152 VERONICA. 



" Blue Eyebright ! loveliest flower of all that grow 

 In flower-loved England ! Flower, whose hedgeside gaze 

 Is like an infant's ! What heart doth not know 

 Thee, cluster 'd smiler of the bank ! where plays 

 The sunbeam with the emerald snake, and strays 

 The dazzling rill, companion of the road 

 Which the lone bard most loveth, in the days 

 When hope and love are young ? O come abroad, 

 Blue Eyebright ! and this rill shall woo thee with an ode." 



It was a beautiful May morning, — the 1st of May in the year of 

 Grace forty- four, — when the "Club" assembled at Etal*, the 

 loveliest village of our plain; and so gay and happy with its parterres 

 and green lawn, and broad walks, and trees, and ruins, and the Hall, 

 that I ween a prettier -^Tillage may not well be seen anywhere f. It 

 does one good to visit that florulent village ; and the zephyr, full of 

 fragrance, that came upon us, sunning from a thousand blossoms, 

 gave a whet to the appetite, when the call to breakfast hurried us 

 from these aerial essences to a substantial fare. The hearty and 

 social meal over, we again sally forth to saunter a-field, amid such 

 wildnesses as modern agriculture permits, — in meadows and woods, 

 in brakes and deans, and 



" By shallow rivers to whose falls 

 Melodious bu-ds sing madrigals." 



And so away — all chatting — few listening, — the admiration of every 

 ruddy-cheeked lass, and the wonder of every Colin Clout, — a queer 

 group, as pied in dress, and cast in as many characters, as a strolling 



* Mr. Selby has given an interesting account of this meeting in the 

 Transactions of the Club, ii. p. 86. 



t " To see what a village in our northern regions may be, and ought to be, 

 go to Etal. There you will find flower-gardens in perfection — with the 

 village green as smooth as a lawn in the best-kept pleasiu-e-ground, and 

 the rustic benches under the spreading branches of elm and sycamore. 

 One fine tree, with the seat around its trunk, is conspicuous, with an 

 inscription, which shows the considerate kindness of the noble family, now 

 residing in the mansion-house — ' Willie Wallace's Tree.' I believe the 

 old man is still alive in whose honour the tree is thus devoted to longevity. 

 But it is to the flower-gardens in front of the cottages at Etal to which I 

 am anxious to du'ect attention, because, as a French author says, ' It is the 

 cultivation of flowers which announces a change in the feelings of the 

 peasantry. It is a refined pleasure making a way for itself through grosser 

 materials, hke the first opening of the eyes, — it is the perception of the 

 beautiful, — a new sense awaking in the soul. Those who have wandered 

 through country scenes can testify how the rose-tree at the window, or the 

 honeysuckle at the door of a cottage, always promise everything that is 

 delightful within, and a welcome to the weary traveller ; for the hand that 

 cultivates flowers never shuts it at the prayer of the destitute or the wants 

 of the stranger. In all countries women love flowers, and make bouquets 

 of flowers, but it is only in the midst of comfort that they conceive the 

 idea of adorning their dwellings with them.' " — Rev. Dr. W. S. Gilly. 

 Peasantiy of the Border, p. 1.3. 1811. 



