One small parcel did affect me even unto tears. It was a paper
containing some dry, withered leaves of roses, with these words written
on it "To Anna, from her loving cousin, Christopher Gardiner, being the
first rose that hath blossomed this season in the College garden. St.
Omer's, June, 1630." I could but think how many tears had been shed
over this little token, and how often, through long, weary years, it did
call to mind the sweet joy of early love, of that fairest blossom of the
spring of life of which it was an emblem, alike in its beauty and its
speedy withering.
There be moreover among the papers sundry verses, which do seem to have
been made by Sir Christopher; they are in the Latin tongue, and
inscribed to his cousin, bearing date many years before the twain were
in this country, and when he was yet a scholar at the Jesuits' College
of St. Omer's, in France. I find nothing of a later time, save the
verses which I herewith copy, over which there are, in a woman's
handwriting, these words:
"VERSES
"Writ by Sir Christopher when a prisoner among the Turks in Moldavia,
and expecting death at their hands.
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