and associating their
music with the remembrance of her husband's verses to a stock-dove, when
a farmer's wife passing 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 God never meant
man to be insensible to the beautiful or the poetical. "Poetry, like
truth," says Ebenezer Elliot, "is a common flower: God 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 coarser 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 God 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