116 FAMILIAR GARDEN FLOWERS. 
choice of peas was not a bad choice, and it might be well 
for mankind at large, as well as for the asinine brotherhood, 
were peas more extensively relied upon as a kind of food 
likely to “stick to the ribs.” As regards usefulness, the 
pea family is one of the wonders of creation; but as we 
cannot afford space to be scientific, we shall quietly quit 
the subject while our shoes are good. 
“An early worshipper at Nature’s shrine, 
I loved her rudest scenes—warrens and heaths, 
And yellow commons, and birch-shaded hollows, 
And hedgerows bordering unfrequented lanes : 
Bower'd with wild roses, and the clasping woudbine 
Where purple tassels of the tangling vetch 
With bittersweet, and bryony inweave, 
Aud the dew fills the silver bindweed’s cups. 
I love to trace the brooks whose humid banks 
Nourish the harebell, and the freckled pagil ; 
And stroll among o’ershadowing woods of beech, 
Lending in summer, from the heats of noon, 
«\ whispering shade, while haply there reclines 
Some pensive lover of uncultured flowers.” 
CHARLOTTE SMITH 
