LOVE OP FLOWERS. 73 



about our dress; our coronals of orchises and 

 primroses ; our cowslip balls, Sec. ; and one applica- 

 tion of flowers at this season I have noticed, which, 

 though perhaps it is local, yet it has a remark- 

 ably pretty effect, forming for the time one of 

 the gayest little shrubs that can be seen. A small 

 branch or long spray of the white-thorn, with all 

 its spines uninjured, is selected; and on these its 

 alternate thorns, a white and a blue violet, plucked 

 from their stalks, are stuck upright in succession, 

 until the thorns are covered, and when placed in a 

 flower-pot of moss, has perfectly the appearance 

 of a beautiful vernal flowering dwarf shrub, and as 

 long as it remains fresh is an object of surprise 

 and delight. 



No portion of creation has been resorted to by 

 mankind with more success for the ornament and 

 decoration of their labours than the vegetable world. 

 The rites, emblems, and mysteries of religion ; na- 

 tional achievements, eccentric masks, and the ca- 

 pricious visions of fancy, have all been wrought by 

 the hand of the sculptor, on the temple, the altar, 

 or the tomb ; but plants, their foliage, flowers, or 

 fruits, as the most graceful, varied, and pleasing 

 objects that meet our view, have been more univer- 

 sally the object of design, and have supplied the 

 most beautiful, and perhaps the earliest, embellish- 

 ments of art. The pomegranate, the almond, and 

 flowers, were selected, even in the wilderness, by 

 divine appointment, to give form to the sacred uten- 



