e picture was called the _Garland Twiner_. It is related that
Antony for some time mistrusting Cleopatra made her taste in the first
instance every thing presented to him at her banquets. One day "the
Serpent of old Nile" after dipping her own coronet of flowers into her
goblet drank up the wine and then directed him to follow her example. He
was off his guard. He dipped his chaplet in his cup. The leaves had been
touched with poison. He was just raising the cup to his lips when she
seized his arm, and said "Cease your jealous doubts, for know, that if
I had desired your death or wished to live without you, I could easily
have destroyed you." The Queen then ordered a prisoner to be brought
into their presence, who being made to drink from the cup, instantly
expired.[059]

Some of the nosegays made up by "flower-girls" in London and its
neighbourhood are sold at such extravagant prices that none but the very
wealthy are in the habit of purchasing them, though sometimes a poor
lover is tempted to present his mistress on a ball-night with a bouquet
that he can purchase only at the cost of a good many more leaves of
bread or substantial meals than he can well spare. He has to make every
day a banian-day for perhaps half a month that his mistress may wear a
nosegay for a few hours. However, a lover is often like a cameleon and
can almost live on air--_for a time_--"promise-crammed." 'You cannot
feed capons so.'

At Covent Garden Market, (in London) and the first-rate Flower-shops, a
single wreath or nosegay is often made up for the head or hand at a
price that would support a poor labourer and his family for a month. The
colors of the wreaths are artfully arranged, so as to suit different
complexions, and so also as to exhibit the most rare and costly flowers
to the greatest possible advantage.

All true poets

--The sages
Who have left streaks of light athwart their pages--

have contemplated flowers--with a passionate love, an ardent admiration;
none more so than the sweet-souled Shakespeare. They are regarded by the
imaginative as the fairies of the vegetable world--the physical
personifications of etherial beauty. In _The Winter's Tale_ our great
dramatic bard has some delightful floral allusions that cannot be too
often quoted.

Here's flowers for you,
Hot lavender, mint, savory, majoram,
The marigold, that goes to bed with the sun,
And with him rises weeping these are fl