ing truth, handed down by oral tradition and sculptured emblems from one generation to another; pointing back through the dark to the great fountain of all things, and telling, in words and images not yet illegible, the simple story of the birth of nature. Beautiful indeed are these revelations of the flowers; sweet old time that, when green leaves and yellow blossoms were parts of the life of man, and the fragrance of the wood-cups mingled with the globules of his blood, filling his heart and hands with a holy purpose, one with nature, with God, and with himself.

Amid the luxuriance of the land of the sun, man was born into a world of flowers. Nourished with the milk of a mother whose life and love had flown together through those channels of religious beauty, he goes forth in his youth to the fields and the forests, and kneels before the protecting lord of spirits, the adorable Ganesa, the son of Siva, whose images are placed beside the highways, in the jungles, and amid the pastures surrounded with green beauty and with flowers. The god himself is represented by an upright stake of the plant Cacay,* which of all green herbs is most sacred to Ganesa. Round this rustic image of the god, the ground is levelled and consecrated, and then the sincere worshipper kneels and makes his offering of milk and honey.† When his blood, warmed into the generosity of manhood and love, beats and burns in his bosom, it is Cama,‡ the son of Maya, who, with a bow of flowers strung with

*Cassia fistula.

+ Buchanan's "Journey into Mysore," i. 52.

Cama is the Cupid in the mythology of the Paranas.

stinging bees, has shot an arrow, tipped with an amra blossom, at his heart.

"Quick from his bee-strung bow an arrow flew,

Its point an amra, fresh with morning dew."

Neither a blind god nor a fat baby is this Cupid of the Oriental fiction. His mother, Maya, is imaginative power, since, according to some Hindoo philosophers, whatever exists, exists only in a system of perception, wholly dependant on the imagination; and hence all things are but illusions of the mind. 66 Except the first cause (Brahme), whatever may appear or may not appear in the mind, know that it is the mind's Maya, or delusion, as light and darkness." The warm impulse of the brain being the parent of love, Cama himself, though sailing on the wings of the gay lory (or parrot), attended by his dancing nymphs, is a spiritual essence only; for Siva, writhing under the smart of his arrow, flung at him a flame of fire, and consumed his body, so sublimating that which is only beautiful when of the spirit.

Neither do flowers fail this son of Mizraim, when he subdues the raging flame into a genial and cheering warmth, and makes it burn as an oblation upon the altar of a home. His hand is bound to that of his bride by a wisp of the sacred cusa grass, by a priest whose vestments are wrought of the sara or jungle plant,‡ arranged in triple cords according to the precepts of the holy Sastras.§ If in his lifetime he perform good works, and

豪“ Metamorphosis of Sona," p. 6.

Saccharum spartaneum of Linnæus.

§ "Menu," ii ch. ii., v. 42, 43.

† Bhagavata purana.

endear himself to his fellow-men, flowers are strewn in his path and honours heaped upon him—not as in the West, when death has sealed up the fountains of gratitude--but while living, that the heart, while it beats, may know it beats not in vain.* And when, after a life sanctified in act and thought by the poetic breath and symbolic beauty of flowers, death at last imprints an icy kiss upon him, he goes up to the sweet gardens of Nandana to revel amongst the spiritual flowers or joys which blossom there.

But these things are of the past, and though fit for the age of mystery and Paganism, are painfully unfit for the age of Christianity and progress. Beautiful as things of the past, noble memorials of an age of mystery and a race of giants, they would have died out long ago, had the Christian masters of the world been Christians in their life and character. Debauchery, pillage, slavery, exaction, and bloodshed, have marked their steps; and the children of the sun have seen little yet of that spirit of love which forms the first feature of the Christian's preaching.†

* According to the Paranas, flower-strewing is an honour due to the benefactors of the people.

The above was written ten years before the outbreak of the Indian mutiny, and might reasonably be altered, since Britain has shown herself the true friend of India, and her best of benefactors, during seasons of famine and pestilence.

215

FLORAL SYMBOLS.

SYMBOLISM plays a prominent part in the early history. of the human race, and manifests itself in an infinite diversity of forms. It had its first origin as a system among the imaginative people of Oriental climes. Under an intensely blue sky, glowing with unclouded sunshine or glittering with unnumbered stars, it is not surprising that the imagination, once kindled by the contemplation of beauty, should trace in nature a language expressive of the varying phases of the human mind. Religion and poetry thus found language and expression in the symbolic vocabulary of nature, and the most interesting features of Flower Lore are those that have originated in the use of flowers as symbols.

Of these floral symbols, some are of such a general character, and they would be adopted and appreciated so readily by any people, that it would soon become difficult to trace them back to their original forms. The brief existence of the flower would render it a fit representative of the life of man. Literature abounds with metaphors and symbols of this general character. Thus of Corinne, that warm-hearted daughter of Italy, whose affections were as warm and pure as the sunlight of her

native skies, Madame de Stael writes:-"This lovely woman, whose features seemed designed to depict felicity-this child of the sun, a prey to hidden grief— was like a flower, still fresh and brilliant, but within whose leaves may be seen the first dark impress of that withering blight which soon shall lay it low. .. The long black lashes veiled her languid eyes, and threw a shadow over the tintless cheek." Beneath was written this line from the "Pastor Fido "

"Scarcely can we say this was a rose."

A similar passage occurs in a lament for Lady Jane Grey:

"Thou didst die,

Even as a flower beneath the summer ray,
In incensed beauty; and didst take thy way,
Even like its fragrance, up into the sky."

J. W. ORD.

In such a tone of subdued eloquence does the sister of Sir Philip Sydney mourn over the memory of her sainted and incomparable brother :—

"Break now your garlands, oh, ye shepherd lasses,

Since the fair flower that them adorned is gone;
The flower that them adorned is gone to ashes;
Never again let lass put garland on :

Instead of garland, wear sad cypress now,

And bitter elder, broken from the bough."

The language of deep feeling is always poetical, and in every age of the world's history flowers have aided in giving force to the utterance of the heart's passion, whether of love, hate, sorrow, or joy.