had on the spirits of an acquaintance with whom he was making a tour in Normandy, in the first summer after the restoration of Louis XVIII. " He had been induced to join a small party and leave his home, for the first time, to visit the opposite coast; but so truly British were his habits, that nothing could please or satisfy him. The soup was meagre, the pottage acid, the peas sweet, the wine sour, the coffee bitter; the girls brown, their eyes too black, their caps too high, their petticoats too short, their language unintelligible; their houses old, the inns dirty, the country too open, the roads too straight: in short, he saw every thing with such discontented eyes as to render the party uncomfortable, until good fortune led us to a rustic inn, where, in a small garden, were growing several fine Stocks, which, he affirmed, were the first good things he had seen since he left Sussex. On hearing the landlady acknowledge them to be de Girofliers de Brompton, he insisted on halting at her house, where he treated the party with a dejeuner à la fourchette, and left the village with a sprig of the Brompton Stock in his button-hole, his eyes sparkling

with champagne and good-humour, which lasted for the remainder of the journey, during which he often exclaimed, "Thanks to the Brompton Stock!"

MARIGOLD.

GRIEF.

I ONCE saw, in a rich gallery of paintings, a pretty miniature, in which the artist had represented Grief under the form of a young man, pale and languishing, whose reclining head seemed bowed down by the weight of a wreath of Marigolds.

Every body is familiar with this golden flower, which is a conventional emblem of distress of mind. It is distinguished by many singular properties. It blossoms the whole year; and, on that account, the Romans termed it the flower of the calends, in other words, of all the months. Its flowers are open only from nine in the morning till three in the afternoon. They, however, always turn towards the sun, and follow his course from east to west. In July and August, these flowers emit, during the night, small luminous sparks. In this point they resemble the nasturtium and many other flowers of the same colour.

The melancholy signification of the Marigold may be modified in a thousand ways. Combined with roses, the symbol expresses the bitter sweets and pleasant pains of love. Alone it expresses grief; interwoven with other flowers, the varying events of life, the " mingled yarn of good and ill together." In the East, a bouquet of Marigolds and poppies expresses this thought -"I will allay your pain." It is more especially by such modifications that the Language of Flowers becomes the interpretation of our thoughts. Marguerite of Orleans, the maternal grandmother of Henry IV., chose for her armorial device a Marigold turning towards the sun, and for motto, Je ne veux suivre que lui seul." By this device the virtuous princess conveyed the idea that all her thoughts and affections turned towards heaven, as the Marigold towards the sun.

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One of our older poets thus moralizes over this flower:

When, with a serious musing, I behold
The grateful and obsequious Marigold,
How duly, every morning, she displays

Her open breast when Phoebus spreads his rays;

How she observes him in his daily walk

Still bending towards him her small slender stalk;
How, when he down declines, she droops and mourns
Bedew'd as 't were with tears till he returns;
And how she veils her flowers when he is gone,

As if she scorned to be looked upon

By an inferior eye, or did contemn

To wait upon a meaner light than him:
When this I meditate, methinks the flowers
Have spirits far more generous than ours',
And give us fair examples to despise
The servile fawnings and idolatries

Wherewith we court these earthly things below,
Which merit not the service we bestow.

WITHERS.