92, 



THE BEAUTIES OF APRIL AND MAY, 



mien, and overlook, like sovereigns or nobles, the 

 whole parterre. Others seem more modest in their 

 aims, and advance only to the middle stations ; a 

 genius turned for heraldry might term them the gentry 

 of the border; while others, free from all aspiring 

 airs, creep unambitiously on the ground, and look 

 like the commonalty of the kind. Some are inter- 

 sected with elegant stripes, or studded with radiant 

 spots. Some affect to be genteelly powdered, or neatly 

 fringed ; while others are plain in their aspect, unafr 

 fected in their dress, and content to please with a 

 naked simplicity. Some assume the monarch's pur- 

 ple ; some look most becoming in the virgin's white ; 

 but black, doleful black, has no admittance into the 

 wardrobe of spring. The weeds of mourning would 

 be a manifest indecorum, when nature holds an uni^ 

 versal festival. She would now inspire none but 

 delightful ideas, and therefore always makes her ap- 

 pearance in some amiable suit. Here stands a warrior 

 clad with crimson ; there sits a magistrate robed in 

 scarlet ; and yonder struts a pretty fellow, that seems 

 to have dipped his plumes in the rainbow, and glitters 

 in all the gay colours of that resplendent arch. Some 

 rise into a curious cup, or fall into a set of beautiful 

 bells. Others spread themselves in a swelling tuft, or 

 crowd into a delicious cluster. In some the predomi- 

 nant stain softens by the gentlest diminutions, till it 

 has even stolen away from itself. The eye is amused 

 at the agreeable delusion, and we wonder to find our- 

 selves insensibly decoyed into quite a different lustre. 

 In others you will think the fine tinges were emulous 

 of pre-eminence. Disdaining to mingle , they confront 



