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ed on the roofs of houses : "On a standing roof of wood is 

 laid a covering of fine earth, which shelters the building from 

 the great quantity of snow that falls in the winter season. 

 This fence communicates an equal warmth in winter, as a re- 

 freshing coolness in summer, when the tops of the houses, 

 which are planted with a variety of flowers, exhibit at a dis- 

 tance the spacious view of a beautiful chequered parterre." 

 The famous hanging gardens of Babylon were on the enor- 

 mous walls of that city. 



A garden usually makes a part of every Paradise, even of 

 Mahomet's, from which women are excluded, — women, 

 whom gallantry has so associated with flowers, that we are 

 told, in the Malay language, one word serves for both.* In 

 Milton's Paradise, the occupation of Adam and Eve was to 

 tend the flowers, to prune the luxuriant branches, and sup- 

 port the roses, heavy with beauty. Poets have taken pleas- 

 ure in painting gardens in all the brilliancy of imagination. 

 See the garden of Alcinous in Homer's Odyssey ; those of 

 Morgana, Alcina, and Armida, in the Italian poets : the gar- 

 dens fair 



" Of Hesperus and his daughters three, 

 Who sing about the golden tree ;" 



and Proserpina's garden, and the Bower of Bliss in Spen- 

 ser's Fairie Queene. The very mention of their name seems 

 to embower one in leaves and blossoms. 



It is a matter of some taste to arrange a bouquet of flowers 

 judiciously ; even in language, we have a finer idea of colors, 

 when such are placed together as look well together in sub- 

 stance. Do we read of white, purple, red, and yellow flow- 

 ers, they do not present to us so exquisite a picture, as if we 

 read of yellow and purple, white and red. Their arrange- 

 ment has been happily touched upon by some of our poets : 



* See Lalla Rookh, page 303. Sixth edition. 



