Chapter IV: Preface (4)

Mr. Justice Coleridge tells us that Wordsworth dealt with shrubs, flower-beds and lawns with the readiness of a practised landscape-gardener, and that it was curious to observe how he had imparted a portion of his taste to his servant, James Dixon. In fact, honest James regarded himself as a sort of Arbiter Elegantiarum. The master and his servant often discussed together a question of taste. Wordsworth communicated to Mr. Justice Coleridge how "he and James" were once "in a puzzle" about certain discolored spots upon the lawn. "Cover them with soap-lees," said the master. "That will make the green there darker than the rest," said the gardener. "Then we must cover the whole." "That will not do," objects the gardener, "with reference to the little lawn to which you pass from this." "Cover that," said the poet. "You will then," replied the gardener, "have an unpleasant contrast with the foliage surrounding it."

Pope too had communicated to his gardener at Twickenham something of his own taste. The man, long after his master's death, in reference to the training of the branches of plants, used to talk of their being made to hang "_something poetical_".

It would have grieved Shakespeare and Pope and Shenstone had they anticipated the neglect or destruction of their beloved retreats. Wordsworth said, "I often ask myself what will become of Rydal Mount after our day. Will the old walls and steps remain in front of the house and about the grounds, or will they be swept away with all the beautiful mosses and ferns and wild geraniums and other flowers which their rude construction suffered and encouraged to grow among them. This little wild flower, _Poor Robin_, is here constantly courting my attention and exciting what may be called a domestic interest in the varying aspect of its stalks and leaves and flowers." I hope no Englishman meditating to reside on the grounds now sacred to the memory of a national poet will ever forget these words of the poet or treat his cottage and garden at Rydal Mount as some of Pope's countrymen have treated the house and grounds at Twickenham.[038] It would be sad indeed to hear, after this, that any one had refused to spare the _Poor Robins_ and _wild geraniums_ of Rydal Mount. Miss Jewsbury has a poem descriptive of "the Poet's Home." I must give the first stanza:--

WORDSWORTH'S COTTAGE.

Low and white, yet scarcely seen
Are its walls of mantling green;
Not a window lets in light
But through flowers clustering bright,
Not a glance may wander there
But it falls on something fair;
Garden choice and fairy mound
Only that no elves are found;
Winding walk and sheltered nook
For student grave and graver book,
Or a bird-like bower perchance
Fit for maiden and romance.

Another lady-poet has poured forth in verse her admiration of

THE RESIDENCE OF WORDSWORTH.

Not for the glory on their heads
Those stately hill-tops wear,
Although the summer sunset sheds
Its constant crimson there:
Not for the gleaming lights that break
The purple of the twilight lake,
Half dusky and half fair,
Does that sweet valley seem to be
A sacred place on earth to me.

The influence of a moral spell
Is found around the scene,
Giving new shadows to the dell,
New verdure to the green.
With every mountain-top is wrought
The presence of associate thought,
A music that has been;
Calling that loveliness to life,
With which the inward world is rife.

His home--our English poet's home--
Amid these hills is made;
Here, with the morning, hath he come,
There, with the night delayed.
On all things is his memory cast,
For every place wherein he past,
Is with his mind arrayed,
That, wandering in a summer hour,
Asked wisdom of the leaf and flower.

L.E.L.

The cottage and garden of the poet are not only picturesque and delightful in themselves, but from their position in the midst of some of the finest scenery of England. One of the writers in the book entitled '_The Land we Live in_' observes that the bard of the mountains and the lakes could not have found a more fitting habitation had the whole land been before him, where to choose his place of rest. "Snugly sheltered by the mountains, embowered among trees, and having in itself prospects of surpassing beauty, it also lies in the midst of the very noblest objects in the district, and in one of the happiest social positions. The grounds are delightful in every respect; but one view--that from the terrace of moss-like grass--is, to our thinking, the most exquisitely graceful in all this land of beauty. It embraces the whole valley of Windermere, with hills on either side softened into perfect loveliness."

Eustace, the Italian tourist, seems inclined to deprive the English of the honor of being the first cultivators of the natural style in gardening, and thinks that it was borrowed not from Milton but from Tasso. I suppose that most genuine poets, in all ages and in all countries, when they give full play to the imagination, have glimpses of the truly natural in the arts. The reader will probably be glad to renew his acquaintance with Tasso's description of the garden of Armida. I shall give the good old version of Edward Fairfax from the edition of 1687. Fairfax was a true poet and wrote musically at a time when sweetness of versification was not so much aimed at as in a later day. Waller confessed that he owed the smoothness of his verse to the example of Fairfax, who, as Warton observes, "well vowelled his lines."

THE GARDEN OF ARMIDA.

When they had passed all those troubled ways,
The Garden sweet spread forth her green to shew;
The moving crystal from the fountains plays;
Fair trees, high plants, strange herbs and flowerets new,
Sunshiny hills, vales hid from Phoebus' rays,
Groves, arbours, mossie caves at once they view,
And that which beauty most, most wonder brought,
No where appear'd the Art which all this wrought.

So with the rude the polished mingled was,
That natural seem'd all and every part,
Nature would craft in counterfeiting pass,
And imitate her imitator Art:
Mild was the air, the skies were clear as glass,
The trees no whirlwind felt, nor tempest's smart,
But ere the fruit drop off, the blossom comes,
This springs, that falls, that ripeneth and this blooms.

The leaves upon the self-same bough did hide,
Beside the young, the old and ripened fig,
Here fruit was green, there ripe with vermeil side;
The apples new and old grew on one twig,
The fruitful vine her arms spread high and wide,
That bended underneath their clusters big;
The grapes were tender here, hard, young and sour,
There purple ripe, and nectar sweet forth pour.

The joyous birds, hid under green-wood shade,
Sung merry notes on every branch and bow,
The wind that in the leaves and waters plaid
With murmer sweet, now sung and whistled now;
Ceased the birds, the wind loud answer made:
And while they sung, it rumbled soft and low;
Thus were it hap or cunning, chance or art,
The wind in this strange musick bore his part.

With party-coloured plumes and purple bill,
A wondrous bird among the rest there flew,
That in plain speech sung love-lays loud and shrill,
Her leden was like humane language true;
So much she talkt, and with such wit and skill,
That strange it seemed how much good she knew;
Her feathered fellows all stood hush to hear,
Dumb was the wind, the waters silent were.

The gently budding rose (quoth she) behold,
That first scant peeping forth with virgin beams,
Half ope, half shut, her beauties doth upfold
In their dear leaves, and less seen, fairer seems,
And after spreads them forth more broad and bold,
Then languisheth and dies in last extreams,
Nor seems the same, that decked bed and bower
Of many a lady late, and paramour.

So, in the passing of a day, doth pass
The bud and blossom of the life of man,
Nor ere doth flourish more, but like the grass
Cut down, becometh wither'd, pale and wan:
O gather then the rose while time thou hast,
Short is the day, done when it scant began;
Gather the rose of love, while yet thou may'st
Loving be lov'd; embracing, be embrac'd.

He ceas'd, and as approving all he spoke,
The quire of birds their heav'nly tunes renew,
The turtles sigh'd, and sighs with kisses broke,
The fowls to shades unseen, by pairs withdrew;
It seem'd the laurel chaste, and stubborn oak,
And all the gentle trees on earth that grew,
It seem'd the land, the sea, and heav'n above,
All breath'd out fancy sweet, and sigh'd out love.

_Godfrey of Bulloigne_

I must place near the garden of Armida, Ariosto's garden of Alcina. "Ariosto," says Leigh Hunt, "cared for none of the pleasures of the great, except building, and was content in Cowley's fashion, with "a small house in a large garden." He loved gardening better than he understood it, was always shifting his plants, and destroying the seeds, out of impatience to see them germinate. He was rejoicing once on the coming up of some "capers" which he had been visiting every day, to see how they got on, when it turned out that his capers were elder trees!"

THE GARDEN OF ALCINA.

'A more delightful place, wherever hurled,
Through the whole air, Rogero had not found;
And had he ranged the universal world,
Would not have seen a lovelier in his round,
Than that, where, wheeling wide, the courser furled
His spreading wings, and lighted on the ground
Mid cultivated plain, delicious hill,
Moist meadow, shady bank, and crystal rill;

'Small thickets, with the scented laurel gay,
Cedar, and orange, full of fruit and flower,
Myrtle and palm, with interwoven spray,
Pleached in mixed modes, all lovely, form a bower;
And, breaking with their shade the scorching ray,
Make a cool shelter from the noon-tide hour.
And nightingales among those branches wing
Their flight, and safely amorous descants sing.

'Amid red roses and white lilies _there_,
Which the soft breezes freshen as they fly,
Secure the cony haunts, and timid hare,
And stag, with branching forehead broad and high.
These, fearless of the hunter's dart or snare,
Feed at their ease, or ruminating lie;
While, swarming in those wilds, from tuft or steep,
Dun deer or nimble goat disporting leap.'

_Rose's Orlando Furioso_.

Spenser's description of the garden of Adonis is too long to give entire, but I shall quote a few stanzas. The old story on which Spenser founds his description is told with many variations of circumstance and meaning; but we need not quit the pages of the Faerie Queene to lose ourselves amidst obscure mythologies. We have too much of these indeed even in Spenser's own version of the fable.

THE GARDEN OF ADONIS.

Great enimy to it, and all the rest
That in the Gardin of Adonis springs,
Is wicked Time; who with his scythe addrest
Does mow the flowring herbes and goodly things,
And all their glory to the ground downe flings,
Where they do wither and are fowly mard
He flyes about, and with his flaggy wings
Beates downe both leaves and buds without regard,
Ne ever pitty may relent his malice hard.

* * * * *

But were it not that Time their troubler is,
All that in this delightful gardin growes
Should happy bee, and have immortall blis:
For here all plenty and all pleasure flowes;
And sweete Love gentle fitts emongst them throwes,
Without fell rancor or fond gealosy.
Franckly each paramour his leman knowes,
Each bird his mate; ne any does envy
Their goodly meriment and gay felicity.

There is continual spring, and harvest there
Continuall, both meeting at one tyme:
For both the boughes doe laughing blossoms beare.
And with fresh colours decke the wanton pryme,
And eke attonce the heavy trees they clyme,
Which seeme to labour under their fruites lode:
The whiles the ioyous birdes make their pastyme
Emongst the shady leaves, their sweet abode,
And their trew loves without suspition tell abrode.

Right in the middest of that Paradise
There stood a stately mount, on whose round top
A gloomy grove of mirtle trees did rise,
Whose shady boughes sharp steele did never lop,
Nor wicked beastes their tender buds did crop,
But like a girlond compassed the hight,
And from their fruitfull sydes sweet gum did drop,
That all the ground, with pretious deaw bedight,
Threw forth most dainty odours and most sweet delight.

And in the thickest covert of that shade
There was a pleasaunt arber, not by art
But of the trees owne inclination made,
Which knitting their rancke braunches part to part,
With wanton yvie-twine entrayld athwart,
And eglantine and caprifole emong,
Fashioned above within their inmost part,
That neither Phoebus beams could through them throng,
Nor Aeolus sharp blast could worke them any wrong.

And all about grew every sort of flowre,
To which sad lovers were transformde of yore,
Fresh Hyacinthus, Phoebus paramoure
And dearest love;
Foolish Narcisse, that likes the watry shore;
Sad Amaranthus, made a flowre but late,
Sad Amaranthus, in whose purple gore
Me seemes I see Amintas wretched fate,
To whom sweet poet's verse hath given endlesse date.

_Fairie Queene, Book III. Canto VI_.

I must here give a few stanzas from Spenser's description of the _Bower of Bliss_

In which whatever in this worldly state
Is sweet and pleasing unto living sense,
Or that may dayntiest fantasy aggrate
Was poured forth with pleantiful dispence.

The English poet in his Fairie Queene has borrowed a great deal from Tasso and Ariosto, but generally speaking, his borrowings, like those of most true poets, are improvements upon the original.

THE BOWER OF BLISS.

There the most daintie paradise on ground
Itself doth offer to his sober eye,
In which all pleasures plenteously abownd,
And none does others happinesse envye;
The painted flowres; the trees upshooting hye;
The dales for shade; the hilles for breathing-space;
The trembling groves; the christall running by;
And that which all faire workes doth most aggrace,
The art, which all that wrought, appeared in no place.

One would have thought, (so cunningly the rude[039]
And scorned partes were mingled with the fine,)
That Nature had for wantonesse ensude
Art, and that Art at Nature did repine;
So striving each th' other to undermine,
Each did the others worke more beautify;
So diff'ring both in willes agreed in fine;
So all agreed, through sweete diversity,
This Gardin to adorn with all variety.

And in the midst of all a fountaine stood,
Of richest substance that on earth might bee,
So pure and shiny that the silver flood
Through every channel running one might see;
Most goodly it with curious ymageree
Was over-wrought, and shapes of naked boyes,
Of which some seemed with lively iollitee
To fly about, playing their wanton toyes,
Whylest others did themselves embay in liquid ioyes.

* * * * *

Eftsoones they heard a most melodious sound,
Of all that mote delight a daintie eare,
Such as attonce might not on living ground,
Save in this paradise, be heard elsewhere:
Right hard it was for wight which did it heare,
To read what manner musicke that mote bee;
For all that pleasing is to living eare
Was there consorted in one harmonee;
Birdes, voices, instruments, windes, waters all agree:

The ioyous birdes, shrouded in chearefull shade,
Their notes unto the voice attempred sweet;
Th' angelicall soft trembling voyces made
To th' instruments divine respondence meet;
The silver-sounding instruments did meet
With the base murmure of the waters fall;
The waters fall with difference discreet,
Now soft, now loud, unto the wind did call;
The gentle warbling wind low answered to all.

_The Faerie Queene, Book II. Canto XII._

Every school-boy has heard of the gardens of the Hesperides. The story is told in many different ways. According to some accounts, the Hesperides, the daughters of Hesperus, were appointed to keep charge of the tree of golden apples which Jupiter presented to Juno on their wedding day. A hundred-headed dragon that never slept, (the offspring of Typhon,) couched at the foot of the tree. It was one of the twelve labors of Hercules to obtain possession of some of these apples. He slew the dragon and gathered three golden apples. The gardens, according to some authorities, were situated near Mount Atlas.

Shakespeare seems to have taken _Hesperides_ to be the name of the garden instead of that of its fair keepers. Even the learned Milton in his _Paradise Regained_, (Book II) talks of _the ladies of the Hesperides_, and appears to make the word Hesperides synonymous with "Hesperian gardens." Bishop Newton, in a foot-note to the passage in "Paradise Regained," asks, "What are the Hesperides famous for, but the gardens and orchards which _they had_ bearing golden fruit in the western Isles of Africa." Perhaps after all there may be some good authority in favor of extending the names of the nymphs to the garden itself. Malone, while condemning Shakespeare's use of the words as inaccurate, acknowledges that other poets have used it in the same way, and quotes as an instance, the following lines from Robert Greene:--

Shew thee the tree, leaved with refined gold,
Whereon the fearful dragon held his seat,
That watched _the garden_ called the _Hesperides_.

_Robert Greene_.

For valour is not love a Hercules,
Still climbing trees in the Hesperides?

_Love's Labour Lost_.

Before thee stands this fair Hesperides,
With golden fruit, but dangerous to be touched
For death-like dragons here affright thee hard.

_Pericles, Prince of Tyre_.

Milton, after the fourth line of his Comus, had originally inserted, in his manuscript draft of the poem, the following description of the garden of the Hesperides.

THE GARDEN OF THE HESPERIDES

Amid the Hesperian gardens, on whose banks
Bedewed with nectar and celestial songs
Eternal roses grow, and hyacinth,
And fruits of golden rind, on whose fair tree
The scaly harnessed dragon ever keeps
His uninchanted eye, around the verge
And sacred limits of this blissful Isle
The jealous ocean that old river winds
His far extended aims, till with steep fall
Half his waste flood the wide Atlantic fills;
And half the slow unfathomed Stygian pool
But soft, I was not sent to court your wonder
With distant worlds and strange removed climes
Yet thence I come and oft from thence behold
The smoke and stir of this dim narrow spot

Milton subsequently drew his pen through these lines, for what reason is not known. Bishop Newton observes, that this passage, saved from intended destruction, may serve as a specimen of the truth of the observation that

Poets lose half the praise they should have got
Could it be known what they discreetly blot.

_Waller_.

As I have quoted in an earlier page some unfavorable allusions to Homer's description of a Grecian garden, it will be but fair to follow up Milton's picture of Paradise, and Tasso's garden of Armida, and Ariosto's Garden of Alcina, and Spenser's Garden of Adonis and his Bower of Bliss, with Homer's description of the Garden of Alcinous. Minerva tells Ulysses that the Royal mansion to which the garden of Alcinous is attached is of such conspicuous grandeur and so generally known, that any child might lead him to it;

For Phoeacia's sons
Possess not houses equalling in aught
The mansion of Alcinous, the king.

I shall give Cowper's version, because it may be less familiar to the reader than Pope's, which is in every one's hand.

THE GARDEN OF ALCINOUS

Without the court, and to the gates adjoined
A spacious garden lay, fenced all around,
Secure, four acres measuring complete,
There grew luxuriant many a lofty tree,
Pomgranate, pear, the apple blushing bright,
The honeyed fig, and unctuous olive smooth.
Those fruits, nor winter's cold nor summer's heat
Fear ever, fail not, wither not, but hang
Perennial, while unceasing zephyr breathes
Gently on all, enlarging these, and those
Maturing genial; in an endless course.
Pears after pears to full dimensions swell,
Figs follow figs, grapes clustering grow again
Where clusters grew, and (every apple stripped)
The boughs soon tempt the gatherer as before.
There too, well rooted, and of fruit profuse,
His vineyard grows; part, wide extended, basks
In the sun's beams; the arid level glows;
In part they gather, and in part they tread
The wine-press, while, before the eye, the grapes
Here put their blossoms forth, there gather fast
Their blackness. On the garden's verge extreme
Flowers of all hues[040] smile all the year, arranged
With neatest art judicious, and amid
The lovely scene two fountains welling forth,
One visits, into every part diffused,
The garden-ground, the other soft beneath
The threshold steals into the palace court
Whence every citizen his vase supplies.

_Homer's Odyssey, Book VII_.

The mode of watering the garden-ground, and the use made of the water by the public--

Whence every citizen his vase supplies--

can hardly fail to remind Indian and Anglo-Indian readers of a Hindu gentleman's garden in Bengal.

Pope first published in the _Guardian_ his own version of the account of the garden of Alcinous and subsequently gave it a place in his entire translation of Homer. In introducing the readers of the _Guardian_ to the garden of Alcinous he observes that "the two most celebrated wits of the world have each left us a particular picture of a garden; wherein those great masters, being wholly unconfined and pointing at pleasure, may be thought to have given a full idea of what seemed most excellent in that way. These (one may observe) consist entirely of the useful part of horticulture, fruit trees, herbs, waters, &c. The pieces I am speaking of are Virgil's account of the garden of the old Corycian, and Homer's of that of Alcinous. The first of these is already known to the English reader, by the excellent versions of Mr. Dryden and Mr. Addison."

I do not think our present landscape-gardeners, or parterre-gardeners or even our fruit or kitchen-gardeners can be much enchanted with Virgil's ideal of a garden, but here it is, as "done into English," by John Dryden, who describes the Roman Poet as "a profound naturalist," and "_a curious Florist_."

THE GARDEN OF THE OLD CORYCIAN.

I chanc'd an old Corycian swain to know,
Lord of few acres, and those barren too,
Unfit for sheep or vines, and more unfit to sow:
Yet, lab'ring well his little spot of ground,
Some scatt'ring pot-herbs here and there he found,
Which, cultivated with his daily care
And bruis'd with vervain, were his frugal fare.
With wholesome poppy-flow'rs, to mend his homely board:
For, late returning home, he supp'd at ease,
And wisely deem'd the wealth of monarchs less:
The little of his own, because his own, did please.
To quit his care, he gather'd, first of all,
In spring the roses, apples in the fall:
And, when cold winter split the rocks in twain,
And ice the running rivers did restrain,
He stripp'd the bear's foot of its leafy growth,
And, calling western winds, accus'd the spring of sloth
He therefore first among the swains was found
To reap the product of his labour'd ground,
And squeeze the combs with golden liquor crown'd
His limes were first in flow'rs, his lofty pines,
With friendly shade, secur'd his tender vines.
For ev'ry bloom his trees in spring afford,
An autumn apple was by tale restor'd
He knew to rank his elms in even rows,
For fruit the grafted pear tree to dispose,
And tame to plums the sourness of the sloes
With spreading planes he made a cool retreat,
To shade good fellows from the summer's heat

_Virgil's Georgics, Book IV_.

An excellent Scottish poet--Allan Ramsay--a true and unaffected describer of rural life and scenery--seems to have had as great a dislike to topiary gardens, and quite as earnest a love of nature, as any of the best Italian poets. The author of the "Gentle Shepherd" tells us in the following lines what sort of garden most pleased his fancy.

ALLAN RAMSAY'S GARDEN.

I love the garden wild and wide,
Where oaks have plum-trees by their side,
Where woodbines and the twisting vine
Clip round the pear tree and the pine
Where mixed jonquils and gowans grow
And roses midst rank clover grow
Upon a bank of a clear strand,
In wrimplings made by Nature's hand
Though docks and brambles here and there
May sometimes cheat the gardener's care,
_Yet this to me is Paradise_,
_Compared with prim cut plots and nice_,
_Where Nature has to Act resigned,_
_Till all looks mean, stiff and confined_.

I cannot say that I should wish to see forest trees and docks and brambles in garden borders. Honest Allan here runs a little into the extreme, as men are apt enough to do, when they try to get as far as possible from the side advocated by an opposite party.

I shall now exhibit two paintings of bowers. I begin with one from Spenser.

A BOWER

And over him Art stryving to compayre
With Nature did an arber greene dispied[041]
Framed of wanton yvie, flouring, fayre,
Through which the fragrant eglantine did spred
His prickling armes, entrayld with roses red,
Which daintie odours round about them threw
And all within with flowers was garnished
That, when myld Zephyrus emongst them blew,
Did breathe out bounteous smels, and painted colors shew

And fast beside these trickled softly downe
A gentle streame, whose murmuring wave did play
Emongst the pumy stones, and made a sowne,
To lull him soft asleepe that by it lay
The wearie traveiler wandring that way,
Therein did often quench his thirsty head
And then by it his wearie limbes display,
(Whiles creeping slomber made him to forget
His former payne,) and wypt away his toilsom sweat.

And on the other syde a pleasaunt grove
Was shott up high, full of the stately tree
That dedicated is t'Olympick Iove,
And to his son Alcides,[042] whenas hee
In Nemus gayned goodly victoree
Theirin the merry birds of every sorte
Chaunted alowd their cheerful harmonee,
And made emongst themselves a sweete consort
That quickned the dull spright with musicall comfort.

_Fairie Queene, Book 2 Cant. 5 Stanzas 29, 30 and 31._

Here is a sweet picture of a "shady lodge" from the hand of Milton.

EVE'S NUPTIAL BOWER.

Thus talking, hand in hand alone they pass'd
On to their blissful bower. It was a place
Chosen by the sov'reign Planter, when he framed
All things to man's delightful use, the roof
Of thickest covert was inwoven shade,
Laurel and myrtle, and what higher grew
Of firm and fragrant leaf, on either side
Acanthus, and each odorous bushy shrub,
Fenced up the verdant wall, each beauteous flower
Iris all hues, roses, and jessamine,
Rear'd high their flourish'd heads between, and wrought
Mosaic, under foot the violet,
Crocus, and hyacinth, with rich inlay
Broider'd the ground, more colour'd than with stone
Of costliest emblem other creature here,
Beast, bird, insect, or worm, durst enter none,
Such was their awe of man. In shadier bower
More sacred and sequester'd, though but feign'd,
Pan or Sylvanus never slept, nor nymph
Nor Faunus haunted. Here, in close recess,
With flowers, garlands, and sweet smelling herbs,
Espoused Eve deck'd first her nuptial bed,
And heavenly quires the hymenean sung

I have already quoted from Leigh Hunt's "Stories from the Italian poets" an amusing anecdote illustrative of Ariosto's ignorance of botany. But even in these days when all sorts of sciences are forced upon all sorts of students, we often meet with persons of considerable sagacity and much information of a different kind who are marvellously ignorant of the vegetable world.

In the just published Memoirs of the late James Montgomery, of Sheffield, it is recorded that the poet and his brother Robert, a tradesman at Woolwich, (not Robert Montgomery, the author of 'Satan,' &c.) were one day walking together, when the trader seeing a field of flax in full flower, asked the poet what sort of corn it was. "Such corn as your shirt is made of," was the reply. "But Robert," observes a writer in the _Athenaeum_, "need not be ashamed of his simplicity. Rousseau, naturalist as he was, could hardly tell one berry from another, and three of our greatest wits disputing in the field whether the crop growing there was rye, barley, or oats, were set right by a clown, who truly pronounced it wheat."

Men of genius who have concentrated all their powers on some one favorite profession or pursuit are often thus triumphed over by the vulgar, whose eyes are more observant of the familiar objects and details of daily life and of the scenes around them. Wordsworth and Coleridge, on one occasion, after a long drive, and in the absence of a groom, endeavored to relieve the tired horse of its harness. After torturing the poor animal's neck and endangering its eyes by their clumsy and vain attempts to slip off the collar, they at last gave up the matter in despair. They felt convinced that the horse's head must have swollen since the collar was put on. At last a servant-girl beheld their perplexity. "La, masters," she exclaimed, "you dont set about it the right way." She then seized hold of the collar, turned it broad end up, and slipped it off in a second. The mystery that had puzzled two of the finest intellects of their time was a very simple matter indeed to a country wench who had perhaps never heard that England possessed a Shakespeare.

James Montgomery was a great lover of flowers, and few of our English poets have written about the family of Flora, the sweet wife of Zephyr, in a more genial spirit. He used to regret that the old Floral games and processions on May-day and other holidays had gone out of fashion. Southey tells us that in George the First's reign a grand Florist's Feast was held at Bethnall Green, and that a carnation named after his Majesty was _King of the Year_. The Stewards were dressed with laurel leaves and flowers. They carried gilded staves. Ninety cultivators followed in procession to the sound of music, each bearing his own flowers before him. All elegant customs of this nature have fallen into desuetude in England, though many of them are still kept up in other parts of Europe.

Chaucer who dearly loved all images associated with the open air and the dewy fields and bright mornings and radiant flowers makes the gentle Emily,

That fairer was to seene
Than is the lily upon his stalkie greene,

rise early and do honor to the birth of May-day. All things now seem to breathe of hope and joy.

Though long hath been
The trance of Nature on the naked bier
Where ruthless Winter mocked her slumbers drear
And rent with icy hand her robes of green,
That trance is brightly broken! Glossy trees,
Resplendent meads and variegated flowers
Flash in the sun and flutter in the breeze
And now with dreaming eye the poet sees
Fair shapes of pleasure haunt romantic bowers,
And laughing streamlets chase the flying hours.

D.L.R.

The great describer of our Lost Paradise did not disdain to sing a

SONG ON MAY-MORNING.

Now the bright Morning star, Day's harbinger,
Comes dancing from the east, and leads with her
The flowery May, who from her green lap throws
The yellow cowslip and the pale primrose
Hail bounteous-May, that dost inspire
Mirth and youth and warm desire;
Woods and groves are of thy dressing,
Hill and dale do boast thy blessing.
Thus we salute thee with our early song,
And welcome thee and wish thee long.

Nor did the Poet of the World, William Shakespeare, hesitate to

Do observance to a morn of May.

He makes one of his characters (in _King Henry VIII_.) complain that it is as impossible to keep certain persons quiet on an ordinary day, as it is to make them sleep on May-day--once the time of universal merriment-- when every one was wont "_to put himself into triumph_."

'Tis as much impossible,
Unless we sweep 'em from the doors with cannons
To scatter 'em, _as 'tis to make 'em sleep
On May-day Morning_.

Spenser duly celebrates, in his "Shepheard's Calender,"

Thilke mery moneth of May
When love-lads masken in fresh aray,

when "all is yclad with pleasaunce, the ground with grasse, the woods with greene leaves, and the bushes with bloosming buds."

Sicker[043] this morowe, no longer agoe,
I saw a shole of shepeardes outgoe
With singing and shouting and iolly chere:
Before them yode[044] a lustre tabrere,[045]
That to the many a hornepype playd
Whereto they dauncen eche one with his mayd.
To see those folks make such iovysaunce,
Made my heart after the pype to daunce.
Tho[046] to the greene wood they speeden hem all
To fetchen home May with their musicall;
And home they bringen in a royall throne
Crowned as king; and his queene attone[047]
Was LADY FLORA.

_Spenser_.

This is the season when the birds seem almost intoxicated with delight at the departure of the dismal and cold and cloudy days of winter and the return of the warm sun. The music of these little May musicians seems as fresh as the fragrance of the flowers. The Skylark is the prince of British Singing-birds--the leader of their cheerful band.

LINES TO A SKYLARK.

Wanderer through the wilds of air!
Freely as an angel fair
Thou dost leave the solid earth,
Man is bound to from his birth
Scarce a cubit from the grass
Springs the foot of lightest lass--
_Thou_ upon a cloud can'st leap,
And o'er broadest rivers sweep,
Climb up heaven's steepest height,
Fluttering, twinkling, in the light,
Soaring, singing, till, sweet bird,
Thou art neither seen nor heard,
Lost in azure fields afar
Like a distance hidden star,
That alone for angels bright
Breathes its music, sheds its light

Warbler of the morning's mirth!
When the gray mists rise from earth,
And the round dews on each spray
Glitter in the golden ray,
And thy wild notes, sweet though high,
Fill the wide cerulean, sky,
Is there human heart or brain
Can resist thy merry strain?

But not always soaring high,
Making man up turn his eye
Just to learn what shape of love,
Raineth music from above,--
All the sunny cloudlets fair
Floating on the azure air,
All the glories of the sky
Thou leavest unreluctantly,
Silently with happy breast
To drop into thy lowly nest.

Though the frame of man must be
Bound to earth, the soul is free,
But that freedom oft doth bring
Discontent and sorrowing.
Oh! that from each waking vision,
Gorgeous vista, gleam Elysian,
From ambition's dizzy height,
And from hope's illusive light,
Man, like thee, glad lark, could brook
Upon a low green spot to look,
And with home affections blest
Sink into as calm a nest! D.L.R.

I brought from England to India two English skylarks. I thought they would help to remind me of English meadows and keep alive many agreeable home-associations. In crossing the desert they were carefully lashed on the top of one of the vans, and in spite of the dreadful jolting and the heat of the sun they sang the whole way until night-fall. It was pleasant to hear English larks from rich clover fields singing so joyously in the sandy waste. In crossing some fields between Cairo and the Pyramids I was surprized and delighted with the songs of Egyptian skylarks. Their notes were much the same as those of the English lark. The lark of Bengal is about the size of a sparrow and has a poor weak note. At this moment a lark from Caubul (larger than an English lark) is doing his best to cheer me with his music. This noble bird, though so far from his native fields, and shut up in his narrow prison, pours forth his rapturous melody in an almost unbroken stream from dawn to sunset. He allows no change of season to abate his minstrelsy, to any observable degree, and seems equally happy and musical all the year round. I have had him nearly two years, and though of course he must moult his feathers yearly, I have not observed the change of plumage, nor have I noticed that he has sung less at one period of the year than another. One of my two English larks was stolen the very day I landed in India, and the other soon died. The loss of an English lark is not to be replaced in Calcutta, though almost every week, canaries, linnets, gold-finches and bull-finches are sold at public auctions here.

But I must return to my main subject.--The ancients used to keep the great Feast of the goddess Flora on the 28th of April. It lasted till the 3rd of May. The Floral Games of antiquity were unhappily debased by indecent exhibitions; but they were not entirely devoid of better characteristics.[048] Ovid describing the goddess Flora says that "while she was speaking she breathed forth vernal roses from her mouth." The same poet has represented her in her garden with the Florae gathering flowers and the Graces making garlands of them. The British borrowed the idea of this festival from the Romans. Some of our Kings and Queens used '_to go a Maying_,' and to have feasts of wine and venison in the open meadows or under the good green-wood. Prior says:

Let one great day
To celebrate sports and floral play
Be set aside.

But few people, in England, in these times, distinguish May-day from the initial day of any other month of the twelve. I am old enough to remember _Jack-in-the-Green_. Nor have I forgotten the cheerful clatter--the brush-and-shovel music--of our little British negroes--"innocent blacknesses," as Lamb calls them--the chimney-sweepers,--a class now almost _swept away_ themselves by _machinery_. One May-morning in the streets of London these tinsel-decorated merry-makers with their sooty cheeks and black lips lined with red, and staring eyes whose white seemed whiter still by contrast with the darkness of their cases, and their ivory teeth kept sound and brilliant with the professional powder, besieged George Selwyn and his arm-in-arm companion, Lord Pembroke, for May-day boxes. Selwyn making them a low bow, said, very solemnly "I have often heard of _the sovereignty of the people_, and I suppose you are some of the young princes in court mourning."

My Native readers in Bengal can form no conception of the delight with which the British people at home still hail the spring of the year, or the deep interest which they take in all "the Seasons and their change"; though they have dropped some of the oldest and most romantic of the ceremonies once connected with them. If there were an annual fall of the leaf in the groves of India, instead of an eternal summer, the natives would discover how much the charms of the vegetable world are enhanced by these vicissitudes, and how even winter itself can be made delightful. My brother exiles will remember as long as life is in them, how exquisite, in dear old England, is the enjoyment of a brisk morning walk in the clear frosty air, and how cheering and cosy is the social evening fire! Though a cold day in Calcutta is not exactly like a cold day in London, it sometimes revives the remembrance of it. An Indian winter, if winter it may be called, is indeed far less agreeable than a winter in England, but it is not wholly without its pleasures. It is, at all events, a grateful change--a welcome relief and refreshment after a sultry summer or a _muggy_ rainy season.

An Englishman, however, must always prefer the keener but more wholesome frigidity of his own clime. There, the external gloom and bleakness of a severe winter day enhance our in-door comforts, and we do not miss sunny skies when greeted with sunny looks. If we then see no blooming flowers, we see blooming faces. But as we have few domestic enjoyments in this country--no social snugness,--no sweet seclusion--and as our houses are as open as bird-cages,--and as we almost live in public and in the open air--we have little comfort when compelled, with an enfeebled frame and a morbidly sensitive cuticle, to remain at home on what an Anglo-Indian Invalid calls a cold day, with an easterly wind whistling through every room.[049] In our dear native country each season has its peculiar moral or physical attractions. It is not easy to say which is the most agreeable--its summer or its winter. Perhaps I must decide in favor of the first. The memory of many a smiling summer day still flashes upon my soul. If the whole of human life were like a fine English day in June, we should cease to wish for "another and a better world." It is often from dawn to sunset one revel of delight. How pleasantly, from the first break of day, have I lain wide awake and traced the approach of the breakfast hour by the increasing notes of birds and the advancing sun-light on my curtains! A summer feeling, at such a time, would make my heart dance within me, as I thought of the long, cheerful day to be enjoyed, and planned some rural walk, or rustic entertainment. The ills that flesh is heir to, if they occurred for a moment, appeared like idle visions. They were inconceivable as real things. As I heard the lark singing in "a glorious privacy of light," and saw the boughs of the green and gold laburnum waving at my window, and had my fancy filled with images of natural beauty, I felt a glow of fresh life in my veins, and my soul was inebriated with joy. It is difficult, amidst such exhilarating influences, to entertain those melancholy ideas which sometimes crowd upon, us, and appear so natural, at a less happy hour. Even actual misfortune comes in a questionable shape, when our physical constitution is in perfect health, and the flowers are in full bloom, and the skies are blue, and the streams are glittering in the sun. So powerfully does the light of external nature sometimes act upon the moral system, that a sweet sensation steals gradually over the heart, even when we think we have reason to be sorrowful, and while we almost accuse ourselves of a want of feeling. The fretful hypochondriac would do well to bear this fact in mind, and not take it for granted that all are cold and selfish who fail to sympathize with his fantastic cares. He should remember that men are sometimes so buoyed up by the sense of corporeal power, and a communion with nature in her cheerful moods, that things connected with their own personal interests, and which at other times might irritate and wound their feelings, pass by them like the idle wind which they regard not. He himself must have had his intervals of comparative happiness, in which the causes of his present grief would have appeared trivial and absurd. He should not, then, expect persons whose blood is warm in their veins, and whose eyes are open to the blessed sun in heaven, to think more of the apparent causes of his sorrow than he would himself, were his mind and body in a healthful state.

With what a light heart and eager appetite did I enter the little breakfast parlour of which the glass-doors opened upon a bright green lawn, variegated with small beds of flowers! The table was spread with dewy and delicious fruits from our own garden, and gathered by fair and friendly hands. Beautiful and luscious as were these garden dainties, they were of small account in comparison with the fresh cheeks and cherry lips that so frankly accepted the wonted early greeting. Alas! how that circle of early friends is now divided, and what a change has since come over the spirit of our dreams! Yet still I cherish boyish feelings, and the past is sometimes present. As I give an imaginary kiss to an "old familiar face," and catch myself almost unconsciously, yet literally, returning imaginary smiles, my heart is as fresh and fervid as of yore.

A lapse of fifteen years, and a distance of fifteen thousand miles, and the glare of a tropical sky and the presence of foreign faces, need not make an Indian Exile quite forgetful of home-delights. Parted friends may still share the light of love as severed clouds are equally kindled by the same sun. No number of miles or days can change or separate faithful spirits or annihilate early associations. That strange magician, Fancy, who supplies so many corporeal deficiencies and overcomes so many physical obstructions, and mocks at space and time, enables us to pass in the twinkling of an eye over the dreary waste of waters that separates the exile from the scenes and companions of his youth. He treads again his native shore. He sits by the hospitable hearth and listens to the ringing laugh of children. He exchanges cordial greetings with the "old familiar faces." There is a resurrection of the dead, and a return of vanished years. He abandons himself to the sweet illusion, and again

Lives over each scene, and is what he beholds.

I must not be too egotistically garrulous in print, or I would now attempt to describe the various ways in which I have spent a summer's day in England. I would dilate upon my noon-day loiterings amidst wild ruins, and thick forests, and on the shaded banks of rivers--the pic-nic parties--the gipsy prophecies--the twilight homeward walk--the social tea-drinking, and, the last scene of all, the "rosy dreams and slumbers light," induced by wholesome exercise and placid thoughts.[050] But perhaps these few simple allusions are sufficient to awaken a train of kindred associations in the reader's mind, and he will thank me for those words and images that are like the keys of memory, and "open all her cells with easy force."

If a summer's day be thus rife with pleasure, scarcely less so is a day in winter, though with some little drawbacks, that give, by contrast, a zest to its enjoyments. It is difficult to leave the warm morning bed and brave the external air. The fireless grate and frosted windows may well make the stoutest shudder. But when we have once screwed our courage to the sticking place, and with a single jerk of the clothes, and a brisk jump from the bed, have commenced the operations of the toilet, the battle is nearly over. The teeth chatter for a while, and the limbs shiver, and we do not feel particularly comfortable while breaking the ice in our jugs, and performing our cold ablutions amidst the sharp, glass-like fragments, and wiping our faces with a frozen towel. But these petty evils are quickly vanquished, and as we rush out of the house, and tread briskly and firmly on the hard ringing earth, and breathe our visible breath in the clear air, our strength and self-importance miraculously increase, and the whole frame begins to glow. The warmth and vigour thus acquired are inexpressibly delightful. As we re-enter the house, we are proud of our intrepidity and vigour, and pity the effeminacy of our less enterprising friends, who, though huddled together round the fire, like flies upon a sunny wall, still complain of cold, and instead of the bloom of health and animation, exhibit pale and pinched and discolored features, and hands cold, rigid, and of a deadly hue. Those who rise with spirit on a winter morning, and stir and thrill themselves with early exercise, are indifferent to the cold for the rest of the day, and feel a confidence in their corporeal energies, and a lightness of heart that are experienced at no other season.

But even the timid and luxurious are not without their pleasures. As the shades of evening draw in, the parlour twilight--the closed curtains--and the cheerful fire--make home a little paradise to all.

Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast,
Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round,
And while the bubbling and loud hissing urn
Throws up a steamy column, and the cups
That cheer but not inebriate wait on each,
So let us welcome peaceful evening in

_Cowper_.

The warm and cold seasons of India have no charms like those of England, but yet people who are guiltless of what Milton so finely calls "a sullenness against nature," and who are willing, in a spirit of true philosophy and piety, to extract good from every thing, may save themselves from wretchedness even in this land of exile. While I am writing this paragraph, a bird in my room, (not the Caubul songster that I have already alluded to, but a fine little English linnet,) who is as much a foreigner here as I am, is pouring out his soul in a flood of song. His notes ring with joy. He pines not for his native meadows--he cares not for his wiry bars--he envies not the little denizens of air that sometimes flutter past my window, nor imagines, for a moment, that they come to mock him with their freedom. He is contented with his present enjoyments, because they are utterly undisturbed by idle comparisons with those experienced in the past or anticipated in the future. He has no thankless repinings and no vain desires. Is intellect or reason then so fatal, though sublime a gift that we cannot possess it without the poisonous alloy of care? Must grief and ingratitude inevitably find entrance into the heart, in proportion to the loftiness and number of our mental endowments? Are we to seek for happiness in ignorance? To these questions the reply is obvious. Every good quality may be abused, and the greatest, most; and he who perversely employs his powers of thought and imagination to a wrong purpose deserves the misery that he gains. Were we honestly to deduct from the ills of life all those of our own creation, how trifling, in the majority of cases, the amount that would remain! We seem to invite and encourage sorrow, while happiness is, as it were, forced upon us against our will. It is wonderful how some men pertinaciously cling to care, and argue themselves into a dissatisfaction with their lot. Thus it is really a matter of little moment whether fortune smile or frown, for it is in vain to look for superior felicity amongst those who have more "appliances and means to boot," than their fellow-men. Wealth, rank, and reputation, do not secure their possessors from the misery of discontent.