SEPTEMBER. 391 



thing else, and hence I have sought to connect beau- 

 tiful scenery with the plants that every day spring up 

 before our eyes. There is an incitation in this that 

 awakens the heart-strings of thought into full activity 

 and gives wings to the imagination. An amiable 

 author of Reflections among the Sublimities of Na- 

 ture, asks " Why does the common heart' s-ease, the 

 bear's-foot, and the polyanthus, interest him more 

 than many other flowers, much more rare and beauti- 

 ful ? Because they decorated the garden of a cottage 

 belonging to an old woman whom he loved in his 

 childhood. The violet, so beautiful and so odoriferous 

 in itself, is still increased in interest by remembering 

 how many a tranquil hour he has devoted to the 

 gathering bunches of it under the hedgerows, when a 

 boy.- -"When he sees a wood- strawberry, why are his 

 reflections agreeable ? Because it grows abundantly 

 in a wood in the county of Merioneth, where he has 

 often delighted to wander. The wind-berry, the bog- 

 berry, and the spider-w r ort ? Because growing on 

 mountains, they have associated themselves with 

 liberty, solitude, and large flocks of sheep." * 



So in like manner I have wandered into the soli- 

 tudes of nature not merely for flowers, but for 

 thoughts, that in after years should be associated with 

 them by memory, and which their sight should again 

 recall. The banks of the "Wizard Dee are connected 

 in my mind with the Worm-seed Treacle Mustard 

 (Erysimum clieirantJioides) , and the Marsh Hawk's- 

 Beard (Crepis paludoscf), which I found, the latter 

 especially most abundantly adorning the margin of 

 the stream ; as well as with those woods of silver- 



* BUCKE'S Beauties, Harmonies, and Sublimities of Nature, vol. Hi. p. 13. 



