the sweetest of her smiles; that, through them, we comprehend the exultation of her joys: and that, by them, she wafts her songs of thanksgiving to the heaven above her, which repays her tribute of gratitude with looks of love. Yes, flowers have their language. Theirs is an oratory, that speaks in perfumed silence, and there is tenderness, and passion, and even the light heartedness of mirth in the variegated beauty of their vocabulary. To the poetical mind, they are not mute to each other; to the pious, they are not mute to their Creator..... No spoken word can approach to the delicacy of sentiment to be inferred from a flower seasonably offered, the softest impression may thus be conveyed without offence, and even profound grief alleviated, at a moment when the most tuneful voice would grate harshly on the ear, and when the stricken soul can be soothed only by unbroken silence."* Thus writes,

A true professor of the gentle art,

Deep read in that sweet lore, which well he teaches,

A mystic language, perfect in each part,

Made up of bright-hued thoughts, and perfumed speeches; A goodly book he hath, wherefrom to draw His texts and lessons; on its living pages We gaze in wonder, not unmixed with awe, Reading the records of long-vanished ages: Bright are the characters, and fair the forms,

And sweet the sounds before us, and around us; A gentle ardour every bosom warms,

As though a dreamy spell entranced and bound us, Hopes and affections, feelings and delights,

In bright embodiment stand out before us,

All that allures the spirit and delights

The soul, while seraph music floateth o'er us.

* Language of Flowers.

Oh, wondrous tongue. Oh, language of the flowers!
Writ in that volume rich with nature's treasures,
With Poesy deep hid in leafy bowers

Thy teacher walks 'mid thickly scattered pleasures;
And down the shady lanes, and in the fields,

And through the garden he his pupil taketh,

Marking each blossom which instruction yields,

And all that in the bosom thought awaketh."-H. G. A

But let us recur to the words of this "Professor of the gentle art," and evidence their truth by a few examples

shewing the effect of

stricken with grief.

“floral language” upon a mind Listen to PHILASTER :

"I have a boy,

Sent by the gods, I hope, to this intent,
Not yet seen in the court. Hunting the buck,
I found him sitting by a fountain's side,
Of which he borrowed some to quench his thirst,
And paid the nymph again as much in tears:
A garland lay him by, made by himself
Of many several flowers, bred in the bay,
Stuck in that mystic order, that the rareness
Delighted me. But ever when he turned
His tender eyes upon 'em, he would weep,
As if he meant to make 'em grow again.
Seeing such pretty helpless innocence
Dwell in his face, I asked him all his story.
He told me that his parents gentle died,
Leaving him to the mercy of the fields,

Which gave him roots, and of the crystal springs,
Which did not stop their courses; and the sun,
Which still, he thanked him, yielded him his light.
Then took he up his garland, and did show
What every flower, as country people hold,
Did signify; and how all, ordered thus,

Expressed his grief: And, to my thoughts, did read
The prettiest lecture of his country art

D

That could be wished. I gladly entertained him,
Who was as glad to follow, and have got
The trustiest, loving'st, and the gentlest boy,
That ever master kept. Him will I send

To wait on you, and bear our hidden love."

BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.

Thus did the gentle boy mitigate his grief by turning an emblematic wreath into a mute expression of it.

"Give sorrow words: the grief, that does not speak,
Whispers the o'er-fraught heart, and bids it break."

Says Malcolm to the bereaved husband and father, in "Macbeth," and this poor orphan had hit upon a mode of giving his "sorrow words," more touching, perhaps, than a more loud and violent utterance could have been. Another bard has given us an example of the power which he attributes to flowers for allaying the tempest of grief, rage, and hate, passions which sometimes meet and struggle for mastery in the human bosom, rendering him whom they controul speechless, and sullen as the cloud, before the rattling thunder and the vivid lightning breaks forth, to scathe and destroy. In "The Bride of Abydos," Selim, after listening to the taunts and reproaches of old Giaffir, stands thus moody and silent, a prey to these contending passions, when:

"To him Zulieka's eye was turned,
But little from his aspect learned;

Thrice paced she slowly through the room,

And watched his eye-it still was fixed:

She snatched the urn, wherein was mixed

The Persian Atar-gul's perfume,

And sprinkled all its odours o'er

The pictured roof and marbled floor:

The drops, that through his glittering vest
The playful girl's appeal addressed,
Unheeded o'er his bosom flew,

As if that breast were marble too.
'What sullen yet? it must not be-
Oh! gentle Selim this from thee?'
She saw in curious order set

The fairest flowers of Eastern land-
'He loved them once-may touch them yet,
If offered by Zulieka's hand.

The childish thought was hardly breathed
Before the rose was plucked and wreathed;
The next fond moment saw her seat
Her fairy form at Selim's feet:

This rose, to calm my brother's cares,
A message from the Bulbul bears;
It says to-night he will prolong,
For Selim's ear his sweetest song;
And though his note is somewhat sad,
He'll try for once a strain more glad,
With some faint hope his altered lay
May sing these gloomy thoughts away.'

He lived-he breathed-he moved-he felt ;
He raised the maid from where she knelt;
His trance was gone-his keen eye shone

With thoughts that long in darkness dwelt;

With thoughts that burn-in rays that melt."-BYRON.

Let us present our readers with another picture, somewhat similar to the first, only that the grief is here deeper and more irremediable; a maiden ruined and betrayed, goes mad; she is a mother without lawful claims on him who should protect her, and her babe is left to perish on " a hoary cliff that watched the sea," and so,

"She lived on alms, and carried in her hand

Some withered stalks she gathered in the spring;

When any
asked the cause, she smiled, and said
They were her sisters, and would come and watch
Her grave when she was dead. She never spoke
Of her deceased father, mother, home,

Or child, or heaven, or hell, or God, but still

In lonely places walked, and ever gazed

Upon the withered stalks, and talked to them;

Till wasted to the shadow of her youth,

With woe too wide to see beyond, she died."-POLLOK.

These withered stalks were to her as beautiful and full of perfume as when they were first plucked, and she regarded them as the friends and companions of her youth, talking to them, and receiving answers-words of love and affection. We are here reminded of poor Ophelia who in her madness made "fantastic garlands"

"Of crow flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples."

the

Of which it has been observed that they are all emblematic flowers, the first signifying, Fair Maid; second, stung to the quick; the third, her virgin bloom; the fourth, under the cold hand of death; and the whole being wild flowers, might denote the bewildered state of her faculties.

"It would be difficult," says the author of this observation, "to find a more emblematic wreath for this interesting victim of disappointed love and filial sorrow." This is only one of many instances in which our greatest poet has displayed his fondness for flowers, and his delicate appreciation of their uses and similitudes. We have another in the "Winter's Tale," where he makes Perdita give flowers to her visitors appropriate to, and symbolical of, their various ages. See Act 4, Scene 3.