Stock. 
(LASTING BEAUTY.) 
T HE Stock has been long established in English gardens, 
and, under the somewhat puzzling name of “gilly¬ 
flower,” is frequently mentioned by our oldest wiiteis. dheie 
has been a long-standing dispute amongst florigraphists as to 
what plant was really meant by the latter diffusedly-apphed 
term, supposed to be a corruption of the Fiench girofliei . 
Pinks and carnations were undoubtedly classed formerly with 
the stock as gillyflowers, but more recently, in order to .dis¬ 
tinguish them, were called clove-gillyflowers and stock-gilly- 
flowers. n . , . 
The stock should, indeed, be a favourite flower with the 
softer sex, inasmuch as it is the chosen representative of what 
Madame Rachel so vehemently protests that she has disco¬ 
vered the secret elixir of, that is to say, lasting beauty. Por 
several centuries, as might be supposed, it has been a great 
pet with the ladies, and carefully did the dames of yore culti¬ 
vate it within the circumscribed limits of their castle gardens. 
No flowering plant, it is said, has received more fostering care 
than the stock ; and so completely has it surrendered its being 
up to the florist, that what was formerly only a little sea-side 
flower now occasionally assumes the dimensions of a shrub, 
and puts forth blossoms almost equalling the rose in size, but 
—mark the but , fair reader—sometimes of so evanescent a 
nature and so variable a hue, that some flowers of this species 
have been termed mutabilis, or changeable. So, aftei a , 
ladies, you must seek another emblem, if you wish one, tor 
enduring beauty, for the constant changes of this plant on y 
render it a fit representative of earthly beauty’s mutability. 
