PRESUMPTION. SNAP-DRAGON.-Antirrhinum. "The stern and furious lion's gaping mouth." Columella. This singular flower is made the symbol of presumption, from its monopetalous corolla forming a mask, which resembles the face of an animal. "Pride, and arrogance, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate." Proverbs viii. 13. PRETENSION. LYTHRUM.-Lythrum. L'Estrange says, "Men indulge those opinions and practices that favour their pretensions." "But if to unjust things thou dost pretend, Denham. PRIDE. AMARYLLIS.-Amaryllis. "In all the liveries deck'd of summer's pride." Milton. The splendour of these flowers has caused them to be made the emblem of pride. This beautiful species of the lily tribe varies not more in its colours than pride does in its qualities. Man without 66 The honest pride of conscious virtue," is a mere animal, a sloth. Man, with pride of the insolent kind is lower than the brute. Man, who permits his self-esteem to " Peep through each part of him," is to be pitied as a frivolous insect that struts through its short summer; whilst the man, whose pride consists in the elevation of a generous heart, has the feelings of a celestial being, and must ever be regarded as the most elevated of his species. The miser is proud of his wealth; the spendthrift of his extravagance; the hypocrite of his cunning; the honest man of his integrity; the sloven of his filth; the beau of his neatness; the coxcomb of his dash; and the quaker of his prim formality. And arrogance is not more proud of the wounds it inflicts, than benevolence is of the balm it bestows. |