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THE BOX, THE LAUREL, AND THE HOLLY. 
BUXUS. PRUNOS. ILEX AQUIFOLIUM. 
“ When rosemary and bays, the poet’s crown, 
Are bawl'd in frequent cries throughout the town, 
Then judge the festival of Christmas near, 
Christmas, the joyous period of the year: 
Now with bright holly all the temples strew, 
With laurel green, and sacred mistletoe." 
The fast fading away of many ancient and pleasant 
usages, such as ushering in May-day and Christmas, 
each with its appropriate garland, together with many 
other unequivocal proofs, remind us that we live in an 
unimaginative age; an age in which the progress of 
science, the ingenuity of invention, and the extension 
and acquirements of commerce, are every where con¬ 
spicuous; these, in the very nature of things ? must 
soon totally extinguish, not only those few remains of 
what may be termed practical poetry that are as yet 
spared to us, but even the spirit of poetry itself. 
The touching practice of strewing the dead, and 
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