Slender and long, with fragrant greens arrayed;
Six gaudy leaves a painted cup compose,
On which kind nature every dye bestows;
For though the nymph transformed, the love she bore
To colours still delights her as before.”
The Tulip is a favourite flower of the East, and is believed originally to have come from Persia. The French formerly called the flower Tulipan, which, as well as the English name, is derived from Thoulyban, the word used in Persia for turban.——The Tulip is considered to be one of the flowers loved by fairies and elves, who protect those that cultivate them.——In Turkey, the flower is held in the highest estimation, and a Feast of Tulips used to be celebrated annually in the Sultan’s seraglio, when the gardens were brilliantly illuminated and decorated with Oriental magnificence, and the fête was attended by the Sultan and his harem.——The garden Tulip is a native of the Levant: Linnæus says of Cappadocia. It is very common in Syria, and is supposed by some persons to be the “Lily of the field” alluded to by Jesus Christ.——In Persia, the Tulip is considered as the emblem of consuming love. When a young man presents one to his mistress, he gives her to understand, by the general colour of the flower, that he is impressed with her beauty, and by the black base of it that his heart is burnt to a coal.——In India, the Tulip seems to typify unhappy love. In the ‘Rose of Bakawali,’ a Hindustani story, the author, while describing the beautiful fairy of the heaven, Bakawali, says “the Tulip immersed itself in blood because of the jealousy it entertained of her charming lips!” When bidding adieu to the fairy, Taj-ul-muluk says: ‘I quit this garden carrying in my heart, like the Tulip, the wound of unhappy love—I go, my head covered with dust, my heart bleeding, my breast fevered.’
——The Tulip is supposed to have been brought from Persia to the Levant, and it was introduced into Western Europe about the middle of the sixteenth century by Busbeck, ambassador from the Emperor of Germany to the Sublime Porte, who to his astonishment found Tulips on the road between Adrianople and Constantinople blooming in the middle of winter. In Europe, they soon became universal favourites, and were imported into England in 1577.——In Holland, about the middle of the seventeenth century, a perfect mania for possessing rare sorts seized all classes of persons. From 1634 to 1637 inclusive all classes in all the great cities of Holland became infected with the Tulipomania. A single root of a particular species, called the Viceroy, was exchanged, in the true Dutch taste, for the following articles:—2 lasts of Wheat, 4 of Rye, 4 fat oxen, 3 fat swine, 12 fat sheep, 2 hogsheads of wine, 4 tuns of beer, 2 tons of butter, 1000 pounds of cheese, a complete bed, a suit of clothes, and a silver beaker—value of the whole, 2500 florins. These Tulips afterwards were sold according to the weight of the roots. Four hundred perits (something less than a grain) of Admiral Liefken, cost 4400 florins; 446 ditto of Admiral Van der Eyk, 1620 florins; 106 perits Schilder cost 1615 florins; 200 ditto Semper Augustus, 5500 florins; 410 ditto Viceroy, 3000 florins, &c. The species Semper Augustus has been often sold for 2000 florins; and it once happened that there were only two roots of it to be had, the one at Amsterdam, and the other at Haarlem. For a root of this species one agreed to give 4600 florins, together with a new carriage, two grey horses, and a complete harness. Another agreed to give for a root twelve acres of land; for those who had not ready money promised their moveable and immoveable goods, houses and lands,
cattle and clothes. The trade was followed not only by mercantile people, but also by all classes of society. At first, everyone won and no one lost. Some of the poorest people gained, in a few months, houses, coaches and horses, and figured away like the first characters in the land. In every town some tavern was selected which served as an exchange, where high and low traded in flowers, and confirmed their bargains with the most sumptuous entertainments. They formed laws for themselves, and had their notaries and clerks. During the time of the Tulipomania, a speculator often offered and paid large sums for a root which he never received, nor ever wished to receive. Another sold roots which he never possessed or delivered. Often did a nobleman purchase of a chimney-sweep Tulips to the amount of 2000 florins, and sell them at the same time to a farmer, and neither the nobleman, chimney-sweep, nor farmer had roots in their possession, or wished to possess them. Before the Tulip season was over, more roots were sold and purchased, bespoke, and promised to be delivered, than in all probability were to be found in the gardens of Holland; and when Semper Augustus was not to be had, which happened twice, no species perhaps was oftener purchased and sold. In the space of three years, as Munting tells us, more than ten millions were expended in this trade, in only one town of Holland. The evil rose to such a pitch, that the States of Holland were under the necessity of interfering; the buyers took the alarm; the bubble, like the South Sea scheme, suddenly burst; and as, in the outset, all were winners, in the winding up, very few escaped without loss.
TUTSAN.—The Hypericum Androsæmum was in former days called Tutsan, or Tutsayne, a word derived from the French name, Toute-saine, which was applied to the plant, according to Lobel, “because, like the Panacea, it cures all sickness and diseases.” The St. John’s Wort (H. perforatum) was also called Tutsan.
TURNIP.—The Turnip (Brassica Rapa) was considered by Columella and Pliny as next to corn in value and utility. Pliny mentions some of the Turnips of his times as weighing forty pounds each.——In Westphalia, when a young peasant goes wooing, if Turnips be set before him, they signify that he is totally unacceptable to the girl he would court.——To dream of Turnips denotes fruitless toil.