250 
Brookts Universal Beaicfi/, [Oct, l. 
With pious dews his early verdure bathe, 
Perform their trust with never-failing faith, 
Till self sufficient they retire to earth, 
leave the stripling to his right of birth. 
Notwitl\stanr!ing the pedantry, the 
obsolete theory, and the deficient ima¬ 
gery, of this passage, much of the man¬ 
ner displayed in the Botanic Garden 
may be detected in it. Still more so in 
the following description of vegetable 
roots. 
Their figures pliant to some plastic skill. 
Alike obsequious to its secret will. 
With pointed cone the yielding strata pass, 
Or here accumulate their bulbous mass} 
Here bulky, taper, parted, or entire. 
Here writhing twist their complicated wire. 
Here ramified their forky branches shed. 
Or tassel’d here their fibrous fringes spread. 
And again, in the peroration of the 
same thij-d book, the style, constantly 
improving on its own peculiar basis, as 
the poet grows more and more exercised, 
becomes quite Darwinian. 
Thus, from the couch of earth’s embroider’d 
bed. 
In elegance of vernal foliage spread, 
From pulse leguminous of verdurous hue, 
From herbal tribes bedropt with morning 
dew, 
The gourd inhabiting the pasturing glade. 
The tufted bush and umbelliferous shade, 
The feeble shrubs that luscious viands bear. 
The stooping apple and the haughty pear, 
E’en to the proud primeval sons of earth. 
That rise superior in their right of birth. 
Whose heights the blasting volley’d thunder 
stand. 
In ruin still magnificently grand } 
Distinct, each species of peculiar frame. 
Distinct, peculiar love and fondness claim} 
Indulged by Nature’s kind parental care. 
As each alone were her appointed heir. 
Thus mantling snug beneath a verdant 
veil, 
Tiie creepers draw their horizontal trail} 
Wide o’er the bank the plantal reptile strays, 
Along its stem a rooty fringe displays, 
The feeble boughs with anchoring safety 
binds. 
Nor leaves precarious to insulting winds. 
The tendrils next of slender helpless size. 
Ascendant thro’ luxuriant pampering rise ; 
Kind Nature sooths their innocence of pride. 
While buoy’d aloof the flowering wantons 
ride: 
With fond adhesion round the cedar cling, 
And wreathing circulate their amorous ring. 
In the fourth book the wise structure 
of the animal creation is sung, whieh 
gives rise to this description of the circu- 
iation of the blood. 
Here from the lungs the ruddier Currents 
glide. 
And hence impulsive bounds the sanguine 
tide } 
With blithe pulsation beats the arterial 
maze, 
And thro’ the branching complication pl^ysj 
Its wanton floods the tubal system lave, 
And to the veins resign their vital wave. 
Many distich" occur which rival those 
of the abbe Delille for smoothness and 
technical precision, and which our pub¬ 
lic lecturers on phvsiolouy, as well as 
Cuvier and Fourcroi, might quote with 
amenity. 
In the fifth book reptiles are dissected. 
As specimens take the worm and the 
snail. 
His rings with one elastic membrane bound. 
The prior circlet moves the obsequioui 
round ; 
The next and next its due obedience owes. 
And with successive undulation flows } 
While the stiff clod their little augers bore. 
And all the worm insinuates thro’ the pore. 
Slov/-moviag next, with grave majestiS 
pace, 
Tenacious snails their silent progress trace. 
Thro’ foreign fields, secure from exile roam, 
And sojourn still beneath their native home} 
Their domes, self-wreath’d, the architects 
attend. 
With slime repair them, and with mail de¬ 
fend } 
But chief when each his wintfy portal 
forms, 
And sleeps secluded from Incumbent storms} 
Till gates, unbarring with the vernal ray, 
Give all the secret hermitage to day} 
Then peeps the sags from his unfolding 
doors, 
And cautious heaven’s ambiguous brow ex¬ 
plores } 
To the four winds four telescopes he bends. 
And on his own astrology depends } 
Assured, he glides beneath the smiling calm. 
Bathes ip the dew, or sips the morning balmj 
The peach this rifling epicure devours, 
And climbing on the topmost fruitage towers. 
Our lexicographers may find in this 
poem authorities for rare words: Dr. 
Johnson could only quote Bailey for the 
verb to preen; he might have preserved a 
line of Brooke, who thus introduces a 
long, but occasionally fortunate, deline¬ 
ation of the employment of bees. 
Waft me to 7'empe, and her flowery dale. 
Borne on the wings of every tuneful gale. 
Amid the wild profusions let me stray. 
And share with b»es the virtues of the day ; 
Soon ag the matin glories gild the skies. 
Behold the little virtuosi rise ! 
Blithe 
