PRIMROSE. EARLY YOUTH. THE saffron cups of the primrose announce that period of the year when Winter, retiring, sees the hem of his snowy garment adorned with an embroidery of flowers. It is no longer the time of frosts, nor is the period yet come of settled fine weather. Just so does maiden beauty balance for an interesting period between infancy and youth. The timid Aglae has hardly seen her fifteenth year; she wishes to partake, but can no longer with propriety join, in the gambols of her young companions. She, however, contemplates them and her heart yearns to follow them; like them she would be happy to form and toss from one to the other the perfumed ball of platted primroses. But a distaste she cannot comprehend has begun to alienate the wishes of her young heart from joys so innocent and fleeting! D The re-appearance of the primrose announces this; but the flower, also, tells her that her happy day of childhood is passed away. Alas! when some few years more have elapsed, the same returning primrose will tell her that the days of love and youth are also fled. Rose. Ivy. Myrtle. Prauty. Constant friendship. Love : To beauty friendship and love 2. Published by Saunders & Otley Conduit Street. MYRTLE. LOVE. THE oak was always consecrated to Jupiter, the olive to Minerva, and the myrtle to Venus. A perpetual verdure, supple perfumed branches loaded with flowers, that appear destined to adorn the forehead of love, have rendered this tree worthy of being dedicated to the goddess of beauty. At Rome the temple of the goddess was surrounded by a grove of myrtles; and in Greece she was adored under the name of Myrtylla. When Venus rose from the bosom of the waves, the Hours presented her a scarf of a thousand colours, and a wreath of myrtle. After her victory over Pallas and Juno, she was crowned with myrtle by the Graces. When surprised, one day, on issuing from the bath, by a troop of satyrs, she sought refuge behind a myrtle bush; and it was with the branches of the same plant that she revenged herself on the audacious Psyche, who had dared to compare her transitory |