HANDFUL IV. 



" By the primrose stars in the shadowy grass." 



When we come to look into Handfiil IV., we find 

 we liave got in the midst of a whole host of well- 

 known favourites — regular play-fellows, almost, 

 which seem to have grown up with us from child- 

 hood, though many a fair generation of blossoms — 

 we almost fear to think how, many — ^has come and 

 gone since some of us first gathered primroses or 

 cowslips in May, forget-me-nots in fuU summer's 

 flushing, heather from the purple hills of August, 

 or holly to deck the rooms in those days when mince 

 pies and plum-pudding had their special relish 

 and their special impunity, or before we cared to 

 know to what division, family, or genus the botanist 

 assigned our favourites ; but now, that is just what 

 we want to know, so let us see, in the first place, 

 what we have got. Heath-flowers and heather; 

 the holly, though many of our reader, probably, 

 know the leaves and berries better than they do the 

 blossoms; convolvulus, or bindweed, or lap-love, 

 for it has all those names (Fig. 71) ; forget-me-not 



