150 WILD FLOWERS OP 



upon the wild Daffodil as bringing in its March wan- 

 tonness beauteous images back to the mind, but has 

 lavished profuse praise on the vernal Celandine 



" There's a flower that shall be mine, 

 'Tis the little Celandine." 



There may be perhaps some conceit in this, but asso- 

 ciation with past thoughts or circumstances will flash 

 up in the mind at the sight of a flower, and so give to 

 the poet as well as to other people a hidden charm in 

 some particular plant. So PETRARCH from his roman- 

 tic love for LAURA, delighted in the Laurel and its 

 shade as connecting his fancy with Tier, and in his 

 sonnets celebrates both his mistress and the tree, 

 from beneath the shade of which he was called to be 

 crowned with his beloved Laurel in the Capitol. In 

 like manner ARIOSTO, the name of whose lady-love 

 (Gineura), nearly corresponded with that of a Juniper 

 (Ginelro), in one of his sonnets says, that the shrub 

 bearing her name that prescribes laws to his troubled 

 soul, shall alone crown his brow. 



Our own poets in general rather by implication 

 denote their predilections, as SHELLEY'S delicate 

 organization is shown by the Sensitive-Plant winning 

 his muse ; while SOTJTHET bold and homely with Eng- 

 lish thoughts and church attachments, grapples with, 

 lauds, and points a moral in the shining and prickly 

 Holly. BRYANT sees beauty and imagery in an inele- 

 gant and neglected Gentian; CRABBE in his truthful 

 strains descends to so homely a vegetable product as 

 the Kelp; while ELLIOTT'S stern temperament led him 

 to take under his protection what all poets had before 

 neglected the bramble ! So then from a poet's floral 

 pictures we see the colour of Ids mind. GOLDSMITH'S 



