Vlll 
PREFACE. 
that speaks in perfumed silence, and there is 
tenderness, and passion, and even the light¬ 
heartedness of mirth, in the variegated beauty 
of their vocabulary. To the poetical mind, 
they are not mute to each other; to the pious, 
they are not mute to their Creator: and ours 
shall be the office, in this little volume, to 
translate their pleasing language, and to 
shew that no spoken word can approach to 
the delicacy of sentiment to be inferred from 
a flower seasonably offered ; that the softest 
impressions may be thus conveyed without 
offence, and even profound grief alleviated, 
at a moment when the most tuneful voice 
would grate harshly on the ear, and when 
the stricken soul can be soothed only by un¬ 
broken silence. 
