A century of English essays : $b An anthology ranging from Caxton to R. L. Stevenson & the writers of our own time
General
A century of English essays : $b An anthology ranging from Caxton to R. L. Stevenson & the writers of our own time
English essays; English literature
And because the breath of flowers is far sweeter in the air (where it
comes and goes, like the warbling of music) than in the hand,
therefore nothing is more fit for that delight, than to know what be
the flowers and plants that do best perfume the air. Roses, damask and
red, are fast flowers of their smells; so that you may walk by a whole
row of them, and find nothing of their sweetness; yea, though it be in
a morning's dew. Bays likewise yield no smell as they grow. Rosemary
little; nor sweet marjoram. That which above all others yields the
sweetest smell in the air, is the violet; specially the white double
violet, which comes twice a year; about the middle of April, and about
Bartholomewtide. Next to that is the musk-rose. Then the
strawberry-leaves dying, which [yield] a most excellent cordial smell.
Then the flower of the vines; it is a little dust, like the dust of a
bent, which grows upon the cluster in the first coming forth. Then
sweet-briar. Then wall-flowers, which are very delightful to be set
under a parlour or lower chamber window. Then pinks and gillyflowers,
specially the matted pink and clove gillyflower. Then the flowers of
the lime-tree. Then the honeysuckles, so they be somewhat afar off. Of
bean flowers I speak not, because they are field flowers. But those
which perfume the air most delightfully, not passed by as the rest,
but being trodden upon and crushed, are three: that is, burnet, wild
thyme, and water-mints. Therefore you are to set whole alleys of them,
to have the pleasure when you walk or tread.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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