TO DOCTOR THEODORE D. ELLIOTT, 
OF GLEN-MARY, MISSISSIPPI. 
Dear Sir, 
Your beautiful parting gift, with the kind allusion to 
my tastes that accompanied it, has suggested to me the pro¬ 
priety of inscribing to you this little volume. Wholly with¬ 
out pretension, it presents few claims to your notice; but 
your love, both of Poetry and Flowers, may induce you to 
peruse, with the indulgence of a friend, their somewhat new 
combination in these pages. I have made no elaborate effort 
to compile a Floral Dictionary; I have not even alluded to 
the Botanical names of the Flowers, and, as to their classifi¬ 
cation, according to the Linnean, or other systems, I have 
most carefully avoided it. My object has simply been to 
gather a Bouquet for every month in the year, of those 
flowers which were most common and familiar to every one; 
and adopting from some one of the various Floral Lexicons, 
the sentiments ascribed to them, to illustrate each by an 
original poem. Mrs. Hale, Mrs. Wirt, and Mrs. Osgood, 
