Introduction. 
T9 
Shakspeare intended them all to have an emblematic meaning. 
The crow-flower is a species of lychnis, or meadow campion : it 
is sometimes found double in our hedgerows ; and in this form 
we are told by Parkinson it was called The Fayre Mayde of 
France. It is to this name and to this variety that Shakspeare 
alludes in Hamlet. (The long-purples are commonly called 
“ dead men’s fingers.”) 
“ ‘Our cold maids do dead men’s fingers call them.’ 
The daisy imports the purity or spring-tide of life; and the 
intermixture of nettles needs no comment.” 
Admitting the correctness of this interpretation, the whole is 
an excellent specimen of emblematic or picture writing. They 
are all wild flowers, denoting the bewildered state of the beau¬ 
tiful Ophelia’s own faculties ; and the order runs thus, with the 
meaning of each term beneath : 
CROW-FLOWERS. NETTLES. DAISIES. LONG-PURPLES. 
Fayre Mayde. Strong to the quick. Her youthful bloom. Under the cold hand of death. 
“A fair maid stung to the quick; her youthful bloom under the cold hand of death.” 
It would be difficult to select a more appropriate garland for 
this victim of love’s cruelty. Indeed, Shakspeare, as the perusal 
of the following pages testifies, continually availed himself of 
the symbolism of flowers, in order to depict the passions of 
humanity. 
Chaucer and Herrick are probably next in rank amongst our 
earlier bards in the truly poetic fancy of rendering flowers 
vehicles of human sentiments. Amongst our modern minstrels, 
to speak of position would be invidious ; but nothing could 
come more appropriate to our purpose than this little lay by 
Patterson: 
“Flowers are the brightest things which earth 
On her broad bosom loves to cherish; 
Gay they appear as children’s mirth, 
Like fading dreams of hope they perish. 
“ In every clime, in every age, 
Mankind has felt their pleasing sway; 
And lays to them have deck’d the page 
Of moralist and minstrel gay. 
“ By them the lover tells his tale,—- 
They can his hopes, his fears express; 
The maid, when words or looks would fail, , 
Can thus a kind return express. 
2—2 
