J UNIPER. 
(PROTECTION.) 
T HIS plant became the emblem of protection, from the cir¬ 
cumstance of the prophet Elijah having been sheltered 
from the persecutions of King Ahab by a juniper of the 
mountains. Says the Psalmist, “ Thou hast been a shelter for 
me, and a strong tower from the enemy.” 
The Italian name for the juniper is Ginebro, which Ariosto, 
by the licence usually permitted to poets, assumed to be a con¬ 
vertible term with Ginevra, the name of his ladye-love; and 
accordingly, in his Seventh Sonnet, he found occasion to im¬ 
mortalize her memory under a floral fancy, as did his great 
compatriot Petrarch, when coupling the name of his adored 
Laura with the laurel —that “Petrarch pale,” whom Mrs. 
Browning has so gloriously sculpt in that magnificent Pan¬ 
theon, “ The Vision of Poets,” as he 
“ Who from his brain-lit heart hath thrown 
A thousand thoughts beneath the sun, 
Each perfumed with the name of one. 
“Tasso, bard and lover, 
Whose visions were too thin to cover 
The face of a false woman over,” 
determined to follow in the footsteps of his illustrious country¬ 
man, has also left us two sonnets adapted to a similar purpose. 
Noble emblem this with which to cheer the heart of our best 
beloved ! this symbol of the protection which they may find 
in the security of our love—that asylum from the cruel wrongs 
of a careless world. How beautifully has Moore, in one of his 
melodies, expressed this sentiment! a sentiment which em¬ 
bodies the wild, passionate, unselfish ardour of love—of love 
pure and uncontaminated with the taint of earth : 
“ Come, rest in my bosom, my own stricken deer: 
Though the herd have fled from thee, thy home is still here; 
Here still is the smile that no cloud can o’ercast, 
And a heart and a hand all thy own to the last. 
