Part 14 (1/2)

At Covent Garden Market, (in London) and the first-rate Flower-shops, a single wreath or nosegay is often made up for the head or hand at a price that would support a poor labourer and his family for a month. The colors of the wreaths are artfully arranged, so as to suit different complexions, and so also as to exhibit the most rare and costly flowers to the greatest possible advantage.

All true poets

--The sages Who have left streaks of light athwart their pages--

have contemplated flowers--with a pa.s.sionate love, an ardent admiration; none more so than the sweet-souled Shakespeare. They are regarded by the imaginative as the fairies of the vegetable world--the physical personifications of etherial beauty. In _The Winter's Tale_ our great dramatic bard has some delightful floral allusions that cannot be too often quoted.

Here's flowers for you, Hot lavender, mint, savory, majoram, The marigold, that goes to bed with the sun, And with him rises weeping these are flowers Of middle summer, and I think they are given To men of middle age.

O, Proserpina, For the flowers now that, frighted, thou lett'st fall From Dis's waggon! Daffodils, That come before the swallow dares, and take The winds of March with beauty, violets dim, But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes, Or Cytherea's breath, pale primroses, That die unmarried ere they can behold Great Phoebus in his strength,--a malady Most incident to maids, bold oxlips and The crown imperial, lilies of all kinds, The flower de luce being one

Shakespeare here, as elsewhere, speaks of ”_pale_ primroses.” The poets almost always allude to the primrose as a _pale_ and interesting invalid. Milton tells us of

The yellow cowslip and the _pale_ primrose[060]

The poet in the ma.n.u.script of his _Lycidas_ had at first made the primrose ”_die unwedded_,” which was a pretty close copy of Shakespeare.

Milton afterwards struck out the word ”_unwedded_,” and subst.i.tuted the word ”_forsaken_.” The reason why the primrose was said to ”die unmarried,” is, according to Warton, because it grows in the shade uncherished or unseen by the sun, who was supposed to be in love with certain sorts of flowers. Ben Jonson, however, describes the primrose as _a wedded lady_--”the Spring's own _Spouse_”--though she is certainly more commonly regarded as the daughter of Spring not the wife. J Fletcher gives her the true parentage:--

Primrose, first born child of Ver

There are some kinds of primroses, that are not _pale_. There is a species in Scotland, which is of a deep purple. And even in England (in some of the northern counties) there is a primrose, the bird's-eye primrose, (Primula farinosa,) of which the blossom is lilac colored and the leaves musk-scented.

In Sweden they call the Primrose _The key of May_.

The primrose is always a great favorite with imaginative and sensitive observers, but there are too many people who look upon the beautiful with a utilitarian eye, or like Wordsworth's Peter Bell regard it with perfect indifference.

A primrose by the river's brim A yellow primrose was to him.

And it was nothing more.

I have already given one anecdote of a utilitarian; but I may as well give two more anecdotes of a similar character. Mrs. Wordsworth was in a grove, listening to the cooing of the stock-doves, and a.s.sociating their music with the remembrance of her husband's verses to a stock-dove, when a farmer's wife pa.s.sing by exclaimed, ”Oh, I do like stock-doves!” The woman won the heart of the poet's wife at once; but she did not long retain it. ”Some people,” continued the speaker, ”like 'em in a pie; for my part I think there's nothing like 'em stewed in inions.” This was a rustic utilitarian. Here is an instance of a very different sort of utilitarianism--the utilitarianism of men who lead a gay town life. Sir W.H. listened, patiently for some time to a poetical-minded friend who was rapturously expatiating upon the delicious perfume of a bed of violets; ”Oh yes,” said Sir W. at last, ”its all very well, but for my part I very much prefer the smell of a flambeau at the theatre.” But intellects far more capacious than that of Sir W.H. have exhibited the same indifference to the beautiful in nature. Locke and Jeremy Bentham and even Sir Isaac Newton despised all poetry. And yet G.o.d never meant man to be insensible to the beautiful or the poetical. ”Poetry, like truth,” says Ebenezer Elliot, ”is a common flower: G.o.d has sown it over the earth, like the daisies sprinkled with tears or glowing in the sun, even as he places the crocus and the March frosts together and beautifully mingles life and death.” If the finer and more spiritual faculties of men were as well cultivated or exercised as are their colder and coa.r.s.er faculties there would be fewer utilitarians. But the highest part of our nature is too much neglected in all our systems of education. Of the beauty and fragrance of flowers all earthly creatures except man are apparently meant to be unconscious. The cattle tread down or masticate the fairest flowers without a single ”compunctious visiting of nature.” This excites no surprize. It is no more than natural. But it is truly painful and humiliating to see any human being as insensible as the beasts of the field to that poetry of the world which G.o.d seems to have addressed exclusively to the heart and soul of man.

In South Wales the custom of strewing all kinds of flowers over the graves of departed friends, is preserved to the present day.

Shakespeare, it appears, knew something of the customs of that part of his native country and puts the following _flowery_ speech into the mouth of the young Prince, Arviragus, who was educated there.

With fairest flowers, While summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele, I'll sweeten thy sad grave. Thou shalt not lack The flower that's like thy face, pale Primrose, nor The azured Harebell, like thy veins; no, nor The leaf of Eglantine; whom not to slander, Out-sweetened not thy breath.

_Cymbeline_.

Here are two more flower-pa.s.sages from Shakespeare.

Here's a few flowers; but about midnight more; The herbs that have on them cold dew o' the night Are strewings fitt'st for graves.--Upon their faces:-- You were as flowers; now withered; even so These herblets shall, which we upon you strow.

_Cymbeline_.

Sweets to the sweet. Farewell!

I hoped thou shoulds't have been my Hamlet's wife; I thought thy bride-bed to have decked, sweet maid, And not t' have strewed thy grave.

_Hamlet_.

Flowers are peculiarly suitable ornaments for the grave, for as Evelyn truly says, ”they are just emblems of the life of man, which has been compared in Holy Scripture to those fading creatures, whose roots being buried in dishonor rise again in glory.”[061]