Foxglove. 
(INSINCERITY.) 
T HE Foxglove typifies insincerity because of the invidious 
poison which lurks within its bright blossom. In France 
and Germany, and in some parts of England, it is known as 
“ Finger-flower,” because of the resemblance it bears to the 
finger of a glove, a resemblance which the poets have not failed 
to take advantage of. William Brown describes Pan as seeking 
gloves for his mistress : 
“To keep her slender fingers from the sunne, 
Pan through the pastures oftentimes hath runne 
To pluck the speckled foxgloves from their stem, 
And on those fingers neatly placed them. ” 
It was the age of conceits and quaint fancies when these 
gallant gentlemen wrote, and so we pardon their artificial 
fantasies as a humour of the age. Cowley, like his compa¬ 
triot, found a finger for this bonny bloom : 
“ The foxglove on fair Flora’s hand is worn, 
Lest while she gathers flowers she meet a thorn.” 
The tall purple foxglove is one of the most stately and yet 
most lovely of British plants; its elegantly-mottled and in¬ 
versely conical bells are well worthy the attention of the en¬ 
tomologists, as a variety of tiny beings are attracted by the 
shelter, or by the rich repast which the blossoms afford, to 
continually resort to them, and 
“ Bees that soar for bloom 
Pligh as the highest peak of Furness Fells, 
Will murmur by the hour in foxglove bells.” 
The campanular shape of these attractive flowers seems as 
inviting to the pens of modern poets as was its finger-like form 
to those of yore; and so we find not only Wordsworth, but 
