JTTLY. 285 



In Sweden a rich wine is prepared from the fruit of 

 the Dwarf Crimson Bramble (Rufais arcticus), which 

 is preserved for the tables of the nobility ; and Liff- 

 KEUS, in his Flora Lapponica, speaks with gratitude 

 of the refreshment the berries had often afforded him. 

 In our own country the humble Blackberry is by no 

 means unsought or unvalued by the peasantry, and in 

 the autumnal season numbers of children may be seen 

 with hands all smeared with bloody stains, joyfully 

 plucking the blackberries a pleasing rustic employ- 

 ment, the remembrance of which may delightfully 

 recur to them in after years of care. The blackberry, 

 indeed, seems associated with truantizing in wild 

 tangled lanes and heaths covered with furze and 

 underwood, and what country boy is there but who 

 has been tempted by it when sun-burnt Autumn 

 scattered hips and haws plentifully in the hedges, to 

 start out on a blackberrying excursion ? 



" When the fair apple, red as evening sky, 



Doth bend the tree unto the fruitful ground ; 

 When juicy pears and berries of black die 

 Dance in the air, and all is glad around. 3 ' 



Even now the idea calls up pleasurable thoughts, and 

 is not without botanical expectations. COWPEE gives 

 a capital picture in his own person of a truant boy, 

 urged by love of nature and hope of adventure, to 

 pass his bounds and make a day of it in blackberry- 

 hunting. 



" For I have lov'd the rural walk through lanes 

 Of grassy swarth, close cropp'd by nibbling sheep, 

 And skirted thick with intertexture firm 

 Of thorny boughs ; have lov'd the rural walk 

 O'er hills, through vallies, and by rivers' brink, 

 E'er since a truant boy I pass'd my bounds, 



