FLORAL CEREMONIES. 
“ Bring, Flora, bring thy treasures here, 
The pride of all the blooming year, 
And let me thence a garland frame.”— Shenstonr. 
« The worship of Flora,” says Mr. Phil¬ 
lips, “ among the heathen nations, may be 
traced up to very early days. She was the 
object of religious veneration among the Pho- 
cians and the Sabines, long before the foundation 
of Rome ; and the early Greeks worshipped her 
under the name of Chloris. The Romans in¬ 
stituted a festival in honor of Flora as early as 
the time of Romulus, as a kind of rejoicing at 
the appearance of the blossoms, which they 
welcomed as the harbingers of fruits. The 
festival games of Floralia, were not however, 
regularly instituted until five hundred and six¬ 
teen years after the foundation of Rome, when 
on consulting the celebrated books of the Sybil, 
To* 113 
