VI 
PREFACE. 
of winter, we see the “ prodigies which power 
divine performs,” clothing each tree and flower 
in its peculiar and appropriate beauty, who but 
must acquiesce in the conclusion of the poet, 
and say, 
“ Shall I be left abandon’d in the dust, 
When Fate, relenting, lets the flower revive ? 
Shall Nature’s voice, to Man alone unjust, 
Bid him though doom’d to perish hope to live ? 
Is it for this fair Virtue oft must strive 
With disappointment, penury, and pain ? 
No : Heaven’s immortal spring shall yet arrive, 
And Man’s majestic beauty bloom again 
Bright through the eternal year of love’s triumphant reign ! ” 
The writer takes this opportunity of acknow¬ 
ledging her obligations to the various authors 
whose works she has laid under contribution, 
and particularly to Sir J. E. Smith and Dr. 
Drummond, to whom she is mainly indebted for 
the botanical information contained in the intro¬ 
ductions to the several pieces. 
The engravings accompanying them, as well 
