206 PROSERPINA. 



the style is divided iuto two lobes at the upper end, that a 

 number of glandular hairs cover the ovary, and that this lattei 

 contains two cells. 



3. None of which particulars concern any reasonable mor- 

 tal, looking at a Foxglove, in the smallest degree. Whether 

 hairs which he can't see are glandular or bristly, whether 

 the green knobs, which are left when the purple bells are 

 gone, are divided into two lobes or two hundred, and whether 

 the style is split, like a snake's tongue, into two lobes, or like 

 a rogue's, into any number are merely matters of vulgar 

 curiosity, which lie needs a microscope to discover, and will 

 lose a day of his life in discovering. But if any pretty young 

 Proserpina, escaped from the Plutonic durance of London, 

 and carried by the tubular process, which replaces Charon's 

 boat, over the Lune at Lancaster, cares to come and walk oil 

 the Coniston hills in a summer morning, when the eyebright 

 is out on the high fields, she may gather, with a little help 

 from Brantwood garden, a bouquet of the entire Foxglove 

 tribe in flower, as it is at present defined, and may see what 

 they are like, altogether. 



4. She shall gather : first, the Euphrasy, which makes the 

 turf on the brow of the hill glitter as if with iiew-f alien manna ; 

 then, from one of the blue clusters on the top of the garden 

 wall, the common bright blue Speedwell ; and, from the gar- 

 den bed beneath, a dark blue spire of Veronica spicata ; then, 

 at the nearest opening into the wood, a little foxglove in its 

 first delight of shaking out its bells ; then what next does 

 the Doctor say ? a snapdragon ? we must go back into the 

 garden for that here is a goodly crimson one, but what the 

 little speedwell will think of him for a relative I can't think ! 

 a mullein ? that we must do without for the moment ; a 

 monkey flower ? that we will do without, altogether ; a lady's 

 slipper ? say rather a goblin's with the gout ! but, such as 

 the flower-cobbler has made it, here is one of the kind that 

 people praise, out of the greenhouse, and yet a figwort we 

 must have, too ; which I see on referring to Loudon, may bo 

 balm-leaved, hemp-leaved, tansy-leaved, nettle-leaved, wing- 



heart-leaved, ear-leaved, spear-leaved, or lyre-leaved. 



