STATE HOETIOULTURAL SOCIETY. 189 



prettiest low-boni lass that ever ran on the green-sward," comes 

 among the guests Avith gifts of flowers and chatters of "rose- 

 mary and rue, grace and remembrance," the flowers of Winter? 

 One might fancy that Thomas Andrew Knight, President of the 

 old London Horticultural Society, had lived two hundred years be- 

 fore his time, and stood at Shakspeare's shoulder when this scene 

 was penned to teach a lesson in cross-breeding of flowers, and in 

 grafting tender cions on hardy stocks, and put it into the dialogue 

 between Perdita and Polixines. She will have none of the 

 carnations and streaked gilliflowers, will this pure maid ; they are 

 not true to the conventionalities. She has heard 



" There is an art which in their piedness shares 

 With great-creating nature;" 



forgetting in her own fidelity and innocence what the wisdom of 

 Polixines reminds her of, that 



* * Nature is made better by no mean ; 



But nature makes that mean, so o'er that art 



Which you say adds to nai ure, is an art 



That nature makes. You see, sweet maid, we marry 



A gentle cion to the wildest stock, 



And make conceive by bark of baser kind, 



A bud of nobler race. This is an art 



Which does mend Nature. Change it rather; but 



The art itself is nature.' ' 



Now, she tells them of 



"DafFodills, 

 That come before the swallow dares and take 

 The winds of March with beauty; violets dim, 

 But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes, 

 Or Cytherea's breath; pale primeroses 

 That die unmarried ere they can behold 

 Bright Phoebus in his strength, 

 * * * Bold oxlips 

 And the crown imperial; lilies of all kinds, 

 The flower-de-luce being one." 



Under the inspiration of these treasures of the garden, linked to 

 love and hospitality and the admiring eyes of Florizel, she wonders 

 at her own mental exaltation, and thinks the unaccustomed dress 

 they havr put upon her as mistress of the feast has become a robe 

 of magic: 



" Sure this robe of mine does change my disposition." 



