MAY. 85 



the wall -flower, the pansy, and the columbine. 

 And there too we see the wide box edgings, 

 phmted by hands which have long since min- 

 gled in the dust, and their borders perhaps, 

 though they are not in such trim order, are 

 as healthy and as verdant as they were a cen- 

 tury ago, when the dwarf box was extolled for 

 " bordering up a knot," and was considered " a 

 marvellous fine ornament to a flower garden." 

 The species used by gardeners for this purpose 

 is the dwarf box, (^Biuvtis sempervirens nana^ 

 being merelj' a variety of the hardy box tree 

 of our native Avoods, which too seems to have 

 been in the gardens of England from the earliest 

 period. It was formerly cut, especially by the 

 Romans, into those various figures in which 

 the gardeners of the olden times so much de- 

 lighted. Few of them apparently would have 

 agreed with Lord Bacon : " I, for my part," says 

 he, " do not like images cut out in juniper or 

 other garden stufFe; they be for children." 

 Modern taste, justly preferring the graceful 

 wildness of nature, rejects the custom of clip- 

 ping trees into the shapes of birds or animals, 

 or of cones and pyramids, yet the old yew or 

 box, which still retains its place on the terrace 

 of the ancient dwelling, has a charm of its own, 

 whispering to the heart of other days, and lead- 

 ing the mind to dwell on England in the olden 

 years, and to muse on the changes of things 

 and feelings, which time is ever making, as he 

 marches onwards to mingle into eternity. 



The box crows wild, not only in England, 



