MIMOSA. 251 



For every bloom his trees in spring afford, 

 An autumn apple was by tale restored. 

 He knew to rank his elms in even rows, 

 For fruit the grafted pear-tree to dispose, 

 And tame to plums the sourness of the sloes. 

 With spreading planes he made a cool retreat, 

 To shade good fellows from the summer's heat ; 

 But, straitened in my space, I must forsake 

 This task, for others afterwards to take." 



The Acanthus was one of the most favourite ornaments 

 of the Greeks ; and, as is well known, makes the princi- 

 pal figure in the capital of the Corinthian column; the 

 idea of which is said to have been suggested by the ac- 

 cidental sight of a basket overgrown by Acanthus, with 

 a tile on it. 



Martyn's notes to Virgil's Georgics contain some very 

 interesting remarks on both the kinds of Acanthus men- 

 tioned by that poet ; and he quotes a passage from Vi- 

 truvius, on the origin of the use of the Acanthus in archi- 

 tecture : " This famous author tells us, that a basket 

 covered with a tile having been accidentally placed on the 

 ground, over a root of acanthus, the stalks and leaves 

 burst forth in the spring, and spreading themselves on the 

 outside of the basket, were bent back again at the top by 

 the corners of the tile. Callimachus, a famous architect, 

 happening to pass by, was delighted with the novelty and 

 beauty of this appearance ; and, being to make some pil- 

 lars at Corinth, imitated the form of this basket, sur- 

 rounded with acanthus, in the capitals. It is certain there 

 cannot be a more lively image of the capital of a Co- 

 rinthian pillar than a basket covered with a tile, and sur- 

 rounded by leaves of brank-ursine, bending outward at 

 the top." Others say that the acanthus of the architects 

 is a different species, though of the same genus with the 

 brank-ursine. 



Virgil again mentions an Acanthus as forming the pat- 



