Flora having forsaken her flowers,
I quickly embraced the sport of swift Diana,
To dedicate and present this bouquet to Venus.
Count d’Orsay, the _arbiter elegantiarum_ of our day, on the “Bouquet”
being submitted to him, admired the artistical design, and suggested
that Landseer would appreciate its novelty, adding, “What a beautiful
trophy it would make for a sideboard or a dining-room!”
The “Bouquet,” we augur, will be popular in the approaching Christmas
season; and though there is a musty old proverb about “looking at a
gift-horse,” the above novelty will surely throw the old-fashioned
baskets into the shade, by presenting much that is agreeable to the eye,
with the proximate association of another sense of enjoyment.
[Illustration: BOUQUET DE GIBIER.]