LECTURE ON SPRING FLOWERS. 335 



the stirring of the poetic muse. I am bold to confess this, 

 undaunted by the recollection of the sensations of Hamlet 

 and Horatio in their midnight watch on the platform 

 before the Castle at Elsinore 



HAMLET. The air bites shrewdly it is very cold. 

 HORATIO. It is a nipping and an eager air 



undaunted too by what our great humourist, Hood, has 

 said in his poem on Spring : 



" ' Come, gentle Spring ; ethereal mildness, come ;' 



Oh ! Thomson, void of rhyme as well as reason, 

 How could'st thou thus poor human nature hum 

 There's no such season. 



Let others eulogise her floral shows, 



From me they cannot win a single stanza ; 



I know her blooms are in full blow, and so's 

 The Influenza. 



Her Cowslips, Stocks, and Lilies of the Vale, 

 Her honey-blossoms that you hear the bees at, 



Her Pansies, Daffodils, and Primrose pale 

 Are things to sneeze at. 



In short, whatever panegyrics lie 



In fulsome odes, too many to be cited, 

 The tenderness of Spring is all my eye, 



And that is blighted." 



Now, I am not disposed to quarrel with the poet for 

 drawing so desolate a picture of an English spring ; on 

 the contrary, in his facts and fancies I think I find powerful 

 reasons for the extensive cultivation of spring flowers. 

 Our gardens may be decorated and enlivened, our hearths 

 and halls perfumed and adorned by the grateful odours 

 and brilliant tints of early flowers. 



Spring flowers are not cultivated so extensively as 

 they should be in English gardens. There is no reason 

 why our gardens should be so bare and desolate as they 

 generally are in spring. Every country mansion which is 



