OBSERVATIONS ON THE PLEASURE GARDEN. 253 



attract the attention of those who have been long absent from their 

 native fields, and who, on their return, pour out the genuine effusions 

 of joy on beholding the village elm, the well-known oak, or the 

 unchanged yew, whose antiquity is equal to the church it shades. We 

 are told of a young Indian Pontaveri (from Otaheite), who, in the 

 midst of the splendour of Paris, regretting the simple beauty of his 

 native island, sprang forward at the unexpected sight of a banana tree 

 in the Jardin des Plantes, embraced it, while his eyes were bathed in 

 tears, and exclaiming with a voice of joy, 'Ah! tree of my country !' 

 seemed, by a delightful illusion of sensibility, to imagine himself for 

 a moment transported to the land which gave him birth. 



" We seem, as it were, for an instant to go back to the delights of 

 infancy, when, on each succeeding spring, we visit the meadows 

 covered with cowslips, which afforded us so many happy hours in 

 childhood, as we formed balls of their blossoms. Then the playful 

 girl, bedecked with wreaths and necklaces of daisies, led her little 

 swain in chains formed of the milky flower stalks of the dandelion; 

 but who at the sight of a butterfly burst the brittle bonds and scam- 

 pered away, to return, perhaps, a few years after sighing, in fetters 

 not so visible, but more binding. 



There is no part of nature's works more interesting than flowers. 

 They seem intended for the embellishment of the fair, and for the 

 ornament of the spot where they tread. Their sweet perfumes have 

 such influence over all our sensations, that in the midst of flowering 

 shrubs the most acute grief generally gives way to sweetest melan- 

 choly. When our home and domestic companions are encompassed 

 by the shrubbery, our situation approaches nearest to a terrestrial 

 paradise. Is it not, then, 



" ' Strange, there should be found, 



Who, self-imprisoned in their proud saloons, 

 Renounce the odours of the open field, 

 For the unscented fictions of the loom ; 

 Who, satisfied only with pencilled scenes, 

 Prefer, to the performance of a God, 

 Th' inferior wonders of an artist's hand ? 

 Lovely, indeed, the mimic works of art, 

 But Nature's works far lovelier.' — Cowpek. 



" The shrubbery is to a rational mind a source of inexhaustible 

 delight and instruction, where each season brings new joy, and every 

 morning ]a fresh harvest of delightful sweets. Subjects for new 



