during the wedding feast, if they had previously in any way forfeited their rights to the privileges of maidenhood."[5] With the Swiss maiden the edelweiss is almost a sacred flower, being regarded as a proof of the devotion of her lover, by whom it is often gathered with much risk from growing in inaccessible spots.  In Italy, as in days of old, nuts are scattered at the marriage festival, and corn is in many cases thrown over the bridal couple, a survival of the old Roman custom of making offerings of corn to the bride.  A similar usage prevails at an Indian wedding, where, “after the first night, the mother of the husband, with all the female relatives, comes to the young bride and places on her head a measure of corn—­emblem of fertility.  The husband then comes forward and takes from his bride’s head some handfuls of the grain, which he scatters over himself.”  As a further illustration we may quote the old Polish custom, which consisted of visitors throwing wheat, rye, oats, barley, rice, and beans at the door of the bride’s house, as a symbol that she never would want any of these grains so long as she did her duty.  In the Tyrol is a fine grove of pine-trees—­the result of a long-established custom for every newly united couple to plant a marriage tree, which is generally of the pine kind.  Garlands of wild asparagus are used by the Boeotians, while with the Chinese the peach-blossom is the popular emblem of a bride.

In England, flowers have always been largely employed in the wedding ceremony, although they have varied at different periods, influenced by the caprice of fashion.  Thus, it appears that flowers were once worn by the betrothed as tokens of their engagement, and Quarles in his “Sheapheard’s Oracles,” 1646, tells us how,

                          “Love-sick swains
  Compose rush-rings and myrtle-berry chains,
  And stuck with glorious kingcups, and their bonnets
  Adorn’d with laurell slips, chaunt their love sonnets.”

Spenser, too, in his “Shepherd’s Calendar” for April, speaks of “Coronations and sops in wine worn of paramours”—­sops in wine having been a nickname for pinks (Dianthus plumarius), although Dr. Prior assigns the name to Dianthus caryophyllus.  Similarly willow was worn by a discarded lover.  In the bridal crown, the rosemary often had a distinguished place, besides figuring at the ceremony itself, when it was, it would seem, dipped in scented water, an allusion to which we find in Beaumont and Fletcher’s “Scornful Lady,” where it is asked, “Were the rosemary branches dipped?” Another flower which was entwined in the bridal garland was the lily, to which Ben Jonson refers in speaking of the marriage of his friend Mr. Weston with the Lady Frances Stuart:—­

  “See how with roses and with lilies shine,
  Lilies and roses (flowers of either sex),
  The bright bride’s paths.”