75 
with pleasure —1 should say ujjection. The Gorse appears 
the emblem, indeed the portrait, of many a kindly being, whose 
rough and even repulsive exterior so overshadows their better 
and brighter pans, that the careless and superficial observer 
would declare “ all barren : ” while they who look beyond the 
surface, find qualities and beauties in the friend’s mind and 
the flower’s scent, that prove, though “all is not gold that 
glitters,” the true treasure must often be sought in the hardest 
rock. 
My reason for bringing my rough friend into such polished 
society as he here meets, was the wish to illustrate an old 
rustic proverb, which says “ When Gorse is out of blossom, 
kissing is out of season,” very adroitly choosing the Gorse as 
the test, from its never being wholly destitute of blossoms. 
The Anemone, “blushing with faint crimson,” is another of 
our Spring Flowers invested with mythological fable. It first 
sprang, say the poets, from the blood of Adonis; and, in 
memory of its so imagined origin, Ben Jonson and many 
others name it Adonis-flower: in “ Pan’s Anniversary,” he 
says— 
Well done my pretty ones — rain roses still. 
Until the last be ciropt, then hence, and fill 
Your fragrant prickles for a second shower. 
Bring corn-llags, tulips, and Adonis-flower. 
Shakspeare, in his “ Venus and Adonis,” has the following 
beautiful passage descriptive of the Flower’s birth : 
L 2 
