1653, William Basse, “Clio, or The First Muse; in 9 Eglogues in Honor of 9 Vertues. As It was in His Dayes Intended. [Munday. Laurinella. Eglogue. Of True and Chast Love.]”, in J[ohn] P[ayne] C[ollier], editor, The Pastorals and Other Workes of William Basse.[…] (Miscellaneous Tracts, Temp. Eliz. & Jac. I), [London: s.n.], published 1870, OCLC1062069941:
O Laurinella! little doſt thou wot How fraile a flower thou doſt ſo highly prize: Beauty's the flower, but love the flower-pot That muſt preſerve it, els it quickly dyes.
`I hope you will think kindly of my whitened bones, and never have anything more to do with Greek writing on flower-pots, sir, if I may make so bold as to say so.'
Three chairs of the steamer type, all maimed, comprised the furniture of this roof-garden, with (by way of local colour) on one of the copings a row of four red clay flower-pots filled with sun-baked dust from which gnarled and rusty stalks thrust themselves up like withered elfin limbs.