THE POPLAR. 71 



ornament to favour again, With us the nosegay 

 yet retains its station as a decoration to our Sunday 

 beaux ; but at our spring clubs and associations it 

 becomes an essential, indispensable appointment ; a 

 little of the spirit of rivalry seeming to animate our 

 youths in the choice and magnitude of this adorn- 

 ment. The superb spike of a Brompton, or a ten 

 weeks' stock, long cherished in some sheltered cor- 

 ner for the occasion, surrounded by all the gaiety 

 the garden can afford, till it presents a very bush 

 of flowers, forms the appendage of their bosoms, 

 and, with the gay knots in their hats, their best 

 garments, and the sprightly hilarity of their looks, 

 constitutes a pleasing village scene, and gives an 

 hour of unencumbered felicity to common man and 

 rural life, not yet disturbed by refinement and 

 taste. 



Oh, who can hold a fire in his hand 

 By thinking on the frosty Caucasus ? 



And yet the shivering of the aspen, or poplar tree 

 (populus tremula) in the breeze will give us the 

 sensation of coldness, and communicate an involun- 

 tary shuddering. The construction of the foliage 

 of this tree is peculiarly adapted for motion ; a 

 broad leaf placed upon a long footstalk, so flexile 

 as scarcely to be able to support the leaf in an up- 

 right posture: the upper part of this stalk, on 

 which the play or action seems mainly to depend, 

 is contrary to the nature of footstalks in general, 

 being perfectly flattened, and, as an eminent bo- 

 tanist and esteemed gentleman, Dr. I. Stokes,, ob- 



