Hear t’S-ease. 
i 69 
and the bay, in order to form a suitable wreath for Tom Moore’s 
acceptance at the hands of Apollo. In his notes to the poem 
he says, “ For my part, to whom gaiety and companionship are 
more than ordinarily welcome on many accounts, I cannot but 
speak with gratitude of this little flower—one of many with 
which fair and dear friends have adorned my prison-house, 
and the one which outlasted all the rest.” 
This same enthusiastic poet, in his “ Descent of Liberty,” 
after depicting several floral beauties, finishes the picture with 
the pansy : 
“ And as proud as all of them 
Bound in one, the garden’s gem, 
Heart’s-ease, like a gallant bold, 
In his cloth of purple and gold.” 
When, in his “ History of the Months,” after enumerating 
various blossoms, he comes to his invariable pet, he is unable 
to pass it by without bestowing some endearing name upon 
it, and so calls it the “ sparkler,”—a name which it so truly 
deserves, that it might well be added to those it now bears, in 
which it already surpasses a Spanish grandee. 
It is said somewhere that the heart’s-ease is sacred to Saint 
Valentine. It must be confessed to be a choice worthy of that 
amiable and very popular saint; for the flower, like love, is 
painted in the most brilliant colours, is full of sweet names, 
and grows alike in the humblest as well as the richest soils. 
Another point of resemblance, too, may be added : that where 
it has once taken root, it so pertinaciously perpetuates itself, 
that it is almost impossible to eradicate it. 
The celebrated Quesnay, founder of the Economists, was 
styled his thinker by Louis XV., whose physician he was. The 
French monarch, in order to manifest the great regard he had 
for this nobleman, devised for him a coat of arms bearing three 
flowers of the pensee. 
Miss Pratt, alluding to the symbolism of this flower, remarks 
that whilst its familiar name of heart’s-ease renders it a pleas¬ 
ing emblem to us, to our Gallic brethren its name of “ thought ” 
presents a sad one. “ May they be far from thee,” is a motto 
affixed to the little painted group of pansies mingled with 
marygolds, called soucis, cares, which is sometimes given as an 
offering of friendship by a French lady. 
