142 
LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS. 
VERVAIN. 
SKCHANTMENT. 
I WISH that our botanists would attach a moral 
idea to all the plants they wish to describe. They 
would thus form a sort of universal dictionary, 
understood by all nations, and enduring as the 
world itself, since each spring would reproduce it 
without the slightest alteration of the characters. 
The altars of the great Jupiter are overthrown: 
the forests which witnessed the mysteries of the 
Druids no longer exist; the pyramids of Egypt will 
some day disappear, buried like the Sphynx, be¬ 
neath the sands of the desert: but the lotus and 
acanthus will still blossom on the banks of the 
• ^Nile ; the misletoe will still grow upon the oak; 
and the Vervain upon the barren hills. 
Vervain was employed by the ancients in various 
kinds of divinations : they ascribe to it a thousand 
properties, and among others that of reconciling 
enemies. Whenever the Romans sent their heralds 
