CARNATIONS. 63 



should be scarcely mentioned by the great poets. 

 Shakspeare only just names it, and I do not 

 think Marvell does. Milton, in his Lycidas, barely 

 alludes to " the white Pink," and Cowley has no 

 separate poem in its praise. Indeed, one may say 

 generally that, with the exception of the Rose, the 

 flowers in which the poets have rejoiced, and which 

 they have immortalised, are the flowers of spring. 

 Cowley, who wrote as a horticulturist, is the almost 

 solitary exception. There is, however, a rather 

 pretty and fanciful little song of Herrick's " To 

 Carnations : " 



" Stay while ye will, or goe ; 



And leave no scent behind ye : 

 Yet trust me, I shall know 



The place where I may find ye : 

 Within my Lucia's cheek, 



Whose livery ye weare, 

 Play ye at hide or seek, 



I'm sure to find ye there." 



For the ordinary bedding-out of ordinary gardens 

 I have a real contempt. It is at once gaudy and 

 monotonous. A garden is left bare for eight 

 months in the year, that for the four hottest 

 months there shall be a blaze of the hottest colour. 

 The same combinations of the same flowers appear 

 wherever you go. Calceolarias, Verbenas, and 

 Zonal Pelargoniums, with a border of Pyrethrum 



