Madam, I am much obliged by your contribution to the Monthly Packet, and should be glad to see the other numbers. I must observe however that there are some expressions that had a childish tone that I would gladly see altered such as that the loss of Lucien’s parents was very sad for him, that Hilary wrote clever books, that his Psalms are the same as ours, that a priest is a clergyman &c. Alban Butler ... continue reading

Madam,

I return my best thanks for your pretty papers on Flowers. I should prefer giving them the title of “A Garland for the Year” instead of that of “Holy Flowers” as it is just possible that someone might take offence at the latter.

I should wish also to omit the last sentence of the 25th March, in which you say that the festival is observed with great solemnity in all Catholic countries, but in ours chiefly ... continue reading

Dear Madam, I am obliged by the kind manner in which you have received my suggestions, and I must pursue the Lotus controversy a little further with the assistance of Liddell and Scott’s dictionary.

Λωτος, it says, is the name of several plants often wrongly confounded. The Egyptian Lotus or Lily of the Nile, white or blue blossoms at the time of the overflowing of the Nile, and of the Ganges, and thus both in Egyptian and ... continue reading

Dear Madam My cousin answers me ‘the Lotus is not a flower, but a large tree, I do not remember the blossom, but the fruit is in large pods which the Zantiotes almost live on, we used to have them as vegetables at dinner but I always thought them very nasty. It was always called the locust tree, and it was disputed whether it was these Locusts or the insects that St John the Baptist used ... continue reading

Dear Madam I send you the proof of the Garland, which you had better return direct to

Messrs Mozley Friar Gate Derby

His printers are apt to make great havoc with botanical names, and then put puzzled queries in the margin which amuse me very much. I could not find St Gundula in Alban Butler, and so must leave that correction to you. You will see that I have made one or two little alterations. I did not like ... continue reading

Dear Madam, You are of course perfectly at liberty to reserve the copyright of the Garland for the Year. I should think it would form a very pretty little volume, and I hope, you will find, as I have done, that previous publication in a magazine is rather an advantage than otherwise in afterwards negociating for the publication of a work.

I am sorry not to be able to offer a larger rate of payment, but the ... continue reading

Dear Madam, I send the proof of your very pretty June garland. I am sorry that by some mistake of mine, May 25th was omitted in its right month. I suppose it was from its following Whitsunday. Do not you think that as Trinity Sunday is a moveable feast, it might be better to give that title instead of June 6th to the paper on the Hearts Ease? I suppose that the Dianthus Deltoides ought properly ... continue reading

Dear Madam I return the Stories on the Calendar, which you so bravely speak of rewriting. After all, I feel myself that that is a much more comfortable plan than patching, one spoils the new to make it suit the old, and then the old looks ill by the side of the new. Thank you for so kindly receiving my criticisms, and I hope you will not hurry yourself, as one chapter on the first of ... continue reading

My dear Madam We have had friends staying with us, and have been a good deal employed in shewing as much of our Cathedral &c as could be visited in two or three days, or else I should sooner have thanked you for the very pretty poem, which I received on Sunday morning. I like it very much, and will insert it as soon as I have space, I have not had so much German yet ... continue reading

My dear Madam, I think there would be time for the two flowers if you have them ready, and like to send them at once to Derby. I will write and tell Mr Mozley about them, in case you should like to do this. I was much delighted with the account of the Peacemaker, St Elizabeth of Portugal, in Miss Kavanagh’s Women of Christianity, and I am glad that she has so pretty a flower as ... continue reading

My dear Madam I sent for a Post-office order today for fifteen shillings, but it did not arrive till after post time. I have put it into another cover as the wise say it should not travel in the same with the letter announcing it. At the same time came the proofs which I enclose, I still think the other notices will not be too late, but you had better if you please mark the places ... continue reading

My dear Madam,

I must thank you for your two pretty notices, and tell you that they are come all quite right with the rest. I don’t know whether you will approve of one alteration I ventured to make of the name Chironia into Erythræa, for I found Sir James Smith, & the other modern botany books have changed the name, and say there is a decided distinction between the Chironia and Erythræa. I wish they ... continue reading

My dear Madam,

I have been waiting to thank you for your last additions to the August Garland till I could send you the proof. I was provoked last month to find that the ‘Penny Post’ had forestalled us with the Angel of death and Sleep in prose, not half so pretty as yours, but I suppose we ought to wait a little, as the two magazines have a good deal the same kind of circulation. ... continue reading

My dear Madam, Thank you for writing to notify me of your change of place. I did send some proofs to you at Helmington Hall on Friday, I dare say you have received them by this time, but I thought it better to send you notice in case you had not had them.

I have never been in the beautiful parts of Derbyshire, but I have heard enough of them to be sure that you must be ... continue reading

My dear Madam, Thank you very much for your interesting account of your expedition, I am sure you must have enjoyed it very much, and brought home a great many recollections which after all are the best part of pleasure, they last so much longer than it does. We have just wished Mr and Mrs Keble good bye before their departure for their summer holiday to the Isle of Man to study some of Bishop Wilson’s ... continue reading

My dear Madam, You see your paper was quite in time to be printed with the rest. I am glad St Matthew had the Passion Flower, it is to him that this Church is dedicated. I have been spending a few days at Salisbury this week, and much enjoying that most beautiful Cathedral, I feel as if I had before never properly appreciated it, only seeing it as a verger led visitor, and not going to ... continue reading

My dear Madam, I send your pretty little garland for October, hoping it will find you improved in health

Yours sincerely C M Yonge

My dear Madam I cannot deprive myself of the pleasure of telling you if you have not seen it yet, to look at the Notice of the Garland for the year in the Christian Remembrancer, I received it yesterday, and was very much pleased with it.

I have, like you had a fortnight’s illness & idleness, ending in a holiday to visit some merry cousins here. This morning I have had the great pleasure of a good ... continue reading

Dear Madam, It was Edward I who made the law for planting yew trees in Church yards, at least so I was told by a gentleman who never makes mistakes, and is deeply read in history. I have looked in vain in Evelyn’s silva and Loudon’s arboretum, but I think his information to be trusted. He says it had been done long before, but it was only in Edwd I’s reign that it became the subject ... continue reading

My dear Madam The same post that brought your pleasant note, brought this enclosure from Mr Mozley, of a note from Mr Neale of Sackville College. I am quite glad you have not seen the Xtian Remembrancer as it gives me the pleasure of copying out for you the passage he alludes to

‘The Church names of flowers are most ably given in the series of papers which stands at the head of this article. We know ... continue reading

My dear Madam, I must send you a few lines of thanks for Margaret whom I think extremely ‘grown and improved,’ and like very much so far, I have only one criticism to make, surely Arius was an Egyptian born at Lybia, and so presbyter of Alexandria as all the Church histories call him. St Blaise is very interesting. I have been used to see him made very frightful as the sign of a public house ... continue reading

My dear Madam, The wreaths for these autumn months have been so much smaller that I am sorry to say that there is only 7/6 to send you for this quarter, and here are P.O. stamps to that amount. I have not yet heard what we shall be able to do next year. I think that 'the Lesser Holydays’ is the name that best approves itself to me, what do you think of it. I know ... continue reading

My dear Madam, I enclose your P O order for 11/6 for the last quarter of the Lesser holidays. Mr Mozley promises this next year 1854 to raise his pay to 1/6 per page, so that I hope the Cathedrals will be a little less unworthily paid when you have time and inclination to make them out. Your present of the Garland must be indeed a most precious one, I wish we were not so entirely ... continue reading

Dear Miss Roberts, I enclose the letter which I received from Mr Neale this morning. Perhaps it will be the best way for you to answer his question about the Latin yourself. His address is at Sackville College, East Grinstead, and I hope the researches in the book whose name I cannot read may prove successful. By the by, I find that the children here call the little blue prunella Lady’s slippers, whether from any connection ... continue reading

Dear Miss Roberts, I hope your correspondence with Mr Neale has been satisfactory, and also with Mr Mozley. If you have not heard from him yet, I should think you had better write again and ask his decision. Certainly I think it would not do to dwell on the other name of the Arbor Vitae, the Legend of the Blessed Thistle I do not know. I had not heard that the Wren was our Lady’s bird, ... continue reading

Dear Miss Roberts, Carlisle Cathedral is a very pretty sketch, and will be very acceptable to the Monthly Packet, I think however it will be better to keep it for next year perhaps, if we and the Packet proceed and prosper as hitherto, so that it may be the opening of a series which promises to be very useful and interesting, I will consult a very good archaeologist at Winchester about the rugged [sic] staff ornament ... continue reading

Dear Miss Roberts, I enclose a paper sent by my archaeological acquaintance with all the information he could gather respecting the Ragged Staff, I hope it is what you wanted.

I am sorry for your want of success with the Garland. My father is going to London for a day or two early next week, and will see Parker, He says if you would trust us with a specimen of the illustrations and explain your plans as ... continue reading

Dear Miss Roberts, I do not like to leave you longer without a few words of thanks for your kind letter. We were indeed most mercifully aided and supported in our time of greatest need by all the help the Church affords, or rather the Lord of the Church. It was not one of our least blessings that our Church (of which my Father was almost the sole architect) is so close to the garden that ... continue reading

My dear Miss Roberts, I have nothing to say in excuse for myself, but that somehow I had the impression of having written to thank you for the two last Cathedrals, so that between putting off at first and forgetting after wards, it has been neglected, and I am very sorry for it. We read them at the time with much interest and I shall be glad to use them when the time for them comes. ... continue reading

My dear Miss Moorsom I wrote to the author of the Garland of the Year in case she should be able to help you to any authorities for the Oxalis, but I have an answer from her this morning saying that it was one of the very few flowers which she described at second hand, but she has written to the person who helped her to try if she can recollect what book she found it ... continue reading

My dear Miss Roberts, It is indeed a long time since we have had any communication, though I have been intending to write to you for more weeks past than I like to count - ever since I think, I sent Lincoln Cathedral to be put in type! Then I put it off from day to day, meaning to send you the proof, but at last the article was put in without sufficient notice for me ... continue reading