14 beeck's new book of flowers. 



not, neither do they spin; and yet I say unto you that 

 Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these." 

 How surely would Solomon himself have agreed with this 

 beautiful speech ! that his wise heart loved the flowers, the 

 lily especially, is evident from the numerous passages in 

 his song. The object of his love in claiming a supreme 

 dignity of beauty, exclaims : " I am the rose of Sharon, 

 and the lily of the valley." 



The Emperor Dioclesian preferred his garden to a throne : 



"Methinks I see great Dioclesian walk 

 la the Salonian garden's noble shade 

 Which by his own iinperial hands was made ; 

 I see him smile, methinks, as he does talk 

 With the ambassadors, who came in vain 

 T'entice him to a throne again. 

 ' If I, my friends,' said he, ' should to you show 

 All the delights which in these gardens grow, 

 'Tis likelier far that you with me should stay, 

 Than 'tis that you should carry me away; 

 And trust me not, my friends, if, every day, 

 I walk not here with more delight, 

 Than ever, after the most happy fight. 

 In trinmph to the capital I rode. 



To thank the gods, and to be thought myself almost a god.' " 



Cowley^s Garden. 



There is a class of men who whould pare down every 

 thing to the mere grade of utility who think it the height 

 of wisdom to ask, when one manifests an enthusaism in the 

 culture of flowers, " of what use are they ? " With such 

 we have no sympathy. We will not say with the late 

 Henry Colman, in case such an interrogatory being put to 

 us that " our first impulse is to look under his Jiat^ and see 

 the length of his ears^^ but we are always inclined in such 

 cases to thank God that our tastes do not correspond with 

 their's. "Better," (say these ultra utilitarians,) "devote 

 our time to the culture of things useful and needed to 

 sustain life, than to employ it on things, which, like flow- 

 ers, are intended only to look at and please the eye." 

 'But why,' would we ask, *why should not the eye be 



