342 
THE LADIES' FLORAL CABINET. 
Rookh.” There was never a more splendid empire than 
that of the Mogols at Delhi, and of all Mogols no priuee 
was more fond of luxurious pleasures than the Emperor 
Shah Jehan. Every summer he passed several months 
in the lovely vale of Cashihere. where, with music, danc¬ 
ing:, feasting, and exclusions by land and water, he be¬ 
guiled the time in a constant succession of varied eu joy- 
ments. In this favorite retreat he laid out the gardens 
so famous in song and story. Ho expense was spared in 
the lavish embellishment of these grounds. The gardens 
were intersected by canals, all flowing from a fairy lake 
in the centre, and erected on arches: over these were 
several elegant saloons, to which the ladies of the court 
resorted to take sherbet, coffee, and other refreshments. 
Here the radiant, dark-eyed Aloslemans wandered with 
their turbaned lords among the bending trees, or rowed 
upon the fairy lake amid countless Rose leaves, while 
the fragrant bowers echoed to the music of harp and 
dulcimer and the soft voices of graceful dancing girls. 
The once beautiful gardens have gone to decay like 
most other monuments of the former wealth and gran¬ 
deur of Hindoostan. but the memories of the charming 
Mogol princesses, Noor Mahal, Moomtasee and Lalla 
Rookh, still haunt the place, and Moore's musical lines 
recall the vanished magnificence: 
14 Who has not heard of the vale of Cashmere. 
With its Roses the fairest that earth ever gave. 
Its temples and grottos and fountains as clear 
As the love-lighted eyes that hang over their wave 5 ” 
Famous in English history are the gardens of Wood- 
stock, where Henry H. kept his fair Rosamond, and 
where the jealous and cruel Queen Eleanor found her 
beautiful rival and forced her to take her choice of 
death either from the poisoned chalice or the jeweled 
dagger. Near London were the gardens of the Temple 
where, according to tradition, the famous dispute took 
place between Somerset and York in the wars of the 
Roses, the latter crying in his hot rivalry: 
* 4 Let him who is a true-born gentleman. 
And stands upon the honor of his birth. 
If he supposes I have pleaded truth. 
From off this briar pluck a white Rose with me.” 
To which Somerset answers: 
" Let him who is no coward, nor no flatterer, 
But dare maintain the party of the truth, 
Thick a red Rose from off this thorn with mo.” 
About this time John Morton, Bishop of Ely, had a 
garden at Holborn, where he grow excellent straw¬ 
berries. Shakespeare commemorates the good bishop’s 
garden in his tragedy of Richard III., making his 
dwarfed, misshapen hero speak after this wise: 
” My Lord of Ely, when 1 was last at Holborn, 
I saw good strawberries in your garden there, 
I do beseech you, send for some of thorn.” 
Sir Thomas More had a fine garden at Chelsea, which 
was a place of resort to princes and learned men, and 
elicited praise from Erasmus. Here Henry VIII. used 
to walk with the master of the beautiful grounds, with 
an arm around More's neck; but when a few years later 
the Lord Chancellor would not sanction his divorce and 
his marriage with Anne Boleyn, this same king had Sir 
Thomas's head cut off at the Tower. 
There are many other gardens of note and interest 
mentioned in history, a tithe of which we have not time 
to name. Even as we write there comes to us the scent 
of the fruit trees that Henry IV. planted at Montpelier, 
and of the aromatic herbs in the botanical gardens of 
Alphonse d'Este. duke of Ferrara. Who would not like 
to have wandered with Pope through his attractive 
garden at Twickenham, or to have seen Swift cutting 
Asparagus in the garden of Sir William Temple? As 
we glance down through the ages it almost seems as if 
the best part of history bad been enacted in a garden, at 
least its most social and gossippy features. Solomon 
wooed his dusky, dark-tressed bride in a garden; and on 
the monuments of Assyria, King Sennacherib is repre¬ 
sented drinking wine with his queen under a flower- 
arbor in a spacious pleasaunce. So love and life have 
moved on, while their brightest splendor seems to hover 
around the walks and terraces, the arbors and fountains 
of these earthly paradises. Let us obey the behest of 
the wise caliph, Abderahman, and plant gardens. 
F. M. Colby. 
A FESTIVAL OF FLOWERS. 
Mast years ago my people used to celebrate the 
festival of flowers in the spring of the year. I have 
been to three of them in the course of my life. Oh, 
with what delight we girls used to watch every spring 
for the time when we could meet with our heart’s de¬ 
light, the young men whom in civilized life you call 
beaux. We would all go in company to see if the flow¬ 
ers we were named for were yet in bloom, for almost 
all the girls were named for flowers. We talked about 
them in our wigwams, telling our family of them, thus: 
“Oh, I saw myself to-day in full bloom!” 
We would talk of ourselves in this way all the even¬ 
ing with such delight and such beautiful thoughts of 
the happy day when we should meet with those who 
admired us, and helped us to sing the flower songs. But 
we were always sorry for those that were not named 
after some flower, because we knew they could not join 
in the flower songs like ourselves, who were named for 
flowers of all kinds. 
At last one evening came a beautiful voice which 
made every girl’s heart throb with happiness. It was the 
chief, and every one hushed to hear what he said to-day. 
“ My dear daughters, we are told that you have seen 
yourselves in the hills and in the valleys in full bloom. 
Five days from to-night your festival day will come. I 
know every young man’s heart stops beating while I am 
talking. I know how it was with me long days ago. I 
used to wish the flower festival would come every day. 
Dear young men and young women, you are saying, 
Why put it off five days? You all know that it is our 
rule. It gives you time to think, and to show your 
secret heart your flower.” 
All the girls who have flower names go together, and 
those who have not go together also. Our fathers and 
mothers and grandmothers and grandfathers make a 
place for them where they can dance. Each one gathers 
the flower she is named for, and they make them into 
wreaths aud crowns and scarfs, and dress up in them. 
