A SHARP LOOKOUT 27 



sented from Lowell's statement, in "Al Fresco, " 

 that in early summer the dandelion blooms, in gen- 

 eral, with the buttercup and the clover. I am 

 aware that such criticism of the poets is small game, 

 and not worth the powder. General truth, and not 

 specific fact, is what we are to expect of the poets. 

 Bryant's " Yellow Violet " poem is tender and 

 appropriate, and such as only a real lover and ob- 

 server of nature could feel or express; and Low- 

 ell's "Al Fresco" is full of the luxurious feeling 

 of early summer, and this is, of course, the main 

 thing ; a good reader cares for little else ; I care for 

 little else myself. But when you take your coin to 

 the assay office it must be weighed and tested, and 

 in the comments referred to I (unwisely perhaps) 

 sought to smelt this gold of the poets in the natu- 

 ralist's pot, to see what alloy of error I could 

 detect in it. Were the poems true to their last 

 word? They were not, and much subsequent in- 

 vestigation has only confirmed my first analysis. 

 The general truth is on my side, and the specific 

 fact, if such exists in this case, on the side of the 

 poets. It is possible that there may be a fragrant 

 yellow violet, as an exceptional occurrence, like 

 that of the sweet-scented, arrow-leaved species above 

 referred to, and that in some locality it may have 

 bloomed before the hepatica; also that Lowell may 

 have seen a belated dandelion or two in June, amid 

 the clover and the buttercups; but, if so, they were 

 the exception, and not the rule, — the specific or 

 accidental fact, and not the general truth. 



