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NATURE NOTES. 
rick gives some charming pictures of the joys of a country life. 
He describes the “ damasked meadows ” and tells us how 
“The purling springs, groves, birds, and well-weaved bowers, 
With fields enamelled with flowers, 
Present their shapes.” 
Herrick had some fanciful and curious conceits about flowers. 
He sings a plaintive melody of an unlucky girl who was turned 
into a wall-flower. He jokes rather sadly about “ divination 
by a daffodil,” thus : — 
“When a daffodil I see 
Hanging down his head towards me, 
Guess I may what I must be ; 
First, I shall decline my head ; 
Secondly, I shall be dead ; 
Lastly, safely buried.” 
Then we have some more pleasing verses in the same quaint 
strain, telling “ how lilies came white,” “ how violets came blue,” 
“how roses came red,” and “ how marigolds came yellow.” As 
I turn over the leaves of Herrick’s delightful book, I find there 
is scarcely a page which does not speak of flowers. Some 
of these references I must leave for others to find. Herrick’s 
gentle lyrics, now two centuries and a half old, will be remem- 
bered when newer rhymes are forgotten, and they will live not 
alone by their own bright charms, but also because the beautiful 
objects of nature upon which they rest abide with us always. 
One of his sweet old songs “ Cherry Ripe,” has long fixed his 
fame wherever joy can spring to speech in English words. 
James Sawyer. 
THE FUTURE OF THE BOTANIC GARDEN AT 
CHELSEA. 
HE hand of Time has wrought many changes on the 
banks of the Thames in and about London. Docks, 
quays and warehouses have succeeded the thickets 
and reed beds of centuries ago, and nowq more 
happily, where twenty years since only reaches of mud at low 
tide and slimy walls met the eye of the passenger by boat up 
the river, there may be seen spacious embankments planted 
with avenues of lime and sycamore. But although these em- 
bankments have been the means of abolishing much that was 
unlovely, in one instance at least they have helped to efface and 
obscure from view r an old landmark on the river bank which 
forms the subject of this note. 
Once a conspicuous object to those passing up and down the 
Thames, the old Botanic Garden of Chelsea is now hidden from 
view by the flourishing avenue of sycamores on the embank- 
