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us, who are sed to taste of the banquet which this science affords! —Again, these flowers interest us by as 
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“ Master Louis, where have you picked up so many trifles?? 
“eY HIS noted remark of the Cardinal Hyppolito to the author of the ‘‘Orlando Furioso,”’ on his pre- 
senting ition with the first copy of his work, would be mg more appropriate to the present. recweil, than to the 
“fine frenzy’’ of Ariosto. _ Yet one may be worse employed than in conversing with flowers. ey are innocent 
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y for us if we find no society more noxious, than that of these pure and beautiful parts of the creation. 
“Do we ¢ make the most of the objects which surround us—do we extract from them all the information, all 
t which they are capable of affording? The question is not add to the odeneie 
but to those, of whom the writer admits herself to be one, who are too often content to gaze with a vacant and 
transient admiration at the works of the creation, and then to remember them no more. Here, for instance, is 
this ae ira what an interest has the science of botany thrown over it! Yet how few are there, among 
their beauty an 7 iia, and here we stop. Travellers, however, assure us, that the people of the East see 
something more in them than mere objects of admiration. In the hands of i primitive and oe people, 
they become flowers of rhetoric, and speak their feelings with far more tenderness and force than words can 
impart. With them, there is something sacred in this mode of communication. Iti 8 kind. of religious worship 
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the sanctity which belonged to the rite from which it is probably borrowed, and is accompanied with a devotion .. 
far more true, and deep, and touching, than the artificial homage which Fa auebia the courts of Europe, even i 
shivelrr Compared with modern manners, either in Europe or America, what is there 
that can vie, in picturesque beauty, with the Persian youth, gracefully presenting a rose to his mistress? What 
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those awkward and a ced declarations which are in use in other countries! How much easier is it to 
present a flower, than to make a ! 
It is upon the hint ea “by this oriental custom, and for the purpose of trying, eve a matter of curiosity, 
how far this emblematic language could be carried, that the following collection has been 
Mr. Perctvat tells us— 
*“ Each blossom that blooms in their np bowers ae 
» On its leayes a mystic language bears. ™ 
Pity it is that we have no key to this mystic language of the East. Very few of their emblems have reathed 
us. So far as they are known, they have been adopted in this collection. A few ag have been borrowed from 
books and manuscripts. To supply the ge which —— the far greater number, and to furnish the 
whole with appropriate illustrations, has been the chief ut of which this go jeu has grown. Very 
few of the emblems have been attached bee ~—. In general, they have been suggested either rt some 
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