“With light fantastic toe, the nymphs
  Thither assembled, thither every swain;
  And o’er the dimpled stream a thousand flowers,
  Pale lilies, roses, violets and pinks,
  Mix’d with the greens of bouret, mint, and thyme,
  And trefoil, sprinkled with their sportive arms,
  Such custom holds along th’ irriguous vales,
  From Wreken’s brow to rocky Dolvoryn,
  Sabrina’s early haunt.”

With this usage may be compared one performed by the fishermen of Weymouth, who on the first of May put out to sea for the purpose of scattering garlands of flowers on the waves, as a propitiatory offering to obtain food for the hungry.  “This link,” according to Miss Lambert, “is but another link in the chain that connects us with the yet more primitive practice of the Red Indian, who secures passage across the Lake Superior, or down the Mississippi, by gifts of precious tobacco, which he wafts to the great spirit of the Flood on the bosom of its waters.”

By the Romans a peculiar reverence seems to have attached to their festive garlands, which were considered unsuitable for wearing in public.  Hence, any person appearing in one was liable to punishment, a law which was carried out with much rigour.  On one occasion, Lucius Fulvius, a banker, having been convicted at the time of the second Punic war, of looking down from the balcony of a house with a chaplet of roses on his head, was thrown into prison by order of the Senate, and here kept for sixteen years, until the close of the war.  A further case of extreme severity was that of P. Munatius, who was condemned by the Triumviri to be put in chains for having crowned himself with flowers from the statue of Marsyas.

Allusions to such estimation of garlands in olden times are numerous in the literature of the past, and it may be remembered how Montesquieu remarked that it was with two or three hundred crowns of oak that Rome conquered the world.

Guests at feasts wore garlands of flowers tied with the bark of the linden tree, to prevent intoxication; the wreath having been framed in accordance with the position of the wearer.  A poet, in his paraphrase on Horace, thus illustrates this custom:—­

  “Nay, nay, my boy, ’tis not for me
  This studious pomp of Eastern luxury;
  Give me no various garlands fine
    With linden twine;
  Nor seek where latest lingering blows
    The solitary rose.”

Not only were the guests adorned with flowers, but the waiters, drinking-cups, and room, were all profusely decorated.[1] “In short,” as the author of “Flower-lore” remarks, “it would be difficult to name the occasions on which flowers were not employed; and, as almost all plants employed in making garlands had a symbolical meaning, the garland was composed in accordance with that meaning.”  Garlands, too, were thrown to actors on the stage, a custom which has come down to the present day in an exaggerated form.