62 THE BEAUTIES OF APRIL AND MAY. 



others, free from all aspiring airs, creep unambitiously on the 

 ground, and look like the commonality of the kind. Some 

 are intersected with elegant stripes, or studded 'with radiant 

 spots. Some affect to be genteelly powdered, or neatly fringed ; 

 while others are plain in their aspect, unaffected in their dress, 

 and content to please with a naked simplicity. Some assume 

 the monarch's purple ; some look most becoming in the vir- 

 gin's white : but black, doleful black, has no admittance into 

 the wardrobe of Spring. The weeds of mourning would be a 

 manifest indecorum, when Nature holds a universal festival. 

 She would now inspire none but delightful ideas, and there- 

 fore always makes her appearance in some amiable suit. Here 

 stands a warrior clad with crimson ; there sits a magistrate 

 robed in scarlet ; and yonder struts a pretty fellow, that seems 

 to have dipped his plumes in the rainbow, and glitters in all 

 the gay colours of that resplendent arch. Some rise into a 

 curious cut, or fall into a set of beautiful bells. Others spread 

 themselves in a swelling tuft, or crowd into a delicious cluster. 

 In some the predominant stain softens by the gentlest dimi- 

 nutions, till it has even stolen away from itself. The eye is 

 amused at the agreeable delusion, and we wonder to find 

 ourselves insensibly decoyed into quite a different lustre. In 

 others one would think the fine tinges were emulous of pre- 

 eminence ; disdaining to mingle, they confront one another 

 with the resolution of rivals, determined to dispute the prize 

 of beauty; while each is improved, by the opposition, into the 

 highest vivacity of complexion. 



" Mrs. Pisony came in quite late in a heat, 

 With the Ice-plant, dew-spangled from forehead to feet ; 

 Lobalia, attired like a queen in her pride, 

 And Dahlias, with trimmings new furbish'd and dyed. 

 And the Blue-bells, and Hare-bells in simple array, 

 With all their Scotch cousins from highland and brae, 

 Ragged Ladies and Marigolds clustered together, 

 And gossip'd of scandal, the news, and the weather i 

 What dresses were worn at the wedding so fine 

 Of sharp Mrs. Thistle and sweet Columbine." 



