248 THE GARDEN-LILY. 



The reader will be by this time aware that of the plants 

 called by the general English name of " lily," some have very 

 little kinship to each other, and others none at all. The little 

 garden flowers named Lilium (from the Celtic word /is, " white- 

 ness ") are mostly very handsome. Ben Jonson, speaking of 

 the ordinary lily, says, very finely 



" It is not growing like a tree 

 In bulk, doth make man better be, 

 Or standing long, an oak, three hundred year, 

 To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sear : 

 A lily of a day 

 Is fairer far in May, 

 Although it fall and die that night, 

 It was the plant and flower of light. " 



The white garden-lily is a native of the Levant, but has 

 become thoroughly naturalised in England, and is one of the 

 commonest but most admired ornaments of our cottage-gardens. 

 The old herbalists thought highly of its medicinal properties, 

 and pronounced it a certain remedy for the bite of a serpent. 

 It is true, at all events, that its bruised petals are an excellent 

 cure for any ordinary wound or bruise. 



Our ancestors, among their other superstitious fancies, enter- 

 tained the extraordinary belief that the price of a bushel of 

 wheat in the ensuing season was foretold by the number of 

 white cups which crowned the white lily's stem, each cup being 

 estimated at one shilling. I opine that our modern farmers 

 would feel dissatisfied if the Mark Lane averages were regulated 

 by this simple standard. 



