










THE LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS. 
address them as, “ Athenians! crowned with 
the Violet.” 
There was a most poetic fancy in the sen- 
timent that linked this flower with the name 
of Napoleon. Springing in obscurity, and 
retaining its perfume in death, it was a won- 
derful emblem of him who rose from the 
valleys of Corsica to the throne of the golden 
lilies, and whose name has been a spell of 
power long after he ceased to breathe the air 
of earth. 
It remained for the East to give us a 
language of perfume and beauty, by bestow- 
ing a meaning on buds and blossoms ; though 
the Turkish and Arabic flower-language does 
not much resemble ours, It is formed, not 
by an idea or sentiment originating in the 
flower itself, but by its capacity for rhyming 
with another word, ze. the word with which 
the flower rhymes becomes its significa- 
tion. 
La Mottraie, the companion of. Charles 
XIL., brought the Eastern language of flowers 
to Europe ; but it was the gifted Lady Mary 


















