Explanatory. 23 



unmown for the sake of growing Spring Bulbs. 

 Observe how the poet's eye is caught by the 

 buttercups that " shine like gold" there ; and we, 

 who are continually talking of our " horticultural 

 skill and progress," never so much as get near the 

 effect produced by this very glinting iield of butter- 

 cups, or attain to anything which at all equals it in 

 beauty, although our opportunities to do so are un- 

 rivalled ! Now suppose a poet, with an eye for natu- 

 ral beauty, or an artist, or any person of taste, to 

 come upon some spot where a wide fringe of grass 

 spreads out in the bay of a shrubbery or plantation, 

 and upon this carpet of rising and unshaven verdure 

 there were dotted, in addition to the few pretty 

 natural flowers that happened to take possession of 

 it, the blue Apennine Anemone, the Snowdrop, 

 Crocuses, " both the yellow and the gray," as Lord 

 Bacon has it, Scillas in variety. Grape Hyacinths, 

 Wood Anemone, and any other pretty Spring 

 flowers that you found suitable to your soil and 

 position — say, for instance, a sprinkling of the 

 Sweet Violet — what would you have done for 

 him here? Why, more than the gardener has 

 ever yet accomplished, because you would have 

 given him a glimpse of the choicest vernal beauty 

 of temperate and northern climes, every flower 



