178 THE BEAUTIES OP APRIL AND MAY. 



the border ; while others, free from all aspiring airs, creep 

 unambitiously on the ground, and look like the commonalty 

 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 virgin'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 an universal festival. She would now 

 inspire none but delightful ideas, and therefore always makes 

 her appearance in some amiable suit. Here stands a war- 

 rior clad with crimson ; there sits a magistrate robed in 

 scarlet ; and yonder strusts 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 cup, 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 diminutions, 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 con- 

 front 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. Peeony came in quite late in a heat, 



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



Lobelia, 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 i. r andal, the news, and the weather ; 



What dresses were worn at the wedding so fine 



Of sharp Mrs. Thistle, and sweet Columbine." 



