ANCIENT GARDENS ROMAN GREEK. 



was as proud a device of the Ionic Athenians as the 

 rose of England, or the lily of France. The Ko- 

 mans are even censured by their lyric poet* for 

 allowing their fruitful olive-groves to give place to 

 beds of violets, and myrtles, and all the " wilder- 

 ness of sweets." The first rose of spring f and the 

 " last rose of summer " { have been sung in Latin as 

 well as English. Ovid's description of the Floralia 

 will equal any account we can produce of our May- 

 day ; nor lias Milton himself more glowingly painted 

 the flowery mead of Enna than has the author of the 

 Fasti. Cicero distinctly enumerates the cultiva- 

 tion of flowers among the delights of the country ; 

 and Virgil |] assures us that, had he given us his 

 Georgic on Horticulture, he would not have for- 

 gotten the narcissus or acanthus, the ivy, the myrtle, 

 or the rose-gardens of Pgestum. The moral which 

 Burns drew from his " mountain daisy " had been 

 marked before both by Virgil Tf and Catullus ; ** 

 and indeed a glance at the Eclogues, the Georgics, 

 or the Fasti, will show the same love of flowers in 

 their authors which evidently animated the great 

 comedian of Greece, where he describes the gentle- 

 men of " merry old Athens " as " redolent of honey- 

 suckle and holidays ;" |f an( l which is so conspicuous 

 in our own Shakspeare as to have led to some late 



* Hor. ii. xv. 5. f Virg. Georg. iv. 134. 



J Hor. Od. i. xxviii. 3. 



" Nee vero segetibus solum, et pratis, et vineis, et artmstis res 

 rusticas la?tae sunt, sed etiam in hortis et pomariis ; turn pecudum 

 pastu, apium examinibus, florum omnium varietate." De Sen., c. 15. 



|| Georg. iv. 124. f .En. ix. 435. ** Catull. xi. 



ft <Tfj.i\a.Kos ofav Kal cbrpcry/x.ocn/j'Tjs. Aristoph. Nub. 1007. 



