MAY. 137 



in his celebrated piece of sculpture the two Chil- 

 dren at Lichfield. Let the pensile lily of the valley 

 for ever speak of the gentle maid that has been 

 stricken down in her May ; and the fair white lily 

 of the youth shorn in his unsullied strength ; and let 

 those who have passed through the vanities of time 

 have 



Flowers of all hues, and with its thorn the rose. 



But even this tender custom is on the decline, from 

 a needless notion that they generate insects, and 

 tend to destroy the body they adorn. In reality, 

 however, the love of flowers never was stronger in 

 any age or nation than in ours. We have, per- 

 haps, less love of showy festivity than our ances- 

 tors ; but we have more poetry and sentiment 

 amongst the people at large. We have conveyed 

 from every region its most curious and splendid 

 plants; and such is the poetical perception of 

 natural beauty in the general mind, that wherever 

 our wild flowers spring up, in the grass, on the 

 overhanging banks of the wild brook, or in the 

 mossy shade of the forest, there are admiring eyes 

 to behold them. 



May is so called from the goddess Maia, a name 

 under which the earth was worshipped at this 

 daedal season of the year. The Saxons termed it 

 Trimilki, because they began to milk their cows 

 three times a-day in this month. 

 12* 



