of their sweetness, for having been the medium of poetic feeling ever since the world began.

It is impossible to expend a moment's thought upon the lily, without recurring to that memorable passage in the sacred volume : "Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They toil not, neither do they spin, and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory, was not arrayed like one of these." From the little common flower called heart's ease, we turn to that well known passage of Shakspeare, where the fairy king so beautifully describes the "little western flower." And the forget-me-not has a thousand associations tender and touching, but unfortunately, like many other sweet things, rude hands have almost robbed it of its charm. Who can behold the pale Narcissus, standing by the silent brook, its stately form reflected in the glassy mirror, without losing themselves in that most fanciful of all poetical conceptions, in which the graceful youth is described as gazing upon his own beauty, until he becomes lost in admiration, and finally enamoured of himself: while hopeless echo sighs herself away into a sound, for the love, which, having centred in such an

object, was neither to be bought by her caresses, nor won by her despair.

Through gardens, fields, forests, and even over rugged mountains, we might wander on in this fanciful quest after remote ideas of pleasurable sensation connected with present beauty and enjoyment; nor would our search be fruitless so long as the bosom of the earth afforded a receptacle for the germinating seed, so long as the gentle gales of summer continued to waft them from the parent stem, or so long as the welcome sun looked forth upon the ever-blooming garden of nature.

66

One instance more, and we have done. The lady rose," as poets have designated this queen of beauty, claims the latest, though not the least consideration in speaking of the poetry of flowers. In the poetic world, the first honours have been awarded to the rose, for what reason it is not easy to define; unless from its exquisite combination of perfume, form, and colour, which have entitled this sovereign of flowers in one country to be mated with the nightingale, in another, to be chosen, with the distinction of red and white, as the badge of two honourable and royal houses. It would be difficult to trace the supremacy of the rose

to its origin; but mankind have so generally agreed in paying homage to her charms, that our associations in the present day are chiefly with the poetic strains in which they are celebrated. The beauty of the rose is exhibited under so many different forms, that it would be impossible to say which had the greatest claim upon the regard of the poet; but certainly those kinds which have been recently introduced, or those which are reared by unnatural means, with care and difficulty, are to us the least poetical, because our associations with them are comparatively few, and those few relate chiefly to garden culture.

After all the pains that have been taken to procure, transplant, and propagate the rose, there is one kind perpetually blooming around us through the summer months, without the aid or interference of man, which seems to defy his art to introduce a rival to its own unparalleled beauty-the common wild rose; so luxuriant, that it bursts spontaneously into blushing life, sometimes crowning the hoary rock with a blooming garland, and sometimes struggling with the matted weeds of the wilderness, yet ever finding its way to the open day, that it may bask and smile, and look up

with thankfulness to the bright sun, without whose rays its cheek would know no beautyso tender, that the wild bee which had nestled in its scented bosom when that sun went down, returns in the morning and beholds the colour faded from its cheek, while by its side an infant rose is rising with the blush of a cherub, unfolding its petals to live its little day, and then, having expended its sweetness, to die like its fair sisters, without murmur or regret. Blooming in the sterile waste, this lovely flower is seen unfolding its fair leaves where there is no beauty to reflect its own, and thus calling back the heart of the weary traveller to thoughts of peace and joy-reminding him that the wilderness of human life, though rugged and barren to the discontented beholder, has also its sweet flowers, not the less welcome for being unlooked for, nor the less lovely for being cherished by a hand unseen.

There is one circumstance connected with the rose, which renders it a more true and striking emblem of earthly pleasure than any other flower-it bears a thorn. While its odorous breath is floating on the summer gale, and its blushing cheek, half hid amongst the

sheltering leaves, seems to woo and yet shrink from the beholder's gaze, touch but with adventurous hand the garden queen, and you are pierced with her protecting thorns: would you pluck the rose and weave it into a garland for the brow you love best, that brow will be wounded or place the sweet blossom in your bosom, the thorn will be there. This real or ideal mingling of pain and sorrow, with the exquisite beauty of the rose, affords a never-ending theme to those who are best acquainted with the inevitable blending of clouds and sunshine, hope and fear, weal and woe, in this our earthly inheritance.

With everything fair, or sweet, or exquisite in this world, it has seemed meet to that wisdom which appoints our sorrows, and sets a bound to our enjoyments, to affix some stain, some bitterness, or some alloy, which may not inaptly be called, in figurative language, a thorn. St. Paul emphatically speaks of a "thorn in the flesh," and from this expression, as well as from his earnestness in having prayed thrice that it might be removed, we conclude it must have been something particularly galling to the natural man. We hear of the thorn of ingratitude, the thorn of envy, the thorn of