Page images
PDF
EPUB
[ocr errors]

And the tear that is wip'd with a little address,

May be follow'd, perhaps, by a smile.

The following lines of an anonymous poet powerfully call on man to express his gratitude to the Author of Nature:

How cheerful the field and the mead!
How gay does all nature appear!
The flocks, as they carelessly feed,
Rejoice in the spring of the year.
The foliage that shades the gay bow'rs,
The herbage that springs from the clod,
Trees, plants, cooling fruits, and fair flow'rs,
All rise to the praise of our God.
Shall man, the great master of all,
The only insensible prove?
Forbid it, fair gratitude's call!
Forbid it, devotion and love!

The God who such wonders can raise,
His name be for ever ador'd;
Our lips shall incessantly praise.

Our heart shall rejoice in the Lord.

Under the head of the Pleasures of Botany, it will be proper to introduce a few more observations on flowers.

Flowers are the pride and glory of the creation, and the most beautiful display of omnipotent power in the vegetable kingdom. With the poets, as the lovely attendants of spring, they are inexhaustible sources of decoration. Not only their favourite scenes, but the incidents which they are most fond of embellishing, are enriched with flowers. Thus Virgil makes the swain invite Galatea to the spot where spring strews the river bank with flowers. Homer, to adorn the bed of Jupiter, makes the earth pour from her bosom unbidden herbs, and voluntary flowers. Milton, in a fine imitation of that passage, employs the iris, jessamine, and rose, the violet, hyacinth, and crocus, to beautify the blissful bower of Eve. When our first parents take their evening repast, they recline on the soft downy banks damasked with flowers. When Adam awakes Eve in the morning, it is with a voice mild as when Zephyrus breathes

on Flora. And when he invites her to walk forth in the fields, it is to mark how the tender plants spring; how nature paints her colours, and how the bee sits on the bloom, extracting liquid sweets. Shakspeare, in a charming similitude, compares an exquisite strain of music, with its dying falls, to the sweet south, that breathes upon a bank of violets, stealing, and giving odours. And Thomson, in his noble hymn at the conclusion of the Seasons, invites the flowery race to join in the general chorus of praise to the great Creator.

These beauteous children of nature do not appear all at once, but in the most enchanting regularity of succession. Each month displays the beauties peculiar to itself. Long before the trees venture to unfold their leaves, and while winter yet continues to maintain his dreary reign, the snow-drop displays its milk-white flowers to the eye

First leader of the flow'ry race aspires,

. And foremost catches the sun's genial fires,
Mid frosts and snows triumphant dares appear,
Mingles the seasons, and leads on the year.

TICKELL.

Next appears the crocus, too timid yet to resist the impetuosity of the winds. With this comes the fragrant violet, the expressive emblem of that retiring goodness, which, with unostentatious hand, contributes silently to the happiness of all around. The polyanthus, too, with countless colours, and the auricula, inestimable for the exquisite richness of its powdered tints these, with many others, which grow in foreign countries, upon the mountains, may be called, without impropriety, the van-guard of the flowery host. Soon succeeds the tulip, the transient glory of the garden; the anemone, encircled at the bottom with a spreading robe, and rounded at the top in a beautiful dome; and the ranunculus, which displays all the magnificence of foliage, and charms the eye with such a brilliant assemblage of colours. Nor lingers behind the rose, the favourite flower of poets, which glows with its own vivid tints, and diffuses

around its aromatic sweets, while the carnation, as it centring in itself the perfection of every flower, attracts the wanderer by that lustre and variety of hues, and that fragrance of scent, which entitle it to a kind of pre-eminence over the most beautiful of the painted tribes.

The infinite variety of flowers is not less a subject of admiration than their regular succession, and equally evinces consummate wisdom and design. This diversity is not discernible only in the different families of flowers, but it is to be seen, moreover, in the individuals. In a bed of tulips or carnations, there is scarce a flower in which some difference may not be observed in its structure, size, or assemblance of colours; nor can any two flowers be found, in which the shape and shades are exactly similar. Flowers have not only furnished the poets, as has been before observed, with inexhaustible description, but the philosophers, in every age, with a variety of moral sentiments. The following beautiful lines of a nameless poet, are particularly worthy the attention of the fair sex:

Ye lovely fair, while flow'ry chaplets bind

Your youthful brows, and o'er the verdant paths
Of gently gliding life ye graceful sweep,
Array'd in purple pride; as on your breast
The diamond shines, and in your floating train
The ruby glows, and emeralds around
Beset the flying robe; while dazzling thus
In orient pomp, forgive, if yet the Muse
In moralizing strains essays to draw

The evening veil o'er all the glittering show:
Vain is their blaze, which, like the noon-tide day,
Dazzles the eye: so flaunt the gaudy flowers
In vernal glory, wide diffusing round
Their odoriferous sweets, and shoot profuse
Their blossoms forth, and flourish in their May,
In nature's livery clad; but when the sun

Beams in his pride, they droop their blushing heads,
Their blossoms wither, and their varied tints
Fade with his sultry rays. Behold, ye Fair,
Your gay delusions; read in nature's book
Their transitory life, how quickly fleets
The dream of pleasure.-

So beauty fades, so fleets its showy life,
As droops the lily, clad in all its pride
Of rich array.

The examination of flowers by the microscope opens a new field of wonders to the inquiring naturalist. Sir John Hill has given the following interesting account of what appeared on examining a carnation :-"The principal flower in this elegant bouquet was a carnation the fragrance of this led me to enjoy it frequently and near; the sense of smelling was not the only one affected on these occasions: while that was satiated with the powerful sweet, the ear was constantly attacked by an extremely soft but agreeable murmuring sound. It was easy to know that some animal, within the covert, must be the musician, and that the little noise must come from some little creatute suited to produce it. I instantly distended the lower part of the flower, and, placing it in a full light, could discover troops of little insects friskering with wild jollity among the narrow pedestals that supported its leaves, and the little threads that occupied its centre. What a fragrant world for their habitation! what a perfect security from all annoyance, in the dusky husk that surrounded the scene of action. Adapting a microsope to take in at one view the whole base of the flower, I gave myself an opportunity of contemplating what they were about, and this for many days together, without giving them the least disturbance. Thus I could discover their economy, their passions, and their enjoyments. The microscope, on this occasion, had given what nature seemed to have denied to the objects of contemplation. The base of the flower extended itself under its influence to a vast plain; the slender stems of the leaves became trunks of so many stately cedars; the threads in the middle seemed columns of massy structure, supporting at the top their several ornaments; and the narrow spaces between were enlarged in walks, parterres, and terraces. On the polished bottoms of these, brighter than Parian marble, walked in pairs, alone, or in larger companies, the winged inhabitants;

around its aromatic sweets, while the carnation, as it centring in itself the perfection of every flower, attracts the wanderer by that lustre and variety of hues, and that fragrance of scent, which entitle it to a kind of pre-eminence over the most beautiful of the painted tribes.

The infinite variety of flowers is not less a subject of admiration than their regular succession, and equally evinces consummate wisdom and design. This diversity is not discernible only in the different families of flowers, but it is to be seen, moreover, in the individuals. In a bed of tulips or carnations, there is scarce a flower in which some difference may not be observed in its structure, size, or assemblance of colours; nor can any two flowers be found, in which the shape and shades are exactly similar. Flowers have not only furnished the poets, as has been before observed, with inexhaustible description, but the philosophers, in every age, with a variety of moral sentiments. The following beautiful lines of a nameless poet, are particularly worthy the attention of the fair sex :

Ye lovely fair, while flow'ry chaplets bind

Your youthful brows, and o'er the verdant paths
Of gently gliding life ye graceful sweep,
Array'd in purple pride; as on your breast
The diamond shines, and in your floating train
The ruby glows, and emeralds around
Beset the flying robe; while dazzling thus
In orient pomp, forgive, if yet the Muse
In moralizing strains essays to draw

The evening veil o'er all the glittering show:
Vain is their blaze, which, like the noon-tide day,
Dazzles the eye: so flaunt the gaudy flowers
In vernal glory, wide diffusing round
Their odoriferous sweets, and shoot profuse
Their blossoms forth, and flourish in their May,
In nature's livery clad; but when the sun

Beams in his pride, they droop their blushing heads,
Their blossoms wither, and their varied tints
Fade with his sultry rays. Behold, ye Fair,
Your gay delusions; read in nature's book
Their transitory life, how quickly fleets
The dream of pleasure.-

« PreviousContinue »