106 THE FLOWER GARDEN. 



of the furze, just such an English scene as Linnaeus is said to 

 have fallen down and worshipped the first time he beheld it. 

 The heavy dew upon the grass reminds me that we 

 have taken too long a stroll ; and though I could have 

 wished to have shown you my Arboretum, my Thornery, 

 and my Deodara pine, yet the light from the drawingroom 

 windows, which I can see through the trees, calls us 

 homeward, and bids us leave that pleasure for another 

 day, and hark ! the strain of music and " the voice of 

 girls !" Listen ! they sing 



* I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows, 

 Where ox-lips and the nodding violet grows, 

 Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, 

 With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine." 



To enjoy our garden, however, we want no such expanse 

 as I have just described. The Spitalfields weaver may 

 derive more pleasure from his green box of smoked auri- 

 culas than the Duke of Devonshire from his two acres of 

 conservatory at Chatsworth. Nor if we can tell a foxglove 

 and a corn-flower when we see them, need we be as wise 

 as Solomon, who " spoke of plants from the cedar that is 

 in Lebanon, to the hyssop that springeth out of the wall." 

 If we have a good rose-bush on our lawn, we need not 

 torture ourselves to discover that philosopher's-stone of 

 gardening a blue dahlia. 



Some love for flowers, however, we should have, if 

 Cicero, and Shakspeare, and Bacon, and Temple, and 

 Addison, and Scott, be of any authority with us at all. 

 Some care of these things we must have, for One far higher 

 than all has bid us " behold the fig-tree and all the trees," 

 and " consider the lilies of the field." A garden is inwoven 

 in the noblest and most sacred feelings of man's heart. 

 This world, in man's innocence, was a garden, and it was 



