induce us to look slightingly upon the cheerful and hardy dandelion, which opens its radiated disk wherever the beaten road leaves a scanty space of verdure, or the crevice of a moss-grown wall affords a hold for its tenacious roots. Observe its regularly toothed and clustering leaves, gracefully and evenly spread to the sun, and its flowers literally glowing with the light, which it seems expanding itself to enjoy. Now, had it been the fortune of this neglected plant, instead of entering our suburbs, and lining our high-roads, to bloom on the lofty heights of Himalaya, or on the banks of "Ganges and Hydaspes, Indian streams;" or to blend its yellow-coloured blossoms with those of the flametinted nasturtium beside the shadowy rivers of Peru, we should have had a score of Floras contending for the honour of its first and most accurate delineation. As it is, it is honoured by the traveller with but a momentary glance, and shines beside the common way : Unknown, and like esteemed; and the dull swain Treads on it daily with his clouted shoon. Not a few of our field-flowers, however, are in the same predicament. The groundivy, with purple lip and mimic crosses, composed of its meeting anthers; the deadnettle, whose snowy whorls remind us of the forthcoming spring, when as yet the hedge, which a few weeks will clothe with a verdant tapestry, is but a rude and threatening fence of thorns; as well as the shepherd's purse, and stellated chickweed, the latter of which seems to bid defiance to the change of seasons, by presenting us alike, beneath the driving sleet of winter and the ardent summer sun, with the refreshing sight of its delicately wrought corolla, and leaves of uniformly lively green. These, however, are foreign to our subject. We pass, therefore, on our way, and, lo, before us, with its thousand boughs waving in the blast, and its sea of leaves making that music to which the ear of fancy loves to listen, while she transports herself in idea to the surf-beaten coast, the spacious and venerable wood, not an intertangled forest:— The nodding horror of whose shady brows Threats the forlorn and wandering passenger but a pleasant alternation of rustling thicket and sunny glades, and intersected by walks, winding at one time beneath the star-proof canopy of oak, and beech, and at another beside the low copse, in which the hawthorn relieves, by its showers of bloom, the dark back-ground furnished by the alder and sloe, while through the whole steals, now in shadow, now in sun," the nameless stream which spreads such a freshness throughout the place; either fringed by a mimic grove of reeds, or bordered by such beds of bright and elastic moss, as might induce one to lie beside its waters, and enact the part of the melancholy Jacques for the summer's day together. We are fortunate in our first essay. It is not often that our English copses display such an assemblage of the flowers of the yellow-tinted narcissus, as are here collected before us; not that kind, Which comes before the swallow dares, and takes but the rarer variety, with slighter petals, and a yet more delicate hue. If this plant was, indeed, consecrated to the fairies by the ancients, it was a singularly infelicitous appropriation. There it stands, the melancholy flower of yet enduring song, like the memory of a perished delight, "as o'er the fabled fountain bending still," and recalling many a legend of the days in which Greece was arising to her queenly eminence in arts and arms. All are acquainted with the elegant poetry which Ovid has connected with this tenant of the secluded wood; but we may also remember, that if the judgment of some botanists is to be relied upon, the renowned Homer himself has introduced it into his deathless verse, as the principal ornament of those meads, along which the spirit of his departed heroes wander in lonely majesty, and the shadowy Orion sweeps, like the wild huntsman of modern romance, leading and urging forward the phantom chase : Τον δε μετ' Ωριωνα πελώριον εισενοησα Then saw I huge Orion, following still Through meads of asphodel the phantom beasts, With solid club in hand of lasting brass. A beautiful picture, and conveyed in the original language by words as light and aërial as the vision of that mysterious land of souls, visited by the sunbeams and showers of an unchanging spring, which was then passing before the internal sight of the inspired bard. But another plant, no less celebrated in ancient days, claims at least an equal attention, the sweetly breathing hyacinth, sending up, from between the moss-grown roots which shield its growth, a rich fragrance, which warns us of its vicinity long before we discover its spike of azure bells, gleaming amidst the sylvan twilight. It is unnecessary to repeat the fable relative to the origin of this favourite flower, or to remind the reader of Thomson's beautiful description of some of the individuals of its family : Hyacinths of purest white, Low bent and blushing inwards. : both of which are of course widely known, as well as the image with which it has furnished the epic poets, when describing the luxuriant locks of their heroes : και δε κάρητος. Ουλας ηκε κομας υακινθινω ανθει ομωίας. And from his brow down shed, Like hyacinthine flowers his shining locks. a passage which has afforded a hint to Milton, in finishing his noble portrait of the manly beauty of the great father of our race. Yet we look in vain upon the leaves of the modern hyacinth for the characters of grief which distinguished it in former days. It is no "sanguine flower inscribed with woe," and consequently, we fear, can scarcely be considered the same as that which was once stained with the blood of the Lacedemonian youth, or the Salaminian king; an honour, for the possession of which, its most successful rival, hitherto, appears to be the Martagon lily. Viewing it, however, as now, diffusing its deep blue light through the recesses in which it loves to dwell, we can easily discern the reason which induced the ancients to distinguish one of the most precious of jewels by its name. It is indeed among the brightest ornaments which deck the coronet of Spring. From ancient fable to more modern matter of fact, we pass by an easy transition; for, brightly reflected in the quiet waters, which are dreamily stealing along beneath the morning light, the golden iris erects its crest amidst a phalanx of bristling rushes, like a gorgeous banner surrounded by the spears of an assembled host. What a vision of past splendour and perished renown arises before us, as we gaze on this once proud emblem of a long dynasty of kings, and of a power which, after existing for centuries, we have all but seen with our own eyes, struck down and laid level with the dust! Since the national symbol of France was changed from the axe borne by the barbaric tribes who gave their name to its fertile extent, to the imperial fleur de lis, how often have those fragile petals decorated the blazoned ensign floating on the perilous edge of war, how often ornamented the victor's shield in the tournament, or shone above the monarch's head at the thronged and stately feast; and how many stern passages of arms, as well as joyous scenes of gallantry and mirth, are again recalled by their appearance! We think of Bouvines, of Cressy, of Rosebecque, of the leaguered walls of Calais, Orleans, and Harfleur, of Fornova, of Marignan, of Pavia, Cerisoles, Rocroi, and Senef, together with those thousand fields in Flanders, of more recent fame, on which for the space of half a century victory smiled alternately on the contending armies of France and England. Nor are visions of regal magnificence wanting, to relieve the picture of terror and contention. We turn in fancy to the antique walls of Tours, its spacious parks, and quiet stream; to Fontainebleau, embowered amidst its surrounding forests; to the stately pile of the Louvre, echoing with sounds of rejoicing, and glittering with the lights of the midnight pageant; and the courtly gardens of Versailles, fragrant with the breath of the orangeflower, and bright with the gleam of their fantastic fountains. With these come the names of many a noble house, which, once conspicuous in the annals of Europe for the grace of its daughters and the chivalrous valour of its sons, has long since passed like a dream into the dominion of the unsubstantial past. Valois, Guise, Condé, Luxemburgh, Chatillon, Longueville, d'Epernon, d'Auvergne-where are these, with numerous others, once so familiar to the historian and poet? Nay, indeed, where is now that celebrated emblem itself, with which so many reminiscences are connected? The stainless flag, which once displayed the golden lilies of France, streams over the tented plain and the paths of ocean no more; nor shall the page of the annalist, or the voice of the eulogizing crowd, connect that ensign again with deeds of prowess and high emprise. How gallantly, but a little space before its fall, it was spread under every clime, from the sultry plains of India, and the shores of the Caribbean isles, to the wintry banks of the St. Lawrence, and the tempestuous coast of Labrador-needs not here to be described; nor how terrible a storm and how palpable a darkness arose upon the face of earth, at the moment when the stem of the regal flower was suddenly snapped in its pride, and its full-blown honours spread, soiled and withering, beneath the destructive blast. Passing beyond a screen of intervening boughs, and descending the face of a sloping bank, we find ourselves at once within the very penetralia of the shadowy thicket. Beside our tangled path runs the channel of what in winter may be a turbulent and brawling brook, but which is now but a narrow ravine, strown with scattered pebbles and many-coloured sands; and still more densely, as we advance, the whispering roof closes above our heads, impervious alike to sun and shower. Yet even here our search may be well repaid. The slender asperula puts forth its pearly buds, to enliven the slumbrous gloom, and here and there glimmer from their damp beds the living cressets of the lesser celandine, an elegant little plant, deriving its former name chelidonium, from making its appearance before the first arrival of the bird which has been considered in all ages the herald of advancing summer; or, in the language of Virgil, Ante novis rubeant quam prata coloribus; ante The true celandine, chelidonium majus, is not far off, conspicuous by its slender rods tipped with pale blossoms, and its singularly beautiful leaf, which reminds one of the fanciful ornaments we sometimes see in gothic cathedrals. We doubt much whether the far-famed acanthus of Greece is more worthy, from the elegance of its form, of the artist's attention, than this retiring inhabitant of our own dells; which, if seen when a sudden burst of sunshine, after glancing from the furrowed trunk of some aged oak or ash, lights up its perfectly translucent leaves, looks like the very emblem of modest grace and unobtrusive merit. We leave, after pausing a few moments to admire its delicate efflorescence and trifoliated stalk, the oxalis, lurking beneath the shade of the hawthorn, white with a shower of blossoms, and a solitary anemone, or pasque flower, as it is far more appropriately named, lingering behind its fellows, together with the boding and retired arum, whose Egyptian name, as well as its dark spotted leaf and shrivelled spathe, seem to mark it as a sign of superstition and mystery; although we should not forget, that, like many other instances of an unpromising exterior concealing inward excellence, it has often been extensively serviceable in relieving the necessities of man, and that its glossy berries will form the brightest ornaments of the wood, when its gayer rivals are scattered before the winds of autumn. Nor have we time to bestow more than a passing glance upon the pansy that fairy-flower "freaked with jet," which has been a general favourite with poets at all periods, and which has so gracefully been made subservient to the elaborate flattery of Shakspeare, in that fanciful passage of the Midsummer Night's Dream, with which all are acquainted. What a profusion of plants is scattered where the dense fringe of underwood suddenly receding, allows the full light of day to dart upon the surface of that unruffled pool! Valerian, still renowned, by way of exception to a general rule, for the properties ascribed to it by the ancient herbalists, waving its light-coloured umbels above the broad glossy leaves and burnished flowers of the caltha, raised like golden cups from the dewy ground; the singularly shaped rhinanthus, whose loud rustling, as it is swayed by the passing gust, has procured for it the common name of the yellow rattle; the early orchis, throwing back from its minute stamens its wing-like petals, delicately streaked with green; and, with pink and white blossoms hovering in all directions around us, the airy cardamine, the lady's smock of Shakspeare, and the cuckoo-flower of ordinary parlance, so called from its accompanying that wandering voice of spring through dingle and hollow. But the principal decoration of English rivers is before us in the queenly nymphea, whose first flowers, of purest hue, after sleeping in their calyxes on the surface of the water during the dim hours of the night, are now beginning to shake off the dew, and rising to expand themselves in the morning warmth. St. Pierre, in pursuing his singular and ingenious theory of contrasts, has justly remarked the pleasing effect produced by comparing the heartshaped leaves of this imposing aquatic, with the trembling reed which lifts its embrowned distaff by its side. It has an independent charm for those studious of ancient lore, when we recall to mind that either identical, or very nearly akin with it, is the celebrated lotus of Homer, that magic plant of Egypt, or Cyrene, whose seducing qualities he has commemorated in some of his most melodious numbers : τωνδ' οστις λωτοιο φαγοι μελιηδέα καρπον ουκετ απαγγείλαι παλιν ηθελεν ουδε νέεσθαι For whoso tasted of that honeyed root, And, indeed, when we look upon it calmly lying on the surface of the river or lake, we can scarcely separate it in idea from the broad expanse of the majestic Nile, overbrimming its papyrus-shaded banks, with the sacred ibis stalking among its rippling shallows, and the mystic pyramids solemnly rising in the distant prospect. No contemptible companion, though one of a more simple beauty, is found in the water-ranunculus, whose flowers, so often disposed in perfect circlets, rest amidst the blue expanse of the reflected heaven like wreaths formed by human art, and cast in playfulness upon the summer flood; and to descend still further in the scale, the modest hydrocharis may well merit a passing observation, were it only for its exactly turned and peltate-leaves glistening in the sun, beneath which so many a brook, with waters clear as crystal, steals along dispensing freshness and fertility in its course. Rich as England is in the variety of vegetation, which clothes her pleasant pastures and sloping hills, it is in her aquatic plants that her chief pride must consist, taking their extensive range from the purple-spiked loose stripe and tall willow, or typha, with its majestic stalk and tapering blades, to the humble water-milfoil, which, after exposing its flowers for a short time above the surface of the stream, withdraws them again from sight, and ripens its seed unobserved. Once more upon the open mead, fresh candidates for notice come crowding into view, many well known from their frequency and beauty, and some, which would pass unregarded, had not old associations, and the writings of antiquity bestowed upon them an imperishable name; the ajuga, vested in the hue once appropriated to the robes of 2D. SERIES, NO. 41.-VOL. IV. 2 E 185.-VOL. XVI. kings, and formerly distinguished by a monarch's name; hesperis, which reserves its rich odours for the hour when the evening-star glitters among the hues left by the departed sun; the gentle cowslip, pensioner of the fairy queen, and, scattered on the very outskirts of the scanty thicket, the convallaria, with light green stem and ivory bells, for ever agitated by the gust. To these we may add the lysimachia, with its name of good omen, the discovery of whose marvellous qualities is ascribed by Pliny to one of the ancient Sicilian kings; the fumitory, which was considered an herb of no small renown in those days of simple pharmacy, when the monkish materia medica was supplied by specifics gathered from our own fields; stellaria, presenting the moralist with another instance of the qualities of grace and fragility combined; the pale blue speedwell, the snowy saxifrage, and the lychnis of twofold hue. But with these our botanical ramble must close, as the space allowed us to indulge in it is already exhausted. Yet we cannot conclude without one simple reflection,—which, obvious as it may be, it is, perhaps, scarcely at any time superfluous to repeat. How various are the sources of delight to which, even a state confessedly of trial and fluctuating enjoyment, we are permitted a free and daily access. How rich the inheritance, which every child of earth, little as he is entitled to the least of indulgences, is invited freely to possess. It is but to bring an observant mind, and a humble and grateful feeling to the task, and earth, with her green extent; the caverned depths of ocean, peopled with strange and mysterious life; the starry expanse of heaven; nay, even the dark recesses of the solid globe, in which numberless ages have been storing treasures to exercise the conjectures of the curious, and the researches of the profound, are freely presented, if not to satisfy to the full, at least to reward far beyond expectation, every effort of the mind directed towards the knowledge which they embody and reveal. But, if to these attractions of the material world, we add the more abstract qualities of mind, the eagle flight of imagination, the reviving power of memory, or the pleasure, which dawns and increases upon us as we follow step by step the deductions which establish anticipated truth, surely it is not saying too much to assert, that we have a mine of intellectual wealth and gratification laid open before us, as much beyond our most exalted faculties to exhaust, as it is beyond our highest powers to estimate and acknowledge as it deserves. Such is the feeling which it appears to us most appropriate to indulge, in the midst of the luxurious promise and golden influence which characterize the bounteous month of May; a time, at which renovation appears to spread like the beams of morning over the extent of earth, and Hope to speak in every breeze which visits it; and in the praises of which, moreover, we should be tempted to speak at greater length, had not every writer, from Gower downward, done his utmost to render justice to so inviting a subject. One of our finest lyrics, however, written in the true spirit of the Elizabethan age, we shall be well excused for transcribing, as a fitting conclusion to our article, and as shewing with what spirit of thought and versification our forefathers could welcome the full development of returning Spring : May! queen of blossoms, And fulfilling flowers, With what pretty music Shall we charm the hours? In the green bowers? Songsters, that thee adore, Thou hast thy mighty herds, See the lark quivers! When with the jacinths Coy fountains are tressed; Green woods are dressed,. LORD THURLOW. |