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press the idea which would otherwise be attached 
to the amaranth, the gilliflower is substituted 
for the pomegranate blossom, &c. 
The language of flowers is much employed in 
the Turkish harems, where the women practise 
it either for the sake of mere diversion in their 
solitude, or for the purpose of secret communi- 
cation. 
La Motraie, the companion of Charles XII, 
and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, were the 
first who gave celebrity in Europe to the lan- 
guage of flowers. The few examples cited by 
Lady Montagu are not calculated to afford a 
clear and accurate idea of the principles on 
which this language is founded. Its spirit con- 
sists not, as might naturally be supposed, in the 
connexion which fancy may trace between par- 
ticular flowers and certain thoughts and feelings. 
Such an idea never entered the heads of the 
fair inventresses of the oriental language of 
flowers. They have contented themselves with 
merely taking a word which may happen to 
rhyme with the name of any particular flower 
or fruit, and then filling up the given rhyme 
with some fanciful phrase corresponding with 



