I I 6 PROSERPINA. 



or bursting globe as some essential part of their 

 ornament ; — the bean-pod for the same reason (not 

 without Pythagorean notions, and some of republican 

 election) is used by Brunelleschi for main decoration 

 of the lantern of Florence Duomo ; and, finally, the 

 ornamentation gets so shapeless, that M. Viollet-le- 

 Duc, in his ' Dictionary of Ornament,' loses trace of 

 its origin altogether, and fancies the later forms were 

 derived from the spadix of the arum. 



1 6. I have no time to enter into farther details ; 

 but through all this vast range of art, note this 

 singular fact, that the wheat- ear, the vine, the 

 fleur-de-lys, the poppy, and the jagged leaf of the 

 acanthus-weed, or thistle, occupy the entire thoughts 

 of the decorative workmen trained in classic schools, 

 to the exclusion of the rose, true lily, and the other 

 flowers of luxury. And that the deeply underlying 

 reason of this is in the relation of weeds to corn, 

 or of the adverse powers of nature to the benefi- 

 cent ones, expressed for us readers of the Jewish 

 scriptures, centrally in the verse, " thorns also, and 

 thistles, shall it bring forth to thee ; and thou shalt 

 eat the herb of the field " tyopTos, grass or corn), 

 and exquisitely symbolized throughout the fields of 

 Europe by the presence of the purple ' corn-flag,' 

 or gladiolus, and ' corn-rose ' (Gerarde's name for 

 Papaver Rhoeas), in the midst of carelessly tended 



