PREFACE. 
When Nature laughs out in all the triumph of’ 
Spring, it may be said, without a metaphor, that, 
in her thousand varieties of flowers, we see the 
sweetest of her smiles; that, through them, we 
comprehend the exultation of her joys; and that, 
by them, she wafts her songs of thanksgiving to 
the heaven above her, which repays her tribute 
of gratitude with looks of love. Yes, flowers 
have their language. Theirs is an oratory, that 
speaks in perfumed silence, and there is tender¬ 
ness, and passion, and even the lightheartedness 
of mirth, in the variegated beauty of their voca¬ 
bulary. To the poetical mind, they are not mute 
to each other ; to the pious, they are not mute to 
