The poets, let others neglect her as they will, must ever do fitting observance, in songs as lovely and fresh as the flowers of the hawthorn,

    To the lady of the vernal hours.

Poor Keats, who was passionately fond of flowers, and everything beautiful or romantic or picturesque, complains, with a true poet’s earnestness, that in his day in England there were

    No crowds of nymphs, soft-voiced and young and gay
    In woven baskets, bringing ears of corn,
    Roses and pinks and violets, to adorn
    The shrine of Flora in her early May.

The Floral Games—­Jeux Floraux—­of Toulouse—­first celebrated at the commencement of the fourteenth century, are still kept up annually with great pomp and spirit.  Clemence Isaure, a French lady, bequeathed to the Academy of Toulouse a large sum of money for the annual celebration of these games.  A sort of College Council is formed, which not only confers degrees on those poets who do most honor to the Goddess Flora, but sometimes grants them more substantial favors.  In 1324 the poets were encouraged to compete for a golden violet and a silver eglantine and pansy.  A century later the prizes offered were an amaranthus of gold of the value of 400 livres, for the best ode, a violet of silver, valued at 250 livres, for an essay in prose, a silver pansy, worth 200 livres, for an eclogue, elegy or idyl, and a silver lily of the value of sixty livres, for the best sonnet or hymn in honor of the Virgin Mary,—­for religion is mixed up with merriment, and heathen with Christian rites.  He who gained a prize three times was honored with the title of Doctor en gaye science, the name given to the poetry of the Provencal troubadours.  A mass, a sermon, and alms-giving, commence the ceremonies.  The French poet, Ronsard who had gained a prize in the floral games, so delighted Mary Queen of Scots with his verses on the Rose that she presented him with a silver rose worth L500, with this inscription—­“A Ronsard, l’Apollon de la source des Muses.”

At Ghent floral festivals are held twice a year when amateur and professional florists assemble together and contribute each his share of flowers to the grand general exhibition which is under the direct patronage of the public authorities.  Honorary medals are awarded to the possessors of the finest flowers.

The chief floral festival of the Chinese is on their new year’s day, when their rivers are covered with boats laden with flowers, and gay flags streaming from every mast.  Their homes and temples are richly hung with festoons of flowers.  Boughs of the peach and plum trees in blossom, enkianthus quinque-flora, camelias, cockscombs, magnolias, jonquils are then exposed for sale in all the streets of Canton.  Even the Chinese ladies, who are visible at no other season, are seen on this occasion in flower-boats on the river or in the public gardens on the shore.