JUNIPER. 



wintry season, or the summer. And if the benign influences of the 

 planet, long watchings, or amorous zeal, are to conduct me to that 

 height of honour, I will not (Phoebus and Bacchus pardon me) that 

 their leaves should declare me for a poet, but that a Juniper should 

 crown my brow." 



Tasso, in his miscellaneous poems, has two sonnets to a 

 similar purpose. 



Before the use of carpets in Europe, the richest people 

 used to strew their apartments with dried leaves and rushes. 

 Queen Elizabeth walked on no better floor. The gentlemen 

 and ladies in Boccaccio are luxurious enough to walk on 

 flowers of Juniper. " This jocund company,"" says an old 

 translation, " having received licence from their queen to 

 disport themselves, the gentlemen walked with the ladies 

 into a goodly garden, making chaplets and nosegays of 

 divers flowers, and singing silently to themselves. When 

 they had spent the time limited by the queen, they returned 

 into the house, where they found that Parmeno had effec- 

 tually executed his office ; for when they entered into the 

 hall, they saw the tables covered with delicate white na- 

 pery, and the glasses looking like silver, they were so trans- 

 parently clear ; all the room besides strewed with flowers 

 of Juniper." 



As the passage has to do with gardens and flowers, and 

 is a very elegant one besides, the reader will not object to 

 a quotation of the whole of it : 



" When the queen and all the rest had washed, ac- 

 cording as Parmeno gave order, so every one was seated 

 at the table : the viands, delicately dressed, were served 

 in, and excellent wines plentifully delivered : none at- 

 tending but the three servants, and little or no loud table- 

 talk passing among them. Dinner being ended, and the 

 table withdrawn, all the ladies, and the gentlemen like- 

 wise, being skilful both in singing and dancing, and playing 

 on instruments artificially, the queen commanded that divers 



