84 PROSERPINA. 



ableness ; the groups which in our English classification will 

 be easily remembered as those of the Thyme, and the 

 Daisy. 



The one, scented as with incense medicinal and in all 

 gentle and humble ways, useful. The other, scentless help- 

 less for ministry to the body ; infinitely dear as the bringer 

 of light, ruby, white and gold ; the three colours of the Day, 

 with no hue of shade in it. Therefore I take it on the coins 

 of St. George for the symbol of the splendour or light of 

 heaven, which is dearest where humblest. 



2. Now these great two orders of which the types are the 

 thyme and the daisy you are to remember generally as the 

 * Herbs' and the 'Sunflowers.' You are not to call them 

 Lipped flowers, nor Composed flowers ; because the first is a 

 vulgar term ; for when you once come to be able to draw a 

 lip, or, in noble duty, to kiss one, you will know that no other- 

 flower in earth is like that : and the second is an indefinite 

 term ; for a foxglove is as much a < composed ' flower as a 

 daisy ; but it is composed in the shape of a spire, instead of 

 the shape of the sun. And again a thistle, which common 

 botany calls a composed flower, as well as a daisy, is com- 

 posed in quite another shape, being on the whole, bossy in- 

 stead of flat ; and of another temper, or composition of mind, 

 also, being connected in that respect with butterburs, and a 

 vast company of rough, knotty, half -black or brown, and gen- 

 erally unluminous flowers I can scarcely call them and 

 weeds I will not, creatures, at all events, in nowise to be 

 gathered under the general name ' Composed,' with the stars 

 that crown Chaucer's Alcestis, when she returns to the day 

 from the dead. 



But the wilder and stronger blossoms of the Hawk's-eye 

 again you see I refuse for them the word weed ; and the 

 waste-loving Chicory, which the Venetians call " Sponsa solis," 

 are all to be held in one class with the Sunflowers ; but dedi- 

 cate, the daisy to Alcestis alone ; others to Clytia, or the 

 Physician Apollo himself ; but I can't follow their mythology 

 yet awhile. 



3. Now in these two families you have typically Use op 



