MEMOIRS OF 



And when the tempefts of the wintry day 

 Blow golden Autumn's varied leaves away, 

 Winds of the North, reftrain your icy gales, 

 Nor chill the boibrn of thefe HALLOWED VALES ! * 



When Mifs Seward gave this little 

 poem to Dr. Darwin, he feemed pleafed 

 with it, and faid, " I fliall fend it to the. 

 " periodical publications ; but it ought to 

 " form the exordium of a great work. 

 " The Linnean Syftem is unexplored poetic 

 "ground, and an happy fubjeft for the 

 " mufe. It affords fine fcope for poetic 

 " landfcape ; it fuggefls metamorphofes 

 " of the Ovidian kind, though reverfed. 

 *' Ovid made men and women into flowers, 

 " plants, and trees. You fhould make 



* Thefe verfes, in their original ftate, as infcribed here, will be 

 found in Mr. Shaw's Hiftory of Staffordfhire, published in 17Q8, near 

 four years before the death of Dr. Darwin ; fee Artiele Lichfield y page 347. 

 Their author chofe to affert her claim to them in the Doftor's lifetime, 

 fmce they had appeared in the periodical Publications many years before 

 the Botanic Garden puffed. the prefs,-and had borne her fignature. 



" flowers, 



