46 A YEAR IN A LANCASHIRE GARDEN. 



The foliage of the large forest-trees is particu- 

 larly fine this year. The Horse Chestnuts were the 

 first in leaf, and each branch is now holding up 

 its light of waxen blossom. The Elms came next, 

 the Limes, the Beeches, and then the Oaks. Yet 

 still 



" the tender Ash delays 

 To clothe herself when all the woods are green," 



and is all bare as in mid-winter. This, however, 

 if the adage about the Oak and the Ash be true, 

 should be prophetic of a fine hot summer. 



May 21. I wonder if any effect of bedding out 

 is finer than that which my mixed borders have 

 now to show. They are at their very best, for 

 it is the reign of the Paeony and the Iris. Great 

 clumps of each, the one bowed down with the 

 weight of its huge crimson globes, the other 

 springing up erect with its purple-headed shafts, 

 appear at intervals along the borders, and each lends 

 a fresh grace to the form and colour of the other. 



Among other flowers in rare beauty just now 

 are (as once in the garden of " the Sensitive 

 Plant,") 



" Narcissi, the fairest among them all, 

 Who gaze on their eyes in the stream's recess 

 Till they die of their own dear loveliness." 



