THE LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS. 
brought branches of it to decorate the altar of wedlock, and 
those who were about to plight their vows there. It was the 
emblem of Hope, too ; and surely that is a hopeful time, when 
the first vow of love is poured into the ear of the bashful, blush¬ 
ing, yet not unwilling maiden. Goldsmith describes 
“ The Hawthorn-bush, with seats beneath the shade, 
For talking age and whispering lovers made.” 
The Hyacinth has been made emblematical of play or game. 
There was an annual solemnity, called Hyacinthia, held at 
Anyclse, in taconia, which lasted three days. According to an 
ancient fable, the flower originated in the blood of Ajax, who 
stabbed himself because the arms of Achilles were given to 
Ulysses and not to him. 
“As . 
Arose 
poets feigned, from Ajax’ streaming blood ^ 
ose, with grief inscribed, a mournful flower. 
One of the most calumniated of plants is the Foxglove. As a 
poisonous plant, this is shunned and disliked by many who do 
not know or consider that it possesses very useful medicinal pro¬ 
perties, teaching us that God hath made nothing but for some 
wise end. Miss Pardoe has attached a fine moral to this plant. 
She says: “The foxglove, springing from amid the rocky 
masses by the wayside, is like virtue struggling ^with adversity, 
and seeming doubly beautiful from the contrast. 
The pretty little Forget-me-not has been transplanted by Miss 
Strickland from the dubious light of legendary song into the 
broad sunshine of veritable history. She says: “This royal 
adventurer—the banished and aspiring (Henry of) Lancaster— 
appears to have been the person who gave the Forget-me-not its 
emblematical and poetical meaning, by uniting it, at the penod 
of his exile, with the initial letters of his watchword, Souvei^e 
vous de moi ; thus rendering it the symbol of remembrance, and, 
like the subsequent fatal roses of York and Lancaster, and 
Stuart, the lily of Bourbon, and the violet of Napoleon, an 
historical flower.” It is a beautiful and graceful little plant, with 
its slender stem, and oblong leaves of a pale semi-transparent 
