INTRODUCTORY PREFACE. 



plants and shrubs. We are daily surrounded by the denizens 

 of the conservatory, the favourites of the flower-garden, or the 

 native beauties of our fields. Many of these are associated 

 in our minds with seasons of joy and sorrow, of pleasure and 

 pain. Many of us have, laid up in some hidden spot, dried 

 specimens of one flower or another, which was gathered by, 

 or presented to us at a time of unusual happiness, or on 

 an occasion of intense grief. These dried specimens are 

 now and then looked upon, and they take us back into the 

 past, and they help us in a remarkable degree to revive 

 all the little incidents, pleasant or painful, connected with 

 the time when we first became possessed of them. 



Associations such as these give a charm to the Language 

 of Flowers, and have tended to make it popular — in short, 

 to render it universal in its adoption. It is, indeed, of no 

 modern origin. It existed long before the oft-lamented days 

 of chivalry, when faithful and reverential affection for the 

 comparatively secluded lady could hardly be made known 

 in any other way than by emblems, which were, it may be, 

 of ambiguous import. Antique books are full of emblems 

 formed by the grouping of flowers. From an ancient 

 Romance we learn that a wreath of Roses was quite a 

 treasure for lovers ; and we read that a fair prisoner, Oriana 

 by name, not having the opportunity of speaking or writing 

 to her lover, informed him of her captivity by throwing to 

 him from a lofty tower a Rose bathed in her tears. It is 



