27 



" To mark, in every magick change of scene. 

 The grand diversities of nature's laws, 

 Yet find in all the ever present God !" 



You will thus give them an instructive friend, where they might 

 otherwise be solitary. You will supply them with a volume, in 

 which with rapture 



" they may read, and read, 



And read again, and still find something new, 



Something to please, and something to instruct." 

 Could I accost the amiable portion of our race, whose attri- 

 butes are symbolized by the delights of Flora, I might maintain 

 the justice and propriety, with which a certain Oriental lan- 

 guage* uses the same word to designate both flowers and the 

 fair. Every estimable virtue that adorns the sex has its type in 

 these exquisite manifestations of the Benignant. And they are 

 adapted, not only for the personal embellishment, but for the 

 intellectual and moral discipline of those, to whom I would com- 

 mend the contemplation of their loveliness. Their province is 

 not only to afford the senses a rich feast, to fill with their sweet 

 perfumes the air we breathe, and to allure the eye by their con- 

 formations, and by their tints of colour ; but by sympathies, the 

 mast refined, and pure, and amiable, to exalt the soul. 



" The spleen is seldom found where Flora reigns. 



The low'ring eye, the petulance, the frown, 



And sullen sadness, that o'ershade, distort, 



And mar the face of beauty, when no cause 



For such immeasurable woe appears : 



These Flora banishes, and gives the fair 



Sweet smiles, and bloom less transient than her own.'M" 

 _ 



* The Malay, the most agreeable throughout the East. Like French in 

 Europe, it is a very general medium of thought; and its characteristicks. 

 entitle it to be distinguished, as the Italian of the Orientals* 



t I would here name particularly the Siflra Florifera by Henry PhiUip? r 

 ajs deserving a place- in every Lady's Library. .No one can rise from the 

 perusal of it without amiable feelings. 



