1 70 FROM A MIDDLESEX GARDEN 



The dear old Lilium martagon is in its beauty, sending up its 

 spike of wax-like bells ; nor does any summer garden seem to 

 be complete without the clusters of pure white flowers of 

 Lilium candidum. In many gardens about here I have noticed 

 the blue tint on the sea-eryngo, but never have I seen it in 

 any garden growing so beautiful as it does in its native place 

 among the bugloss and yellow-horned poppies on the cliffs by 

 the sea : it is there one sees it to perfection. Although it be 

 far from, and out of, its native element, it is right that we 

 should grow it about our paths, for often the sight of it must 

 bring to us the sound of the murmuring sea, and the faces of 

 friends whose acquaintance we made some time of holiday, 

 and in fancy we feel the salt sea-spray upon our lips ! The 

 limes are glorious with their pale-golden honey-filled blossoms; 

 their branches are musical with the sound of bees. In the 

 hot July noon their shade is very acceptable, and when the 

 breeze gently stirs the leaves, they seem to be wooing us to 

 indulge in a brief siesta in the scented shadow, surrounded by 

 poppies, those flowers of slumber ! But how brief is the 

 beauty of kindling flowers of summer gardens ! 



When once in some season of summer our garden is all 

 that we desire it should be ; when our flowers blossom just as 

 we would have them, and, after their beauty has passed, 

 how great is our desire, how many our hopes that such an- 

 other garden will bless our autumn toil and crown the patience 

 of winter, in the summer next to dawn ; but our gardens can 

 never be twice alike. So it is with our pleasures : they never 

 return to us in the manner in which they first came to us. 

 There will come many days filled with joys, just as new 

 summers will fill gardens with beautiful flowers : but as our 

 gardens in the past seem always to have held something better 



