22 
Introduction. 
the English one wears a wreath of orange blossoms: it prefigures 
the virtues and the aptitudes which adorn and should appear 
in the wife. The leaves are green all the year round ; flowers 
white and fragrant, fruits full grown, and others in youngest 
infancy are always to be seen on this beautiful tree. We may 
gather from Scripture why the ancients placed palm-branches 
fn the hands of their statues of Temperance and Cheerfulness, 
and why, in Egypt, a vine was the hieroglyph of Intelligence.” 
Such are the tenets of florigraphists. Let us hope that such 
harmless if not beneficent doctrines are destined for universal 
• acceptance, and that those bright times, foretold by Shelley, 
are not far distant, when 
“Not gold, not blood, the altar dowers, 
But votive blooms and symbol flowers.” 
