HYACINTH OR IRIS? 67 



the edges, and in an unpropitious climate and 

 circumstances it would speedily dwindle away. 

 Anyhow, it would seem to have happened, the 

 Great Turkey Flowerdeluce left us, to return 

 Iris susiana many years later, when the tide 

 of taste, which has changed many things and 

 relegated the formerly admired hyacinth to a 

 secondary place, has put all irises into fashion, 

 and exalted this neglected flower to favour and 

 admiration. Such a fate has occurred before 

 this to flowers and books and men ; to the 

 books it matters little, they have time to ripen ; 

 to the men post cineras gloria sera venit. 



