154 FUNERAL FLOWERS. 



"Lay a white rose on her breast, 



Pied violets dim, and cypress sere, 

 That the scent of flowers may rest 

 In her wintry sepulchre." EPHON 



In France La Belle France! the land of the 

 Troubadour and Minnesinger, they, perhaps 

 more than any other nation of modern times, 

 cherish the memory of the dead, by ornament- 

 ing their places of sepulture with the finest 

 flowers, often renewing the garlands, and re- 

 placing such plants as decay with vigorous and 

 costly ones ; this is especially the case in the 

 South of France, where the custom is of very 

 ancient date, of expressing both love and hatred 

 for the dead ; ihe first by, rearing only the most 

 beautiful and sweet-scented flowers on the 

 grave ; and the latter, by sowing around the 

 seeds of such plants as. were, for some reason 

 or other, regarded as obnoxious. Let us illus- 

 trate our meaning by a picture, contrasting the 

 two graves of the loved and the hated the 

 betrayer and the betrayed : 



"Wild are the tales which of that grave are told: 

 Around it grows each rank and noxious weed; 

 The poisonous toad-stool in that corner thrives j 



