HISTORICAL SKETCH 



xxvii 



In their sacrificial offerings the victim was tastefully 

 decked with garlands of fragrant flowers and burned with 

 frankincense — calling forth those beautiful lines of the poet 

 Hesiod : — 



' Let the rich fumes of od'rous incense fly 

 A grateful savour to the powers on high.' 



From Juno's bath sprung an odorous mist which shed a re- 

 freshing fragrance around, thus graphically described : — 



' Here first she bathes and round her body pours 

 Soft oils of fragrance and ambrosial showers 

 Perfumed with flowers whose exhalation greet 

 The sense of gods with more than mortal sweet.' 



Scented flowers seem to have been to this tasteful people a 

 sort of poetic language whereby they expressed the intensity 

 of feeling to which they found common speech inadequate ; 

 thus we find that their grief and their joy, their religion, 

 their gratitude, admiration, and love, were alike expressed in 

 flowers and savours. Theophrastus inscribed a work on their 

 delicious attractions, in which he says, 'perfumes are made 

 from Eoses, white Lilies, and Violets, some from stalks and 

 some from roots.' Xenophanes thus pleasingly describes a 

 Grecian entertainment : — 



' A willing youth presents to each in turn 

 A sweet and costly perfume. Another pours out wine 

 Of most delicious flavour, breathing round 

 Fragrance of flowers, so grateful to the sense 

 That none refuse.' 



Whilst every schoolboy who has been brought to task over 

 his Homer knows how he describes Aurora with rose-tipped 

 fingers filling the air with their perfume. 



The author of the travels of Anacharsis describes his visit 

 to a friend thus : — ' Having crossed the courtyard, we came to 

 the flower-garden, where we saw in succession Narcissus, 



