265 
ee Full many a flower, 
Pansy and Pink, with languid beauty smile; 
The Primrose opening with the twilight hour, 
And velvet tufts of fragrant Chamomile. 
For, more intent the smell than sight to please, 
Surviving love selects its vernal race; 
Plants that with early perfume feed the breeze, 
May best each dank and noxious vapour chase.” 
The idea seems to be, to render the last sad home of the departed in the cold 
ground as pleasing as possible, by throwing around it a grateful perfume; and 
perhaps this may have originally arisen from sanitary motives, the putrid effluvia 
from the mortal remains being thus neutralized by the agency of the plants, no 
danger need be feared from a silent communion with the loved object now for 
ever at rest. A somewhat similar idea seems to have been entertained by Shak- 
speare, when, in reference to the death of Fidele, he exclaims— 
“ With fairest flowers, while summer lasts, 
I’ll sweeten thy sad grave.” 
When the Pink is extensively employed for this purpose, as here and in Cad- 
oxton church-yard, near Neath, the most beautiful, as well as elegant, effect is 
produced. The Rosemary bushes are but gloomy, unsightly objects, and the rank 
Tansy ( Tanacetum vulgare), however beautiful when in its proper place by the 
river side, adorning the bank with its golden flowers, is here no better than a weed, 
and sadly out of place. A distinction is to be made between planting the graves 
with herbs, and strewing them with flowers—the latter only taking place immedi¬ 
ately after interment, and being continued only at intervals, till the growing plants 
put forth their blossoms. One of the most charming spectacles of this kind that 
I ever saw, was in the church-yard of Trevethin, near Pontypool, in the month of 
March some years ago, where several children were diligently employed in deco¬ 
rating every grave with the brilliant flowers of the Daffodil, “ that comes before 
the Swallow dares.” These, covered with dew-drops, and glistening in the morn¬ 
ing rays of a vernal sun, produced a very brilliant effect. That this highly poeti¬ 
cal custom has been handed down from antiquity, and was practised by the Ro¬ 
mans and Romanized Britons in these very parts, no doubt whatever can exist. 
When Martyn, in his notes to the 5th eclogue of Virgil, under the words “ Spar- 
gite Tiumwm foliis,” says, that “ it was a custom among the ancients to scatter 
leaves and flowers on the ground, in honour of eminent persons, and some traces 
of this custom remain among us at present,” he doubtless alludes to the subject 
under consideration, as the ground was to he spread with leaves in honour of 
vol. i. 2 m 
