V. PAPAVER KHOEAS. 87 



pies did not mingle their scarlet among the gold, without 

 some purpose of the poppy-Maker that they should be 

 looked at. 



Nevertheless, with respect to the good and polite Ger- 

 man's poetically-contemplated, and finely aesthetic, tea, 

 may it not be asked whether poppy leaves themselves, like 

 the bread and butter, are not, if we may venture an opin- 

 ion too thin, \\\\-properly thin ? In the last chapter, 

 my reader was, I hope, a little anxious to know what I 

 meant by saying that modern philosophers did not know 

 the meaning of the word < proper,' and may wish to know 

 what I mean by it myself. And this I think it needful 

 to explain before going farther. 



2. In our English prayer-book translation, the first 

 verse of the ninety-third Psalm runs thus: "The Lord is 

 King ; and hath put on glorious apparel." And although, 

 in the future republican world, there are to be no lords, 

 no kings, and no glorious apparel, it will be found con- 

 venient, for botanical purposes, to remember what such 

 things once were ; for when I said of the poppy, in last 

 chapter, that it was "robed in the purple of the Caesars," 

 the words gave, to any one who had a clear idea of a 

 Caesar, and of his dress, a better, and even stricter, account 

 of the flower than if I had only said, with Mr. Sowerby, 

 "petals bright scarlet;" which might just as well have 

 been said of a pimpernel, or scarlet geranium ; but of 

 neither of these latter should I have said " robed in purple 

 of Caesars." What I meant was, first, that the poppy leaf 



