THE DAISY OF THE DALE. 117 
allusion to the palate, to us has long smacked of dilet¬ 
tantism—it was a good word before so many good- 
natured twaddlers rendered it common ; middle-tint 
admirers and murderers of Mozart, and pretty verse- 
makers, have so crowded the temple-gates of Taste, 
that many, who really possess it, are ashamed of own¬ 
ing to so amiable a weakness, and flatly declare that 
taste they have none. Mem .—Our shaft is only feath¬ 
ered at Pretenders, to which class the fair sex but 
seldom belong. 
The very name of the Fern calls up the forest, 
where it still lives on, though ages ago the mighty 
oaks have been felled; there it still spreads, true to its 
native soil, the hardy image of deep-rooted Sincerity. 
Even where forests have been uprooted, and the stately 
deer swept away, still the fan-like Fern throws its 
dark-green arms over the spot, unchanged by the 
changes of long centuries. It is associated with our 
oldest fairy legends,—creations of some old forgotten 
poet’s fancy, that in 
“ The middle-summer’s spring, 
Met on hill, in dale, forest, or by mead, 
By favored fountain, or by rushy brook, 
Or on the beached margin of the sea, 
And danced their ringlets to the whistling wind.” 
