blessed country, and the acquisition of a cluster of bright wild flowers, glittering with nature's gems of dew.

Spring is certainly the season of England's greatest beauty. The vine-wreathed Autumn of southern climes may, and must be, rich and rare; but we will not envy them while our own dear Land has her fairy-like realm of orchards in blossom; and in loveliness, as in fame, is a queen indeed. What can be more luxuriantly picturesque than the appearance of the world of flowers which our cider counties display at this season? Indeed, the small garden-orchards attached to road-side cottages all over England are gems of beauty. The various tints and texture of the blossoms, from the pure white of the pear and cherry to the deep rose-coloured buds of the apple and crab, and the young delicate green of the just opening leaves, do truly seem like a festal robe worn by the joyous earth in honour of the Spring-time.

It was during a delightful journey through scenes like this, when

Zephirus and Flora gentelly

Yave to the flowers soft and tenderly

Hir sote brethe, and made hem for to sprede,
As God and Goddesse of the flourie mede,
In which, methoughte, I mighte daie by daie
Dwellen alway, the joly month of Maie,

that the following" May Meditations" suggested themselves. She came the bright, beautiful, gladsome Spring! She hath waved o'er the earth her glittering wing;

With her sunny smile, and her joyous voice,
She hath bid the chilled weary earth rejoice,

Doff her wintry garb, and with flow'rets gay
Richly embroider her verdant array.

The Spring came forth; with her glance so bright,
Her song of glee, and her wing of light,

She hath flitted along o'er vale and hill

That in Winter's deep sleep lay dark and still;
She hath warbled her cheerful, arousing strain,
And they burst from their slumbers to life again.
She waved o'er the forests her magic wand,

And the leaves sprang forth 'neath her fairy hand.
The luxuriant lilac's bloom is there,

And laburnums waving their yellow hair;

The blossoms of snow on each clustered spray

Their light petals spread on her flower-gemmed way,-
Some purest white, and some with a streak

Like the fluttering blush on a maiden's cheek.
O'er field and hedge-row, by bank and stream,

Her path we trace in the rainbow gleam
Of the myriad flowers, that now unfold
Their treasures of silver and burnished gold;
And, queen of wild buds, the hyacinth blue
Rivals the skies with as bright a hue;
And the hedge-geranium, fair and brief,
Twines 'mid each gay group her fragrant leaf,
And star-like blossoms, that, blushing, peep
Down sheltered lane and o'er rocky steep.

List!-'twas the nightingale's note ye heard:
To the fairest flower sings the sweetest bird,
For the earliest rose has opened, to fling

Her fragrant breath on the breeze of Spring.

Few trees are so magnificent in foliage as the horse-chestnut, with its large fan-like leaves, far more resembling those of some tropical plant than the garb of a forest tree in climes like ours; but when these are crowned with its pyramids of flowers, so splendid in their distant effect, and so exquisitely modelled and pencilled when we gather and examine their fair forms—is it not then the pride of the landscape? If the oak—the true British oak- be the forest king, let us give him at least a partner in his majesty; and let the chestnut, whose noble head is crowned by the hand of Spring with a regal diadem, gemmed with myriads of pearly, and golden, and ruby flowerslet her be queen of the woods in bonny England; and while we listen to the musical hum of the bees, as they load themselves with her wealth of honey, we will fancy they are congratulating their noble and generous friend on her new honours.

But I am growing somewhat too excursive under the influence of these sweet Spring memories; and it may be thought, that in a work ostensibly devoted to flowers, I have no right to trespass upon the forest; but wherever I find such favoured children of Flora as the one last mentioned, be it in garden, grove, forest, or stream, I claim for them right of introduction among their fair and fragrant kindred.

The flowers which have been selected in illustration of Spring, now demand a brief notice, especially as several of them are of very classic origin, according to the poets, whose graceful imaginings will well relieve my matter-of-fact prose.

It appears rather singular that the Snowdrop, which is considered an indigenous plant, is never, to my knowledge, mentioned by the old poets; this circumstance would seem to infer a comparatively recent introduction of the lovely flower, and I have found it growing wild in several situations (such as the site of a moated house, long since destroyed, where it flourishes in profusion) where it may originally have been planted as a garden-flower. Had it been equally abundant in Chaucer's time, we may be tolerably sure so gentle and beautiful a thing, braving the bleakest season of the year, and excelling even the Daisy in lowly modesty, would not have remained unsung. Nor is it found either in the graceful chaplets of Shakspeare, the songs of Beaumont and Fletcher, or in the rich and manyhued clusters of Ben Jonson or Spenser; but I must leave this enigma to be solved by abler minds than mine.

The Snowdrop is hailed year after year with unchanged delight, as our earliest of

Spring's voluptuous paintings, when she breathes

Her first sweet kisses,

and as a native of our soil," The fair maid of February” (for by that sweet name is she sometimes known) has an undisputed claim to a chief place in our list of floral friends. In real unpoetical truth, I believe the yellow aconite is "the ae first

flower springs either in moor or dale;" but to acknowledge such precedence in any but a solely botanical work, would seem like robbing the heiress of her birthright; and poetry cannot suffer Spring's fair and virgin queen to be deposed in favour of any less qualified representative. It would thus appear that simple Audrey's suspicions of "our craft" are somewhat too well founded, when she enquires of Touchstone, if "poetical means honest in word and deed ?"

The Crocus is fancied by Prior as the bridegroom of the Lady Snowdrop. It is a graceful conceit, for they are a most faithful couple; rarely severed during their short lives. Together they rise from the snow- together bide the storm, or bask in the sunshine—and when one droops and dies, we know that both are leaving us.

THE CROCUS-PRIOR.

Dainty young thing

Of life!-thou venturous flower

Who growest through the hard cold bower

Of wintry spring.

Thou various hued,

Soft, voiceless bell, whose spire

Rocks in the grassy leaves like wire,

In solitude.

Like patience, thou

Art quiet in thy earth,

Instructing Hope that virtue's birth

Is feeling's vow.