PREFACE. 
Most of the prose portions of the following pages, 
have been adopted from an English work, entitled 
“ The Sentiment of Flowers.” The editor has made a 
few alterations and additions, in order to adapt it to 
American readers, and has illustrated the whole with 
poetical sentiments, original and selected. 
As an apology may be deemed necessary for appa¬ 
rent egotism, in introducing so frequently her own 
effusions, among those of a far higher order, it seems 
proper to state, that, where an appropriate quotation 
did not immediately occur to memory, it appeared the 
shortest and easiest, if not the wisest way to compose, 
at the moment, a few lines or verses suitable to the 
flower and its sentiment. 
