PREFACE. VU 



Look while mirth or feeling move her, 



And see there how sweetly rise 

 Thoughts gay and gentle from a breast, 

 Which is of innocence the nest — 

 Which, though each joy were from it fied. 

 By truth would still be tenanted !" 



In gazing upon flowers, the old and the young, the grave and the gay, are 

 furnished with objects of sympathy calculated to awaken the tenderest 

 affections of the heart. To the aged, the glowing colors of the Amarinth 

 speak of immortality ; to the young, the White Pink exhibits true and pure 

 affection ; to the grave and serious, the Balm speaks of social intercourse ; 

 and the Coreopsis bids the gay be always cheerful ; so that every disposition 

 and mood finds pleasure and instruction amid the beauties with which Provi- 

 dence has blessed the Earth to delight our eyes and incite us to purity of 

 thought and action. 



We have culled from nature's gay parterre some of her glorious gems, and 

 arranging them by the hand of art, present our " BOUQUET" as an imita- 

 tion of the beauties with which we are delighted only during a brief season 

 of the year, so that when the chilly blasts of Winter deprive us of their 

 dewy fragrance, we may still gaze with pleasure upon them as in a mirror, 

 and cheat our senses into a dream of their reality. 



We have endeavoured to illustrate the flowers we have thus " transferred," 

 by lessons and precepts instructive and entertaining, and while we have 

 sought the aid of talent and genius of our own day and presented original 

 productions procured expressly for this work, we have also incorporated 

 selections from standard poets, which notwithstanding they have already 

 appeared before the public, we trust will* be found to possess a sufficient merit 

 to appear again and be the more highly appreciated when thus illustrated by 

 the hand of art. 



" THE BOUQUET" is before yuu fair reader ; there is many a lesson ana 

 many a moral to be found within its pages, and if in it you can find where- 

 with to cheer an hour of sadness, and rise after a perusal with ennobled and 

 grateful feelings towards a " '.nd Providence, our end has been attained. 



A. A. P. 



New York, August 1846. 



