Garlands.

HE application of flowers and plants to ceremonial purposes is of the highest antiquity. From the earliest periods, man, after he had discovered

"What drops the Myrrh and what the balmy Reed,"

offered up on primitive altars, as incense to the Deity, the choicest and most fragrant woods, the aromatic gums from trees, and the subtle essences he obtained from flowers. In the odorous but intoxicating fumes which slowly ascended, in wreaths heavy with fragrance, from the altar, the pious ancients saw the mystic agency by which their prayers would be wafted from earth to the abodes of the gods; and so, says Mr. Rimmel, "the altars of Zoroaster and of Confucius, the temples of Memphis, and those of Jerusalem, all smoked alike with incense and sweet-scented woods." Nor was the admiration and use of vegetable productions confined to the inhabitants of the old world alone, for the Mexicans, according to the Abbé Clavigero, have, from time immemorial, studied the cultivation of flowers and odoriferous plants, which they employed in the worship of their gods.

But the use of flowers and odorous shrubs was not long confined by the ancients to their sacred rites; they soon began to consider them as essential to their domestic life. Thus, the Egyptians, though they offered the finest fruit and the finest flowers to the gods, and employed perfumes at all their sacred festivals, as well as at their daily oblations, were lavish in the use of flowers at their private entertainments, and in all circumstances of their every-day life. At a reception given by an Egyptian noble, it was customary, after the ceremony of anointing, for each guest to be presented with a Lotus-flower when entering the saloon, and this flower the guest continued to hold in his hand. Servants brought necklaces of flowers composed chiefly of the Lotus; a garland was put round the head, and a single Lotus-bud, or a full-blown flower was so

attached as to hang over the forehead. Many of them, made up into wreaths and devices, were suspended upon stands placed in the room, garlands of Crocus and Saffron encircled the wine cups, and over and under the tables were strewn various flowers. Diodorus informs us that when the Egyptians approached the place of divine worship, they held the flower of the Agrostis in their hand, intimating that man proceeded from a well-watered land, and that he required a moist rather than a dry aliment; and it is not improbable that the reason of the great preference given to the Lotus on these occasions was derived from the same notion.

This fondness of the ancients for flowers was carried to such an extent as to become almost a vice. When Antony supped with Cleopatra, the luxurious Queen of Egypt, the floors of the apartments were usually covered with fragrant flowers. When Sardanapalus, the last of the Assyrian monarchs, was driven to dire extremity by the rapid approach of the conqueror, he chose the death of an Eastern voluptuary: causing a pile of fragrant woods to be lighted, and placing himself on it with his wives and treasures, he soon became insensible, and was suffocated by the aromatic smoke. When Antiochus Epiphanes, the Syrian king, held high festival at Daphne, in one of the processions which took place, boys bore Frankincense, Myrrh, and Saffron on golden dishes, two hundred women sprinkled everyone with perfumes out of golden watering-pots, and all who entered the gymnasium to witness the games were anointed with some perfume contained in fifteen gold dishes, holding Saffron, Amaracus, Lilies, Cinnamon, Spikenard, Fenugreek, &c. When the Roman Emperor Nero sat at banquet in his golden palace, a shower of flowers and perfumes fell upon him; but Heliogabalus turned these floral luxuries into veritable curses, for it was one of the pleasures of this inhuman being to smother his courtiers with flowers.

Both Greeks and Romans caried the delicate refinements of the taste for flowers and perfumes to the greatest excess in their costly entertainments; and it is the opinion of Baccius that at their desserts the number of their flowers far exceeded that of their fruits. The odour of flowers was deemed potent to arouse the fainting appetite; and their presence was rightly thought to enhance the enjoyment of the guests at their banqueting boards:"The ground is swept, and the triclinium clear, The hands are purified, the goblets, too, Well rinsed; each guest upon his forehead bears A wreath'd flow'ry crown; from slender vase A willing youth presents to each in turn A sweet and costly perfume; while the bowl, Emblem of joy and social mirth, stands by, Filled to the brim; and then pours out wine Of most delicious flavour, breathing round Fragrance of flowers, and honey newly made, So grateful to the sense, that none refuse;

While odoriferous fumes fill all the room."-Xenophanes.

In all places where festivals, games, or solemn ceremonials were held, and whenever public rejoicings and gaiety were deemed desirable, flowers were utilised with unsparing hands.

"Set before your doors

The images of all your sleeping fathers,

With Laurels crowned; with Laurels wreath your posts,

And strew with flowers the pavement; let the priest

Do present sacrifice; pour out the wine,

And call the gods to join with you in gladness."-Dryden.

In the triumphal processions of Rome the streets were strewed with flowers, and from the windows, roofs of houses, and scaffolds, the people cast showers of garlands and flowers upon the crowds below and upon the conquerors proudly marching in procession through the city. Macaulay says

"On ride they to the Forum,

While Laurel-boughs and flowers,
From house-tops and from windows,
Fell on their crests in showers."

In the processions of the Corybantes, the goddess Cybele, the protectress of cities, was pelted with white Roses. In the annual festivals of the Terminalia, the peasants were all crowned with garlands of flowers; and at the festival held by the gardeners in honour of Vertumnus on August 23rd, wreaths of budding flowers and the first-fruits of their gardens were offered by members of the craft.

In the sacrifices of both Greeks and Romans, it was customary to place in the hands of victims some sort of floral decoration, and the presiding priests also appeared crowned with flowers.

"Thus the gay victim with fresh garlands crowned,
Pleased with the sacred pipe's enlivening sound.
Through gazing crowds in solemn state proceeds,

And dressed in fatal pomp, magnificently bleeds."-Phillips.

The place erected for offerings was called by the Romans ara, an altar. It was decorated with leaves and grass, adorned with flowers, and bound with woollen fillets: on the occasion of a "triumph" these altars smoked with perfumed incense.

The Greeks had a Nymph of Flowers whom they called Chloris, and the Romans the goddess Flora, who, among the Sabines and the Phoceans, had been worshipped long before the foundation of the Eternal City. As early as the time of Romulus the Latins instituted a festival in honour of Flora, which was intended as a public expression of joy at the appearance of the welcome blossoms which were everywhere regarded as the harbingers of fruits. Five hundred and thirteen years after the foundation of Rome the Floralia, or annual floral games, were established; and after the sibyllic books had been consulted, it was finally ordained that the festival should be kept every 20th day of April, that is four days

before the calends of May-the day on which, in Asia Minor, the festival of the flowers commences. In Italy, France, and Germany, the festival of the flowers, or the festival of spring, begins about the same date-i.e., towards the end of April-and terminates on the feast of St. John.

The festival of the Floralia was introduced into Britain by the Romans; and for centuries all ranks of people went out a-Maying early on the first of the month. The juvenile part of both sexes, in the north, were wont to rise a little after midnight, and walk to some neighbouring wood, accompanied with music and the blowing of horns,

"To get sweet Setywall [red Valerian],
The Honeysuckle, the Harlock,
The Lily and the Lady-smock,

To deck their summer hall."

They also gathered branches from the trees, and adorned them with nosegays and crowns of flowers, returning with their booty homewards, about the rising of the sun, forthwith to decorate their doors and windows with the flowery spoil. The after-part of the day, says an ancient chronicler, was "chiefly spent in dancing round a tall pole, which is called a May-pole; which, being placed in a convenient part of the village, stands there, as it were, consecrated to the goddess of flowers, without the least violation. offered it in the whole circle of the year."

"Your May-pole deck with flowery coronal;
Sprinkle the flowery coronal with wine;
And in the nimble-footed galliard, all,
Shepherd and shepherdess, lively join,
Hither from village sweet and hamlet fair,
From bordering cot and distant glen repair:

Let youth indulge its sport, to old bequeath its care."

Old John Stowe tells us that on May-day, in the morning, "every man, except impediment, would walk into the sweet meadows and green woods, there to rejoice their spirits with the beauty and savour of sweet flowers, and with the harmony of birds praising God in their kind." In the days of Henry VIII. it was the custom for all classes to observe the May-day festival, and we are told that the king himself rode a-Maying from Greenwich to Shooter's Hill, with his Queen Katherine, accompanied by many lords and ladies. Chaucer relates how on May-day

"Went forth all the Court both most and least ;

To fetch the floures fresh, and branch and blome,
And namely Hawthorn brought both page and grome;

And then rejoysen in their great delite,

Eke each at other threw the floures bright.
The Primrose, Violette, and the Golde,

With garlands partly blue and white."

The young maidens repaired at daybreak to the meadows and hill-sides, for the purpose of gathering the precious May-dew, where

with to make themselves fair for the remainder of the year. This old custom is still extant in the north of England and in some districts of Scotland. Robert Fergusson has told how the Scotch lassies swarmed at daybreak on Arthur's Seat:

“On May-day in a fairy ring,

We've seen them round St. Anthon's spring
Frae grass the caller dew-draps wring,
To wet their ein,

And water clear as crystal spring.

To synd them clean."

In Ross-shire the lassies pluck sprigs of Ivy, with the Maydew on them, that have not been touched by steel.

It was deemed important that flowers for May garlands and posies should be plucked before the sun rose on May-day morning; and if perchance, Cuckoo-buds were included in the composition of a wreath, it was destroyed directly the discovery was made, and removed immediately from a posie.

In the May-day sports on the village green, it was customary to choose as May Queen either the best dancer or the prettiest girl, who, at sundown was crowned with a floral chaplet

"See where she sits upon the grassie greene,

The coronation of the rustic queen concluded the out-door festivities of May-day, although her majesty's duties would not appear to have been fulfilled until she reached her home.

"Then all the rest in sorrow,

And she in sweet content,

Gave over till the morrow,

And homeward straight they went ;

But she of all the rest

Was hindered by the way,

For every youth that met her

Must kiss the Queen of May !"

At Horncastle, in Lincolnshire, there existed, till the beginning of the present century, a ceremony which evidently derived its origin from the Roman Floralia. On the morning of May-day, a train of youths collected themselves at a place still known as the May-bank. From thence, with wands enwreathed with Cowslips they walked in procession to the may-pole, situated at the west end of the town, and adorned on that morning with every variety of wild flowers. Here, with loud shouts, they struck together their wands, and, scattering around the Cowslips, testified their thankfulness for the bounteous promise of spring.