STUDY X. 321 



appears to me, if I may venture to fay fo, that 

 Nature has beftowed, by way of preference, both 

 of thefe modifications on the rofe, at leafl before 

 it is completely expanded. Farther, I like violet 

 flowers better than white, and {till much better 

 than fuch as are yellow. I prefer a branch of li- 

 lach in bloom to a pot of gilly-flower*, andaChi- 

 nefe daify, with it's difk of a fmoky yellow, it*s 

 rumpled fliaggy down, it's violet and grave petals, 

 to the mod fialhy clufter of fun-flowers in the 

 Luxemburg. 



I am perfuaded that I have thefe taftes in com- 

 mon with many other perfons, and that, if we 

 form a judgment of men from the colour of their 

 clothes, by far the majority is rather ferious than 

 gay. I am likewife of opinion, that Nature, for 

 to her we muft ever have recourfe in order to be 

 afl'ured that we are right, gives mod of her phy- 

 fical beauties a tendency to melancholy. The 

 plaintive notes of the nightingale, the deep fliades 

 of the foreft, the fober luftre of the Moon, infpire 



* Dr. yohnfon tells us that Gilly-flo'wer is a corruption in or- 

 thography for July-fioToer. With clue refpeft to fo great an 

 Etymologift, this I take to be a miflake. The flowering of the 

 plant is by no means limited to the month of July. The Englifh 

 teim is derived from the French word Girofiier^ (the clove- 

 plant) ; every one knows the ftriking analogy between the fa- 

 vour of that fpicc, and the fmell of the Gilly-flower. H. H. 



VOL, 11. * Y no 



