Litchfield Enquirer

The Jasmine.—If we may believe a Tuscan tale, we owe our thanks to Cupid for the distribution of this pretty shrub. We are told that a Duke of Tuscany was its first possessor in Europe, and that he was so jealously fearful lest others should enjoy what he alone wished to possess, that strict injunctions were given to his gardener not to give a slip, nor so much as a single flower, to any person. To this command the gardener would have been faithful, had not the god of love wounded him by the sparkling eyes of a fair, but portionless peasant, whose want of a little dowry, and his poverty, alone kept them from the hymeneal altar. On the birth-day of his mistress, the gardener presented her with a nose-gay: and to render the bouquet more acceptable, he ornamented it with a branch of jasmine. The Povera Figlia, wishing to preserve the bloom of this rare flower, put it into fresh earth; the branch remained green all the year, and in the following spring it grew, and was covered with flowers; and it flourished and multiplied so much under the fair nymph's cultivation, that she was able to amass a little fortune from the sale of the precious gift which her love had made her: when, with a sprig of jasmine in her breast she bestowed her hand and her wealth on the happy gardener. And the Tuscan girls to this day, preserve the remembrance of this adventure, by invariably wearing a nose-gay on their wedding day; and they have a proverb, which says, "That a young girl worthy of wearing a nosegay, is rich enough to make the fortune of a good husband."