wers, and
kept a succession of them about him in his study and at his table. Now
the union of books and flowers is more particularly agreeable. Nothing,
in my view, is half so delightful as a library set off with these
beautiful productions of the earth during summer, or indeed, any other
season of the year. A library or study, opening on green turf, and
having the view of a distant rugged country, with a peep at the ocean
between hills, a small fertile space forming the nearest ground, and an
easy chair and books, is just as much of local enjoyment as a thinking
man can desire--I reck not if under a thatched or slated roof, to me it
is the same thing. A favourite author on my table, in the midst of my
bouquets, and I speedily forget how the rest of the world wags. I fancy
I am enjoying nature and art together, a consummation of luxury that
never palls upon the appetite--a dessert of uncloying sweets.

Madame Roland seems to have felt very strongly the union of mental
pleasure with that afforded to the senses by flowers. She somewhere
says, "La vue d'une fleur carresse mon imagination et flatte mes sens a
un point inexprimable; elle reveille avec volupte le sentiment de mon
existence. Sous le tranquil abri du toit paternel, j'etois heureuse des
enfance avec des fleurs et des livres; dans l'etroite enciente d'une
prison, au milieu des fers imposes par la tyrannie la plus revoltante,
j'oublie l'injustice des hommes, leurs sottises, et mes maux, avec des
livres et des fleurs." These pleasures, however, are too simple to be
universally felt.

There is something delightful in the use which the eastern poets,
particularly the Persian, make of flowers in their poetry. Their
allusions are not casual, and in the way of metaphor and simile only;
they seem really to hold them in high admiration. I am not aware that
the flowers of Persia, except the rose, are more beautiful or more
various than those of other countries. Perhaps England, including her
gardens, green-houses, and fields, having introduced a vast variety from
every climate, may exhibit a list unrivalled, as a whole, in odour and
beauty. Yet flowers are not with us held in such high estimation as
among the Orientals, if we are to judge from their poets.

Bowers of roses and flowers are perpetually alluded to in the writings
of eastern poets. The Turks, and indeed the Orientals in general, have
few images of voluptuousness without the richest flowers contributing
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