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these being all the sacred or double number of Three. In later days, the Shamrock or Trefoil, and the Pansy, or Herb Trinity, were regarded as symbolising the Trinity. Cruciform flowers are, at the present day, all regarded as of good omen, having been marked with the Sign of the Cross, and thus symbolising Redemption.

The presence of flowers as symbols and language on the monuments of Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, India, and other countries of the past, and the graceful floral adornments sculptured on the temples of the Græco-Roman period, demonstrate how great a part flower and plant symbolism played in the early history of mankind. The Jews, learning the art from the Egyptians, preserved it in their midst, and introduced plant emblems in their Tabernacle, in their Temple, and on the garments of the priests. Flowers with golden rays became symbols of the Sun; and as the Sun was the giver of life and warmth, the bringer of fertility, tha symbolic flowers stood as symbol-words for these great gifts; and gradually all the mysterious phenomena connected with birth, reproduction, and fecundity, were represented in plant, flower, end fruit symbolism; for not only were flowers early used as a pictorial language, but the priests made use of fruits, herbs, shrubs, and trees to symbolise light, life, warmth, and generation. Let us take a few examples:-When in the Spring, church altars and fonts are piously adorned with white Lilies, which are, in some countries, carried about, worn, and presented by ladies to each other in the month of May, few of them, we may be sure, imagine that they are perpetuating the plant symbolism of the Sun-worship of ancient Egypt. Miss Marshall tells us that "in Catholic countries the yellow anthers are carefully removed; their white filaments alone are left, not, as folks think, that the flower may remain pure white, but that the fecundating or male organs being removed, the Lilies may be true flower symbols or visible words for pure virgins; for the white dawn as yet unwedded to the day-for the pure cold Spring as yet yielding no blossoms and Summer fruits." Of the flowers consecrated to their deities by the symbolworshipper of India and Egypt, the most prominent is the sacred Lotus, whose leaf was the "emblem and cradle of creative might.” It was anciently revered in Egypt as it is now in Hindustan, Thibet, and Nepaul, where the people believe it was in the consecrated bosom of this plant that Brahma was born, and that Osiris delights to float. From its peculiar organisation the Lotus is virtually self-productive: hence it became the symbol of the reproductive power of all nature, and was worshipped as a symbol of the All-Creative Power. The same floral symbol occurs wherever in the northern hemisphere symbolic religion has prevailed. The sacred images of the Tartars, Japanese, and Indians are almost all represented as resting upon Lotus-leaves. The Chinese divinity. Puzza, is seated in a Lotus, and the Japanese god is represented sitting in a Water-Lily. The Onion was formerly held in the

highest esteem as a religious symbol in the mysterious solemnities and divinations of the Egyptians and Hindus. In the first place, its delicate red veins and fibres rendered it an object of veneration, as typifying the blood, at the shedding of which the Hindu shudders. Secondly, it was regarded as an astronomical emblem, for on cutting through it, there appeared beneath the external coat a succession of orbs, one within another, in regular order, after the manner of revolving spheres. The Rose has been made a symbolic flower in every age. In the East, it is the emblem of virtue and loveliness. The Egyptians made it a symbol of silence; the Romans regarded it as typical of festivity. In modern times it is considered the appropriate symbol of beauty and love,—the half-expanded bud representing the first dawn of the sublime passion, and the full-blown flower the maturity of perfect love. The Asphodel, like the Hyacinth of the ancients, was regarded as an emblem of grief and sorrow. The Myrtle, from its being dedicated to Venus, was sacred as a symbol of love and beauty. White flowers were held to be typical of light and innocence, and were consecrated to virgins. Sombre and dark-foliaged plants were held to be typical of disaster and death.

The floral symbols of the Scriptures are worthy of notice. From the circumstance of Elijah having been sheltered from the persecutions of King Ahab by the Juniper, that tree has become a symbol of succour or an asylum. The Almond was an emblem of haste and vigilance to the Hebrew writers; with Eastern poets, however, it was regarded as a symbol of hope. Throughout the East, the Aloe is regarded as a religious symbol, and is greatly venerated. It is expressive of grief and bitterness, and is religiously planted by the Mahommedans at the extremity of every grave. Burckhardt says that they call it by the Arabic name Saber, signifying patience a singularly appropriate name; for as the plant is evergreen, it whispers to those who mourn for the loved ones they have lost, patience in their affliction. The Clover is another sacred plant symbol. St. Patrick chose it as an emblem of the Trinity when engaged in converting the Irish, who have ever since, in the Shamrock, regarded it as a representative plant. The Druids thought very highly of the Trefoil because its leaf symbolised the three departments of nature-the earth, the sea, and the heaven.

But of all plant symbols, none can equal in beauty or sanctity the Passion Flower, the lovely blossom of which, when first met with by the Spanish conquerors of the New World, suggested to their enthusiastic imagination the story of our Saviour's Passion. The Jesuits professed to find in the several parts of the Maracot the crown of thorns, the scourge, the pillar, the sponge, the nails, and the five wounds, and they issued drawings representing the flower with its inflorescence distorted to suit their statements regarding its almost miraculous character. John Parkinson, in

his Paradisus Terrestris (1629), gives a good figure of the Virginian species of the plant, as well as an engraving of "The Jesuites Figure of the Maracoc-Granadillus Frutex Indicus Christi Passionis Imago." But, as a good Protestant, he feels bound to enter his protest against the superstitious regard paid to the flower by the Roman Catholics, and so he writes: "Some superstitious Jesuites would fain make men believe that in the flower of this plant are to

be seen all the markes of our Saviour's Passion: and therefore call it Flos Passionis: and to that end have caused figures to be drawn and printed, with all the parts proportioned out, as thornes, nailes, spear, whip, pillar, &c., in it, and as true as the sea burns, which you may well perceive by the true figure taken to the life of the plant, compared with the figure set forth by the Jesuites, which I have placed here likewise for everyone to see: but these be their advantageous lies (which with them are tolerable, or rather pious

and meritorious) wherewith they use to instruct their people; but I dare say, God never willed His priests to instruct His people with lies: for they come from the Devill, the author of them.'

In early times, it was customary in Europe to employ particular colours for the purpose of indicating ideas and feelings, and in France where the symbolical meaning of colours was formed into a regular system, much importance was attached to the art of symbolising by the selection of particular colours for dresses, ornaments, &c. In this way, flowers of various hues became the apt media of conveying ideas and feelings; and in the ages of chivalry the enamoured knight often indicated his passion by wearing a single blossom or posy of many-hued flowers. In the romance of Perceforet, a hat adorned with Roses is celebrated as a favourite gift of love; and in Amadis de Gaule, the captive Oriana is represented as throwing to her lover a Rose wet with tears, as the sweetest pledge of her unalterable faith. Red was recognised as the colour of love, and therefore the Rose, on account of its tint, was a favourite emblem. Of the various allegorical meanings which were in the Middle Ages attached to this lovely flower, a description will be found in the celebrated Romaunt de la Rose, which was commenced in the year 1620 by Guillaume de Lorris, and finished forty years later by Jean de Meung.

In France, during the Middle Ages, flowers were much employed as emblems of love and friendship. At the banquet given in celebration of the marriage of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, with the English Princess, Margaret, several ingenious automata were introduced, one being a large unicorn, bearing on its back a leopard, which held in one claw the standard of England, and on the other a Daisy, or Marguerite. The unicorn having gone round all the tables, halted before the Duke; and one of the maitres d'hôtel, taking the Daisy from the leopard's claw, presented it, with a complimentary address, to the royal bridegroom.

In the same country, an act of homage, unique in its kind, was paid to a lady in the early part of the seventeenth century. The Duke of Montausier, on obtaining the promise of the hand of Mademoiselle de Rambouillet, sent to her, according to custom, every morning till that fixed for the nuptials, a bouquet composed of the finest flowers of the season. But this was not all: on the morning of New Year's Day, 1634-the day appointed for the marriage he laid upon her dressing-table a magnificently-bound folio volume, on the parchment leaves of which the most skilful artists of the day had painted from nature a series of the choicest flowers cultivated at that time in Europe. The first poets of Paris contributed the poetical illustrations, which were written by the cleverest penmen under the different flowers. The most celebrated of these madrigals, composed by Chapelain on the Crown Imperial, represented that superb flower as having sprung from the blood of Gustavus Adolphus, who fell in the battle of

Lützen; and thus paid, in the name of the Swedish hero, a delicate compliment to the bride, who was a professed admirer of his character. According to a statement published some years since, this magnificent volume, which was called, after the name of the lady, the Garland of Julia, was disposed of, in 1784, at the sale of the Duke de la Vallière's effects, for fifteen thousand five hundred and ten livres (about £650), and was brought to England.

The floral emblems of Shakspeare are evidence of the great poet's fondness for flowers and his delicate appreciation of their uses and similitudes. In 'A Winter's Tale,' Perdita is made to present appropriate flowers to her visitors, symbolical of their various ages; but the most remarkable of Shakspeare's floral symbols occur where poor Ophelia is wearing, in her madness, "fantastic garlands of wild flowers "-denoting the bewildered state of her faculties.

The order of these flowers runs thus, with the meaning of each term beneath :

"A fair maid, stung to the quick; her virgin bloom under the cold hand of death."

Probably no wreath could have been selected more truly typifying the sorrows of this beautiful victim of disappointed love and filial sorrow.

The most noted code of floral signs, used as a language by the Turkish and Greek women in the Levant, and by the African females on the coast of Barbary, was introduced into Western Europe by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and La Mortraie, the companion in exile of Charles XII., and obtained in France and England much popularity as the "Turkish Language of Flowers." This language is said to be much employed in the Turkish harems, where the women practise it, either for the sake of mere diversion in their seclusion, or for carrying on secret communication.

In France and Germany, the language of flowers has taken deep root, and in our own country the poetic symbolisms of Shakspeare, Chaucer, Herrick, Drayton, and others of the earlier bards, laid the groundwork for the very complete system of floral emblemism, or language of flowers, which we now possess. A great many works have been published, containing floral codes, or dictionaries: most of these, however, possess but little merit as expositions of old symbols or traditions, and have been compiled principally from modern sources.

An ancient floral vocabulary, taken from Dierbach's Flora Mythologica der Griechen und Römer, and an approved modern English Dictionary of Flowers,' are appended, in order to make this portion of our subject complete.