52 
REVIEWS. 
upon us. I do ]ove these wild flowers of the year’s spring. And on we stroll— 
almost palled with sweets, and almost weary with loitering—so that it is felt to be 
a relief, when a sylvan dean, that opens aside on our path, tempts us to trace its 
unknown intricacies and retreats. It is a dean without a name, hut sunny and 
odorous, and silent. Here the brae glows with whin and budding broom—there 
copsed with grey willows and alders, and every wild shrub and trailer; here a 
gentle bank with its sward pastured by a lamb or two and their dams that have 
strayed from the field above; while opposite, a rough quarry contrasts, yet not 
disturbs, the solitude, for the prickly briars and weeds, that partially conceal the 
defect, tell us that it has been some time unworked. Now a sloe-brake gives 
shelter to every little bird which is seen flitting out from its shelter stealthily, 
and stealthily returning; and the lark sings and soars above; and the black¬ 
bird alarms the dean with its hurried chuckle. And as we near the top, we 
find a grove of elms, and poplars, and willows, which hang partly over a little 
shallow linn, formed by a rill that has fallen in a gentle stream over a moss-grown 
shelf of rock; and then the water steals, more than half-hidden, down the 
grassy bed of the dean. The quietness of the place begins to influence us all—the 
conversation assumes a subdued tone, and some are evidently meditative, when the 
current which the thoughts of some young dreamer amongst us has taken, is marked 
out visibly by the question that is asked— 1 What is the blewart of Hogg?’ No 
one—nor old, nor young—has thought the question abrupt or out of place, but we 
enter upon it, as if the scene had suggested it, and made our young friend its spokes¬ 
man. 4 What is the blewart in Hogg’s beautiful pastoral ?’ 4 Why the blewart 
must be the same as the blaver or blawort—the Centaurea cyanus.’ 4 Nay, that 
cannot be; the Centaurea is a corn-field weed, an autumnal flower, nor is it a 
sleeper at eventide. Let us hear the verse:— 
‘ When the blewart bears a pearl, 
And the daisy turns a pea, 
And the bonnie lucken-gowan 
Has fauldit up her ee, 
Then the lavrock frae the blue lift, 
Draps down, and thinks nae shame 
To woo his bonnie lassie 
When the kye comes hame.’ 
4 Very well, my good fellow, the blewart grows there at your feet, and its first 
blossoms are giving blue eyes to that sunny hillock. The blewart is the Veronica 
chamcedrys; its blossom is the pearl, when at eve the flower has closed, and turned 
upon us the pale glaucous underside of its petals ; it is the companion of the daisy 
and lucken-gowan ; it is the ornament of the dean without a name.’ After a 
little more light discussion, the demonstration appears complete; and we feel that 
there is more interest, and as much utility, in settling the nomenclature of our pas¬ 
toral bards as that of old herbalists and dry-as-dust botanists. 
44 1 have here attempted to sketch, slightly, a meeting of 4 our Club’ and 
one of its rendezvous, and to indicate the nature of the discoveries and discussions 
with which we beguile the morning walk; but I feel that the attempt is weak 
and ineffective. Yet on my return from such a meeting, the conviction has 
often been forced upon me that the poet was right when he said— 
‘ And he is oft the wisest man 
Who is not wise at all.’” 
We had marked many similar passages, intending to transfer them to 
our pages, but want of space prevents us. We will now merely direct 
attention to the “ Sketch of the Fossil Flora, of the Mountain Limestone 
Formation, of the Eastern Borders,” which is from the able pen of Mr. G. 
Tate, the present President of the Berwickshire Naturalists’Club, and without 
which the present volume would be far from complete. Though the fossil 
