FLOWER-GARDEXIXG. 15 



*' Maternal Flora, with benignant hand, 

 Her flowers profusely scatters o'er the land ; 

 These deck the valleys with unnumbered hues. 

 And far around their pregnant sweets diffuse, 

 The broad Carnations, gay and spotted Pinks, 

 Are showered profuse along the rivers' brinks." 



The field we have entered is so extensive and so enchant- 

 ing that we cannot extricate onrselves without taking a cur- 

 sory glance at the airs and habits, the attitude and linea- 

 ments, of each distinct class. See the Paeonia of China, 

 splendid and beautifully grand ! View the charming Rose, 

 dehcate and languishingly fair! and while you inhale its 

 balmy sweetness, you will be constrained to admire it, not- 

 withstanding its thorny appendages. 



" Kose ! thou art the sweetest flower 

 That ever drank the amber shower ; 

 Rose ! thou art the fondest child 

 Of dimpled Spring ! the wood-nymph wild 1 

 Resplendent Rose ! the flower of flowers, 

 Whose breath perfumes Olympus' bowers ; 

 Whose virgin blush, of chasten'd dye, 

 Enchants so much our mental eye." 



Behold all the pomp and glory of the parterre, where Nature's 

 paint and perfumes do wonders. Some rear their heads as 

 with a majestic mien, and overlook, like sovereigns or nobles, 

 the whole parterre. Others seem more modest in their aims, 

 and advance only to the middle stations ; a genius turned for 

 heraldry might term them the gentry of the border; while 

 others, free from all aspiring airs, creep unambitiously on the 

 ground, and appear like the commonalty of their species. 

 Some are intersected with elegant stripes or studded with 

 radiant spots. Some affect to be genteelly powdered, or neatly 

 fringed ; v/hile others are plain in their aspect, unaffected in 

 their dress, and content to please with a naked simplicity. A 

 few assume the monarch's purple, or ai'e arrayed in the beconi- 



