As I have, ere now, descried

By the thunderous falls of Clyde ;
Or where bright Loch Katrine fills
Such a space between such hills,
As no lake beside it may,

Since Eden's waters passed away.'-W. H.

"Cottage gardens are now perfect paradises; and, after gazing on their sunny quietude, their lilachs, peonies, wall flowers, tulips, anemonies and corcoruses with their yellow tufts of flowers, now becoming as common at the doors of cottages as the rosemary and rue once were— one cannot help regretting that more of our labouring classes do not enjoy the freshness of earth, and the pure breeze of heaven, in these little rural retreats, instead of being buried in close and sombre alleys. A man who can, in addition to a tolerable remuneration for the labour of his hands, enjoy a clean cottage and a garden amidst the common but precious offerings of nature; the grateful shade of trees and the flow of waters, a pure atmosphere and a riant sky, can scarcely be called poor.

"If Burns had been asked what was the greatest luxury of May, I suppose he would have quoted from his 'Cotter's Saturday Night.' If Heaven a draught of heavenly pleasure spare,

One cordial in this melancholy vale,

'Tis when a youthful, loving, modest pair

In other's arms breathe out the modest tale

Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the evening gale.'

At which Gilpin would quote, from his 'Forest Scenery,' a passage proving the poets to be very foolish for their admiration of so insignificant and inelegant a bush. We, however, shall take part with Burns, only we would conjure a nightingale into his hawthorn, and the hawthorn into a forest, for of all May delights, listening to the nightingale is the greatest, and when heard at still midnight, the moon and stars above you, filling with lustre the clear blue sky; the trees lifting up their young and varied foliage to the silvery light; the deer quietly resting in their thickest shadows, and the night-breezes, ever and anon, wafting through the air, Sabean odours,' then if you feel neither love nor poetry, depend upon it, you are neither lover nor poet. As, however, in this country, nightingales are as capricious as the climate, a good singing gentleman is no bad substitute, as a friend of ours convinced us on such an occasion, making the woods echo with the 'Pibroch of Donnel Dhu.'

"FLOWERS.-The return of May again brings over us a living sense of the loveliness and delightfulness of flowers. Of all the minor creations of God, they seem to be most completely the effusions of his love of beauty, grace and joy. Of all the natural objects which surround us, they are the least connected with our absolute necessities. Vegetation might proceed, the earth might be clothed with a sober green; all the processes of fructification might be perfected without being attended by the glory with which the flower is crowned; but beauty and fragrance are poured abroad over the earth in blossoms of endless varieties, radiant evidences of the boundless benevolence of the Deity. They

are made solely to gladden the heart of man, for a light to his eyes, for a living inspiration of grace to his spirit, for a perpetual admiration. And accordingly, they seize on our affections the first moment that we behold them. With what eagerness do very infants grasp at flowers! As they become older they would live for ever amongst them. They bound about in the flowery meadows like young fawns; they gather all they come near; they collect heaps; they sit among them, and sort them and sing over them, and caress them, till they perish in their grasp.

'This sweet May morning

The children are pulling

On every side,

In a thousand valleys far and wide
Fresh flowers.'

WORDSWORTH.

We see them coming wearily into the towns and villages with their pinafores full, and with posies half as large as themselves. We trace them in shady lanes, in the grass of far-off fields, by the treasures they have gathered and have left behind, lured on by others still brighter. As they grow up to maturity, they assume in their eyes, new characters and beauties. Then they are strewn around them, the poetry of the earth. They become invested by a multitude of associations with innumerable spells of power over the human heart; they are to us memorials of the joys, sorrows, hopes, and triumphs of our forefathers; they are to all nations, the emblems of youth in its loveliness and purity. "The ancient Greeks, whose souls pre-eminently sympathised with the spirit of grace and beauty in every thing, were enthusiastic in their love, and lavish in their use, of flowers. They scattered them in the porticoes of their temples, they were offered on the altars of some of their deities: they were strewed in the conqueror's path; on all occasions of festivity and rejoicing they were strewn about, or worn in garlands.

It was the custom then to bring away

The bride from home at blushing shut of day,
Veiled, in a chariot, heralded along

By strewn flowers, torches and a marriage song.'-KEATS.

The guests at banquets were crowned with them :

'Garlands of every green, and every scent,

From vales deflowered, or forest-trees branch-rent,
In baskets of bright osiered gold were brought,
High as the handles heaped, to suit the thought
Of every guest, and each as he did please

Might fancy-fit his brows, silk-pillowed at his ease.'-KEATS.

The bowl was wreathed with them, and wherever they wished to throw beauty, and to express gladness, like sunshine they cast flowers.

"Something of the same spirit seems to have prevailed amongst the Hebrews. 'Let us fill ourselves,' says Solomon, with costly wine and ointments; and let no flower of the spring pass by us. Let us crown ourselves with rosebuds before they be withered.' But amongst that solemn and poetical people they were commonly regarded in another and higher sense, they were the favourite symbols of the beauty and

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the fragility of life. Man is compared to the flower of the field, and it is added, the grass withereth, the flower fadeth.' But of all the poetry ever drawn from flowers, none is so beautiful, none is so sublime, none is so imbued with that very spirit in which they were made as that of Christ. And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not neither do they spin, and yet, I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory, was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, 0 ye of little faith!' The sentiment built upon this, entire dependance on the goodness of the Creator, is one of the lights of our existence, and could only have been uttered by Christ; but we have here also the expression of the very spirit of beauty in which flowers were created; a spirit so boundless and overflowing, that it delights to enliven and adorn with these riant creatures of sunshine the solitary places of the earth; to scatter them by myriads over the very desert where no man is; on the wilderness where there is no man;' sending rain, to satisfy the desolate and waste ground, and to cause the bud of the tender herb to spring forth.'

In our confined notions, we are often led to wonder why

'Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,

And waste its fragrance on the desert air;'

why beauty, and flowers, and fruit, should be scattered so exuberantly where there are none to enjoy them. But the thoughts of the Almighty are not as our thoughts. He sees them; he doubtlessly delights to behold the beauty of his handiworks, and rejoices in that tide of glory which he has caused to flow wide through the universe. We know not, either, what spiritual eyes besides may behold them; for pleasant is the belief, that

'Myriads of spiritual creatures walk the earth.""

-Book of the Seasons, pp. 99-110. To Mr. Jesse we are indebted for many an hour of pure enjoyment. His three volumes of "Gleanings" are to us so many bright, long, delicious summer days, ever to be remembered in the years of existence that have fleeted away. No reader of any taste can, we think, pore without emotion upon the reflections into which this amiable enthusiast is often led by the general current of his subject.

"But who the melodies of morn can tell?

The wild brook babbling down the mountain's side;
The lowing herd; the sheepfold's simple bell;

The hum of bees, and linnet's lay of love,

And the full choir that wakes the universal grove.'

"Those who reside in the country can appreciate the enjoyment of the first fine days of spring. Nature then puts on her most smiling aspect, and everything looks joyous: frost and snow have disappeared, and the fields are clothed with verdure.

"It is impossible not to enjoy such moments. As for myself, I am never so happy as when I am strolling on the bank of some clear and beautiful stream on a fine spring day: the scenery, the birds and flowers, all add to my pleasure. I like to see the glittering streamlet play,' and to hear the prattle of the purling rill,' as Thomson calls the sound made by a brook as it passes over a bed of pebbles—

The little brook

That o'er its flinty pavement sweetly sung.'

"No one appears to have appreciated the charms of the country more than Horace. In his beautiful ode in praise of a country life, he details the pleasures to be derived from it, in a manner which shews how capable he was himself of enjoying its attractions. After describ

ing how happy the man must be who cultivates his own land, prunes and engrafts his fruit-trees, or sees his lowing cattle in some lonely vale, and stores his honey, and shears his sheep, and gathers in his fruits, he exclaims

'Libet jacere modò sub antiquâ ilice,

Modò in tenaci gramine :

Labuntur altis interim ripis aquæ :
Queruntur in sylvis aves;

Fontesque lymphis obstrepunt manantibus,

Somnos quod invitet leves.'

"I am apt to dwell on the charms of the country, because so much of my own happiness is derived from it, and because I am persuaded that so many others might enjoy the same pleasure. The mere act, however, of living in the country will not be sufficient; there must be a decided fondness for the occupations it affords: visiting the cottages of the peasantry, and relieving their wants, is one of these. The cultivation of flowers should not be neglected, as it is another of the resources which makes a country life agreeable, and affords a pleasure which is not only inexhaustible, but is one of the most fascinating kind. To this may be added the study of natural history, which alone is sufficient to keep the mind employed, and prevent the day from becoming dull or tedious. It is a study also calculated to make us wiser and better, as the more we contemplate the works of creation, the more reason we shall have to entertain a deep sense of Almighty power and goodness;

For God is paid when man receives

To enjoy is to obey.' POPE.

"Those persons to whom the employment of their minds is irksome, and who gradually lose their intellectual powers, because they will not take the pains of exerting them, will be incapable of appreciating the pleasures and benefits to be derived from a well-regulated life, passed in the country. Those, however, who are willing to try the experiment,

may be assured that it will be their own fault if their time is not both usefully and agreeably employed: they will become cheerful and instructive companions, kind and humane in their dispositions, and have their moral character improved and made more fit for that great change which, sooner or later, must happen to us all.

"I cannot refrain from quoting what an elegant writer* has said on the subject in question.

"We are affected with delightful sensations when we see the inanimate parts of the creation, the meadows, flowers and fields, in a flourishing state. There must be some rooted melancholy at the heart, when all nature appears smiling about us, to hinder us from corresponding with the rest of the creation, and joining in the universal chorus of joy. But if meadows and trees in their cheerful verdure-if flowers in their bloom, and all the vegetable parts of the creation in their most advantageous dress, can inspire gladness in the heart, and drive away all sadness, but despair; to see the rational creation happy and flourishing, ought to give us a pleasure as much superior, as the latter is to the former in the scale of beings. But the pleasure is still heightened, if we ourselves have been instrumental in contributing to the happiness of our fellow-creatures-if we have helped to raise a heart drooping beneath the weight of grief, and revived that barren and dry land, where no water was, with refreshing showers of love and kindness.'

"Under almost every circumstance of disquietude or of solitude, alone in one's room, or wandering far away from the haunts of mankind, a lover of Nature has always something around him not only to occupy his thoughts, but to afford him gratification and pleasure. When I say pleasure, I mean that pleasure which arises from the occupation of the mind when devoted to a delightful study, and which cheers us with the conviction that our time is not unprofitably spent. As we proceed in the contemplation of the works of Nature, her beauties are gradually unfolded to our view, as if she were pleased that her works had excited our wonder and admiration; the study of them is indeed unbounded, for the objects she presents to our notice are infinite, unceasing, and delightful."

We believe we may fairly say, that to the author of the "Journal of a Naturalist," belongs the enviable honour of having been the first of modern writers, who have given to natural history that poplar and captivating aspect, which, happily, it has recently assumed amongst us. This work, which has already passed through several editions, should never be absent from the parlour window.

• Seed.