiful in the plentiful use of 

 flowers, that I cannot but lament the decay of 

 these. Perhaps the most touching of our popular 

 uses of flowers is that of strewing the dead with 

 them, designating the age, sex, or other particular 

 circumstances, by different flowers. How expres- 

 sive in the hand of a fair young girl, cut off in her 

 early spring, are a few pure and drooping snow- 

 drops, an image exquisitely employed by Chantrey 



