36 A YEAR IN A LANCASHIRE GARDEN. 



colour like nothing else, and indeed without a 

 name, that would convey the depth and beauty of 

 the dark tawny hue. What a contrast to the little 

 wild yellow flower, which draws its scanty life from 

 the wall of some grey old castle like that of Conway ! 

 Few scents are more delicious than that of Wall- 

 flowers. Bacon says of them that they " are very 

 delightful, to be set under a parlour or lower cham- 

 ber window." It is an old controversy whether the 

 Wallflower and the Gillyflower are the same ; but 

 it seems tolerably clear that the latter name was 

 rather loosely used, and meant sometimes the Wall- 

 flower, but sometimes also the Stock or the Clove 

 Carnation. The Polyanthus on the borders has 

 done better than those on the separate bed ; the 

 pretty tortoise-shell blossoms (to use a good ex- 

 pression of Forbes Watson) are just now in full 

 perfection, and I have also a perfectly white Hose- 

 in-hose Polyanthus, which is really charming. 

 There is a droll passage in one of Sterne's love- 

 letters to his future wife, in which he says and he 

 means to be sentimental and pathetic 



" The kindest affections will have room to shoot and expand in 

 our retirement. Let the human tempest and hurricane rage at a 

 distance, the desolation is beyond the horizon of peace. My L. [the 

 lady's name was Lydia] has seen a Polyanthus blow in December ! 



