Pink. 
143 
Shakspeare, ever ready to pay a floral compliment, makes 
Jl erdita say, 
The fairest flowers o’ the season 
Are our carnations and streaked gillyflowers.” 
And the readers of Spenser and Milton will find these flowers’ 
names “ as familiar in their mouths as household words.” Some 
of our old authors frequently style them “ sops-in-wine,” from 
the fact, it is alleged, that they were employed in flavouring 
dainty dishes, as well as wine and other drinks ; and they who 
maintain this theory cite a rather problematical passage of 
Chaucer’s in support of it. 
The authoress of “ Flora Domestica,” in her remarks upon 
the celebrity which these flowers have attained through their 
loveliness and fragrance, says in the latter they are equalled 
by few plants, exceeded perhaps by none. As the rose for her 
beauty, the nightingale for his-song, so is the pink noted for 
its sweetness. 
“And the pink, of smells divine,” 
is seldom or ever forgotten when the poets would celebrate the 
charms of Flora. 
Matthisson, the German author, tells of a pretty little inci¬ 
dent, in which the carnation plays a part. He was near 
Grenoble, in Prance, and travelling along the road leading to 
Mount Cems. By the roadside was a little chapel dedicated 
to the Blessed Virgin. Before the altar, which was surmounted 
by vases of flowers, knelt a girl, holding in her hand a bouquet 
of clove carnations. The German traveller alighted from his 
caniage, and, seating himself upon an adjacent rock, watched 
the fair devotee, whose eyes were overrunning with tears. Just 
as she arose from her prayers, a young man, driving some 
horses before him, appeared round the angle of the road, and 
the instant the girl perceived him she flew into his arms, and 
amid smiles and tears, presented him with the bouquet of car¬ 
nations, which he placed with reverential care in the bosom of 
his jacket. The traveller continued his journey, musing over 
the probable consequences of the approaching separation_ 
perhaps the first—of these young lovers. 
Such incidents are so numerous on a journey through life 
that they appear almost too trivial for record ; and yet they 
may be the most momentous events in their enactors’ histories. 
