26 FLORA DOMESTICA. 



which nature intended to be common to all, paid him a 

 visit at his country-house, and, in walking round the garden, 

 when he came to a bed of his Anemones, which were at 

 that time in seed, artfully let his robe fall upon them : by 

 which device, he swept off a considerable number of the 

 little grains, which stuck fast to it. His servant, whom 

 he had purposely instructed, dexterously wrapped them 

 up in a moment, without exciting any attention. The 

 counsellor a short time after communicated to his friends 

 the success of his project ; and by their participation of his 

 innocent theft, the flower became generally known. 



Tournefort, who also relates this story, says that this 

 ingenious flower-stealer took with him three or four of his 

 friends to visit M. Bachelier, and that when they drew 

 near to the place where the Anemones were placed, they 

 began to amuse him, and engage his attention by relating 

 different tales and anecdotes, to prevent his observing what 

 was passing around him. 



Rapin, in his poem on gardens, ascribes the birth of the 

 Anemone to the jealousy of Flora ; who fearing that the 

 incomparable beauty of a Grecian nymph would win from 

 her the love of her husband Zephyr, transformed her into 

 this flower. But to this tale he adds an account better 

 authorised, of the Anemone having sprung from the blood 

 of Adonis and the tears of Venus shed over his body; 

 and it is but common justice to Flora to observe that this 

 is the generally received opinion of the origin of the Ane- 

 mone. Cowley gives it this parentage, in his poem on 

 plants. Ovid describes Venus lamenting over the bleeding 

 body of her lover, whose memory and her own grief she 

 resolves to perpetuate by changing his blood to a flower ; 

 but less poetically than some others : he substitutes nectar 

 for the tears of Venus ; not even hinting that the said nectar 

 was the tears of the goddess. 



