238 OUR WILD FLOWERS AND 



retrospect, — surpassing even its beauty there, in Roddam-dean. Sir 

 "Walter Scott saw it in no finer locality when he pronounced the 

 Wood- Vetch worthy " to canopy Titania's bower." 



I return to my family. The eldest has grown to womanhood, but 

 not, alas ! in the lustiness of health. A sister younger than the child 

 she carried of yore to the primrose brae, had been rapidly stricken 

 down even in its very infancy ; and the first-born felt the blow and 

 mourned. There is a far-famed monument in Lichfield Cathedral 

 erected by Chantry to the memory of two sister children, and in 

 the hand of the younger, the sculptor, vidth exquisite feeling and 

 taste, has placed a Snow-drop to tell the tale of innocence and infant 

 purity. The grave of the herdsman's child had no monumental 

 marble — no stone to distinguish it, — but, planted there by fond 

 affection, a tuft of the Snow-drop hung its pensive head over the 

 little grave, as each future spring brought round the anniversary of 

 its death *. She who planted it felt that she must soon sleep by her 

 nursling's side. The canker-worm was busy unseen ; and the blossom 

 fell as soon as it was blown. The last time I saw her was towards 

 the end of April 1813. She was being carried out by her grand- 

 mother and mother to the front of the cottage, which stood on an 

 unenclosed green meadow in the midst of an extensive muir. I cannot 

 say that this was not solely for the sake of the sun and the balmy 

 air : — it may have been so, but there was once a creed which taught 

 that to place the foot on the expanded Daisy was to secure to the 

 invalid a new lease of life f ; and perhaps the old faith lingered in 

 the bosom of the grandmother, who might hope, almost against 

 hope, that the virtue of the flower had not altogether departed. 

 Love will nourish hope in very desperate circumstances, and here in 

 vain ; for Death lets no charm relax his grasp when the young and 

 loveliest are his victims. 



My feeble sketch is a reality, and there are amongst you some who 

 must have seen the like of it in relative or friend. It was very early 

 said of its type that she came forth " like a flower and is cut down; " 

 and he who uttered the plaint has had a continuous succession of 

 sincere mourners to hand it down even unto us. And flowers have 

 ever been made the medium, whether to express the grief that had 

 settled down in the heart, or to enlist and heighten your sympathy. 

 The most memorable example within the range of pastoral poetry is 

 Bums' Highland Mary. Goldsmith has drawn a picture of a female, 

 who, excepting in her fate, was like the one before you : — 



" Her modest looks the cottage did adorn, 

 Sweet as the Primrose peeps beneath the Thorn." 



* " with fairest flowers. 



While summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele, 

 I '11 sweeten thy sad grave," &c. 

 See on this subject the Memoir of Robert Surtees, Esq., p. 292. 



t See Hardy in Hist. Berw. N. Club, ii. pp. 18, 19. In Berwickshire, 

 the common expression is, " Ye '11 get round again, if ye had your fit on 

 the May-Gowan." 



