FLOWERS. 211 



the least disturbance. Thus I could discover their economy, 

 their passions, and their enjoyments. The microscope had 

 given, on this occasion, what nature seemed to have denied 

 to the objects of contemplation. The base of the flower ex- 

 tended itself under its influence to a vast plain ; the slender 

 stems of the leaves became trunks of so many stately cedars ; 

 the threads in the middle seemed columns of massy structure, 

 supporting at the top their several ornaments ; and the nar- 

 row spaces between were enlarged in walks, parterres, and 

 terraces. On the polished bottoms of these, brighter than 

 Parian marble, walked in pairs, alone, or in larger companies, 

 the winged inhabitants; these, from little dusky flies, for 

 such only the naked eye would have shown them, were 

 raised to glorious glittering animuls, stained with living pur- 

 ple, and with a glossy gold that would have made all the 

 labours of the loom contemptible in the comparison. I 

 could at leisure, as they walked together, admire their ele- 

 gant limbs, their velvet shoulders, and their silken wings ; 

 their backs vieing with the empyrean in its blue ; and their 

 eyes each formed of a thousand others, out-glittering the 

 little planes on a brilliant : above description, and too great 

 almost for admiration. I could observe them here singling 

 out their mates, entertaining them with the music of their 

 buzzing wings, with little songs formed for their little or- 

 gans, leading them from walk to walk among the perfumed 

 shades, and pointing out to their taste the drop of liquid nec- 

 tar just bursting from some vein within the living trunk ; 

 here were the perfumed groves, the more than myrtle shades 

 of the poet's fancy realized. Here in the triumph of their 

 little hearts, they skipped from stem to stem among the 

 painted trees ; or winged their short flight to the close 

 shadow of some broader leaf — 



" All formed with proper faculties to share 

 The daily bounties of their Maker's care." 



NoTB. The night-flowering cereus (cactus grandiflorvs) is one of 

 our most splendid hot-house plants, and is a native of Jamaica and 

 some other of the West India Islands. Its stem is creeping, and 

 thickly set with spines. The flower is white and very large, some- 

 times nearly a foot in diameter. The most remarkable circumstance 

 with regard to the flower is the short time it lakes to expand, and 

 the rapidity with which it decays. It begins to open late in the even 

 ing, flourishes for an hour or two, then begins to droop, and befort 

 morning u completely dead. 



