.TTTNE. 225 



islets soon lost, overpowered at length by the rapidly 

 growing grass, whitened here and there by the clocks 

 or feathery globes of the dandelions. Then follow 

 the Buttercups that rapidly cover the whole field and 

 make it one mass of vegetable gold, gorgeous for the 

 eye to repose upon. By degrees this lustre is softened 

 down by the Sorrels, whose pink sepals intermix and 

 blend with the buttercups ; then finally the grey 

 heads of the foxtail and other grasses take entire 

 possession of the scene the gold vanishes away, the 

 wind blows coldly over the meadow, displaying only 

 the fading culmiferous pallid grasses, now ripe and 

 ready for the hay-harvest. 



Summer is now fully come, for long desired, at last 

 appears in its multiform varieties and exuberant fra- 

 grance, the Queen of Flowers 



" Resplendent ROSE, the flower of flowers, 

 Whose breath perfumes Olympus bowers ; 

 Whose virgin blush of chasten'd dye 



Enchants so much our mortal eye. 



***** 



Oil ! there is naught in nature bright, 

 Where Roses do not shed their light." 



The very sight, or even the name of the Rose, is 

 sufficient to raise our temperature to the poetical 

 point, and recall a hundred legends and fables relative 

 to this universal favourite, from its colour being de- 

 rived from the blood of Adonis, down to the " Eosa- 

 mundi"* and "Wars of the Roses, of our own history. 

 " Warwick. I pluck this white rose with Plantagenet. 

 Suffolk. I pluck this red rose with young Somerset." 



SHAKSPEAR, Hen. VI. 



* Literally, flower of the world; hence the play of words on the inscrip- 

 tion to Fair Rosamond " Rosamundi non Rosamunda." 



Q 



