44 Spring 



pewits are, poppies like red bubbles of blood on 

 October stubble, wild mustard showing its clear 

 yellow in the green corn ; not forgetting the dande- 

 lion, the crow's foot, the fennel and the fern ; these 

 from Nature's own fair garden, Nature who weaves a 

 chaplet of bramble flowers for the thicket and clothes 

 the desolate hills in a purple garment of heath, and 

 fills quiet lanes with the sweet briar's fragrance. 



In further illustration the ' Complete Gardener ' 

 shall be as full of quotation as old Burton's ' Anatomy.' 

 Carlyle praising that supreme tribute to the lilies that 

 ' toil not neither do they spin ; ' Lord Tennyson's 

 brief pictures from the ' swamps and hollows grey ' of 

 his native county : Jefferies dwelling on a memory of 

 Coate ; Mr. Andrew Lang translating : 



April pride of murmuring 



Winds of Spring, 

 That beneath the winnowed air 

 Trap with subtle nets and sweet 



Flora's feet, 

 Flora's feet, the fleet and fair ; 



these, and many other moderns, but more that are old, 

 shall quicken discernment and sharpen vision till 

 every leafy curve and flowery tint is revealed in utmost 

 beauty. Yet it may not be forgotten that gardening 

 is a secluded and cloistered pleasure, and by a sober 

 melancholy differentiated from the rude and gross 

 joys of fashion. When the orchard grass is white 

 with fallen blossoms and the leaves all green are 



