*64 LANGUAGE AND 
Voices, the true and kind, 
Strange are to me ; 
I have lost heart and mind, 
Thinking of thee,. 
Mrs. Suott. 
The Myrtle, like the rose, is generally con¬ 
sidered symbolic of love, and by the Greeks and 
Romans was consecrated to Venus, around 
whose temples they planted groves of it; and, 
when the votaries of this goddess sacrificed to 
her. they, like her attendant graces, wore myr¬ 
tle chaplets. Mythologists assert that she, the 
Goddess of Beauty, was crowned by the Hours 
with a wreath of this plant when she sprang 
from the foam of the sea, and also that her head 
was decked with it when Paris awarded her the 
golden apple, the prize for supremacy of beauty. 
Once, when surprised by a troop of satyrs as 
she emerged from her bath, she found shelter 
behind the foliage of a myrtle; and it was with 
bunches of the same plant that she caused the 
unfortunate Psyche to be chastised, for having 
been so audacious as to compare her earthly 
charms with the celestial beauty of her mother- 
in-law. It was under the name of Myrtilla 
that Venus was worshipped in Greece. 
This shrub is supposed to have derived its 
name from Myrsine, an Athenian maiden, and 
favorite of Minerva, said to have been meta¬ 
morphosed into the myrtle; at any rate it owes 
its origin to a Greek word signifying, 'perfume. 
