INTRODUCTION. 
11 
the dews, and seldom looking upon aught less sacred 
than the stars, as if they were more allied to heaven 
than to earth — that if the virtue, and goodness, 
and love, which they represent, were hut practised by 
mankind, they would again make the children of earth 
what they were in the infancy of the world, and man would 
again be found only “ a little lower than the angels.” 
Ages passed away before Love entered the flowery 
fields and velvet valleys of merry England ; his heart 
had long been light, and his wings unfettered, and he 
cared not now into what quarter of the world he wan¬ 
dered, for he found that wherever he went upon his 
flowery errand, man grew more refined, and woman each 
day bore a closer resemblance to the angels. He visited 
ancient castles, and humble hamlets, and thronged 
thorpes, and thatched granges, and taught everywhere 
this new language of love. If he saw a rustic maiden 
with her head hanging aside, and her hands clasped, he 
plucked the fragrant blossom of the Hawthorn, and 
throwing it at her feet, he whispered into her ear and 
bade her Hope. As his foot dashed away the dew from 
the up-coned Lilac, he gathered the topmost sprig, and 
threw it at her unsuspecting lover, who from that 
moment dated his first emotions of Love. He pointed 
out the spot where many a blue-belled flower grew, and 
there they met, and vowed to be Constant unto death. 
