EPHEMERJ3 OF NATURE. 47 



day, to pass with the unwary for sterling metal, and fetch 

 above their value at the matrimonial mart ? 



On a line with Atlas House, but with numbers enough 

 between, for protection of its gentility, is a chandler's shop. 

 On the counter lie numerous echantillo?is, enveloped in the 

 letter-press of a modern author, a clever writer whose pages 

 deserve no better fate. They were written, two years since, 

 only to please the taste of the day, and now that day is over. 



In the house adjoining, at a front window But stay ! 



what have we here, just fallen upon the ledge of our own 

 cottage casement ? An Ephemeral or May-fly, one, doubtless, 

 of the early swarm which we noticed at nine o'clock this 

 morning rising and falling near the brook at the bottom of the 

 garden. They were then just risen from the water, new-born 

 into air, and into their perfect stage of being. Now it is 

 scarce noon, yet of this, and of the greater number of its active 

 fellows, the life is over. Literally, as proverbially, this is the 

 creature of a day ; a day ! say rather of a few brief hours ; 

 but only let us compare it with the works of art or artifice 

 intended by us for a day's duration. 



Here all is finish and perfection ; for Nature metes not the 

 quality of her workmanship by amount of time. -Even 

 amongst the beautiful and short-lived flowers some of the 

 most beautiful of all are of all the briefest; witness that 

 flower of an hour the Malva horaria. the Favonia, the Gum- 

 cistus, and the Night-blowing Cereus. 



