Though we yield not unto them in the beauty of flowry Garlands, yet some of those of Antiquity were larger than any we lately meet with: for we find in _Athenæus_ that a Myrtle Crown of one and twenty foot in compass was solemnly carried about at the Hellotian Feast in _Corinth_, together with the Bones of _Europa_.
And Garlands were surely of frequent use among them; for we reade in _Galen_[256] that when _Hippocrates_ cured the great Plague of _Athens_ by Fires kindled in and about the City; the fuel thereof consisted much of their Garlands. And they must needs be very frequent and of common use, the ends thereof being many. For they were convivial, festival, sacrificial, nuptial, honorary, funebrial. We who propose unto our selves the pleasure of two Senses, and onely single out such as are of Beauty and good Odour, cannot strictly confine our selves unto imitation of them.
For, in their convivial Garlands, they had respect unto Plants preventing drunkenness, or discussing the exhalations from Wine; wherein, beside Roses, taking in Ivy, Vervain, Melilote, _etc._ they made use of divers of small Beauty or good Odour. The solemn festival Garlands were made properly unto their Gods, and accordingly contrived from Plants sacred unto such Deities; and their sacrificial ones were selected under such considerations. Their honorary Crowns triumphal, ovary, civical, obsidional, had little of Flowers in them: and their funebrial Garlands had little of beauty in them beside Roses, while they made them of Myrtle, Rosemary, Apium, _etc._ under symbolical intimations: but our florid and purely ornamental Garlands, delightfull unto sight and smell, nor framed according to mystical and symbolical considerations, are of more free election, and so may be made to excell those of the Ancients; we having _China_, _India_, and a new world to supply us, beside the great distinction of Flowers unknown unto Antiquity, and the varieties thereof arising from Art and Nature.
But, beside Vernal, Æstival and Autumnal made of Flowers, the Ancients had also Hyemal Garlands; contenting themselves at first with such as were made of Horn died into several Colours, and shaped into the Figures of Flowers, and also of _Æs Coronarium_ or _Clincquant_ or Brass thinly wrought out into Leaves commonly known among us. But the curiosity of some Emperours for such intents had Roses brought from _Ægypt_ untill they had found the art to produce late Roses in _Rome_, and to make them grow in the Winter, as is delivered in that handsome Epigramme of _Martial_,