192 Gleanings from the 



be worn during the caroufals which followed the 

 chief meal of the day. As early as the fecond 

 Punic war this feftive cuflom prevailed. There 

 was a notion among the Greeks that the flowers 

 prevented intoxication ; but they were chiefly 

 fubfervient to luxury. Betides rofes, violets were 

 alfo ufed for garlands, together with the green 

 leaves of the myrtle, ivy, and parfley. It was 

 ufual for the hoft to fupply thefe garlands, much 

 as a modern entertainer places a fmall nofegay 

 before each of his guefts. Everyone will remember 

 the beautiful little ode of Horace, in which he 

 warns his fervant againft extravagance in the 

 matter of garlands, bidding him refrain from feek- 

 ing where " the laft rofe of fummer " delays ; nor 

 has he written a more tender idyl than that which 

 {hews us Pyrrha binding up her golden hair, while 

 fome flender youth courts her in a grotto hung 

 with rofes. 1 Indeed, the rofe has always been the 

 flower mofl dear to poetry. " Place a hundred 

 handfuls of fragrant herbs and flowers," fays the 

 Perfian Jami, " before the nightingale, yet he 

 wifhes not in his conftant heart for more than the 

 fweet breath of his beloved rofe." It was a 

 favourite flower of Milton, owing to his claflical 

 reading. In Eve's nuptial bower, 



" Each beauteous flower, 

 Iris all hues, rofes, and jeffamine, 



Reared high their flourifh'd heads between, and wrought 

 Mofaic." 



1 It is fcarcely neceflary to add that Milton has tranflated 

 this ode of Horace into as dainty Englifh as the original, and 

 in the fame metre. 



