illustrious Lily family, a Lily-the Lily, we still fondly call it) is a native of our own fair plains and bosky dells; indeed, from the chill air of Lapland to the genial sunshine of bright beaming Italy, the fragile and fragrant Lily of the Valley may be found. In the woods of Eileriede, near Hanover, they grow in the most luxuriant profusion, and quite a festival is held during their time of flowering. Every house has a bouquét of The small-leaved, lesser Lilies, Shading, like detected light, Their little green-tipt lamps of white; and the woods are crowded with parties celebrating this floral anniversary. We might almost believe the Lilies must sometimes blush in surprise and anger (if such gentle creatures could be imagined. guilty of human feelings) at some of the quaint and extravagant comparisons which Poets of the olden time used to draw between the charms of their demi-goddess ladye loves, and this fairest of all fair flowers. Hear the following affirmation of an anonymous gentleman, who wrote in the year 1658, "to his Mistresse:" I'll tell you whence the rose did first grow red, And whence the Lilly whiteness borrowed. You blushed; and then the rose with red was dight, The Lilly kiss't your hands, and so came white. Before that time the rose was but a stain, The Lilly naught but paleness did contain; How exquisitely graceful and melodious is this, yet straining even the wide licence of a poet's fancy. The Pansy boasts a greater variety of aliases than most flowers; it is known as the Heartsease, Love-in-idleness, La Pensée, from which significant name we derive the word Pansy; and has also many rustic appellations, such as "a Kiss at the Garden Gate," "Pink o' my John," &c. Although every flower which our divine Shakspeare has mentioned claims from us an immortality of love, yet the Pansy seems especially dedicated to him. Other Bards have written most sweet and dainty conceits about the blushing rose, and the fair lily, and the blue violet, and many another gentle bud and gorgeous blossom; but none have so entirely appropriated any to themselves as Shakspeare has "the Pansy freaked with jet." He has given the fable to the Flower; and a passage of more perfect poetical beauty cannot exist, than the scene where Oberon directs Puck to "fetch him this herb;" but as it precedes my illustrative poem, I shall omit it here. How touchingly poor Ophelia mingles the Pansy in her gifts of token flowers: "There's Pansies- that's for thoughts!" Herrick, in his usual quaint fanciful way, gives a different account, HOW PANSIES OR HART-EASE CAME FIRST. Frolick virgins once these were, Overloving, living here; Being here their ends deny'd, Ran for sweethearts mad, and dy'd. Love, in pitie of their teares, And their losse in blooming yeares, For their restlesse here-spent houres, Gave them hart's-ease turned to floures. Thus the Heartsease is made the emblem-flower of those coquettish fair ones, whose youthful smiles and blandishments have failed in attaining the end so devoutly wished; though, for my own part, I am much inclined to dispute the justice of Master Herrick's decision, inasmuch as coquetry, or, to use a more modern term, flirtation, in youth, cannot possibly procure hearts ease in old age. To attempt any thing like an original illustration of a flower so invested with poetry by our sovereign of song, would be, if not "to gild refined gold," at least to place the counterfeit beside the true metal, as if to betray itself. I have only endeavoured, by introducing some young and popular descendants of the Shakspearian favourite, to render the quoted passages yet more familiar, and the emblems more evident and varied. If my introduction of these modern beauties, as candidates for participation in the honours awarded to their ancient, but far less brilliant namesakes, should induce any Pansy fancier to acknowledge the poetical, as well as the scientific and fashionable claims of the fair token-flowers, my sketches, both of pen and pencil, may happily prove something more than a matter of "love and idleness." Here the author may be supposed to courtsey her adieu, for a season, to the kind readers who have companioned her in her prosaic ramble among the Flowers selected as illustrations of Spring. Like an actress who performs several parts in one play, she must now change her character, and pray a "continuance of patronage in the poetic and pictorial line," until the next sweet Season, with its bright Flowers and fanciful fables, asks a similar introduction from her prosaic pen. |