The balmy vapour from their silver croppis,'
Distilland wholesome sugar'd honey-droppis,
So that ilk burgeon, scion, herb, or flower,
Wox all embalmed of the fresh liquoure,
And bathed did in dulce humoures flete,

Whereof the beeis wrought their honey sweet.

Leaving the old Bards, I shall now introduce one of the loveliest flower scenes ever painted by poet's pen, and which has few rivals, even among the bright and beautiful creations of its author. It is a dream of Spring Flowers, by Percy Byshe Shelley.

I dreamed that, as I wandered by the way,
Bare Winter suddenly was changed to Spring,
And gentle odours led my steps astray,

Mixed with a sound of waters murmuring
Along a shelving bank of turf, which lay
Under a copse, and hardly dared to fling

Its green arms round the bosom of the stream,

But kissed it, and then fled, as thou mightest in dream.

There grew pied wind-flowers and violets,

Daisies, those pearled Arcturi of the earth,

The constellated flower that never sets;

Faint oxlips; tender blue-bells, at whose birth
The sod scarce heaved; and that tall flower that wets
Its mother's face with heaven-collected tears,
When the low wind, its playmate's voice, it hears.

And in the warm hedge grew lush eglantine,

Green cow-bind, and the moonlight-coloured May,
And cherry blossoms, and white cups, whose wine
Was the bright dew yet drained not by the day;

Croppis-heads.

And wild roses, and ivy serpentine,

With its dark buds and leaves wandering astray;
And flowers azure, black and streaked with gold,

Fairer than any wakened eyes behold.

We find Shelley, too, lavishing words of praise and fondness on the daisy. How exquisitely descriptive is the epithet "pearled Arcturi of the earth, the constellated flower that never sets;" the association of true and beautiful ideas is the happiest that can be conceived in so few words. The pearllike whiteness of the flower; the name 66 Arcturi," from the star Arcturus, which is always visible to our hemisphere, as the daisy is ever in bloom; and the term "constellated flower," so beautifully realizing the starry groups in which they are seen clustering together, are ideas as truly as they are poetically emblematical of the subject.

Primroses and cowslips have ever been in high favour with the sovereigns of song. The Swedish name of the former, majnycklar, or the key of May, is very characteristic of the sudden arrival of Summer in high latitudes. The primrose comes, and, as if it unlocked the treasure-house of earth, all the other bright gifts of the season follow close upon it. In Beaumont and Fletcher's Bridal Song of Theseus and Hippolita, we find among "Nature's children sweet,"

Primrose, first-born child of Ver,

Merry Spring-time's harbinger,
With her bells dim.

And Herrick celebrates their meek, young beauty in one of

his most musical, melancholy strains:

TO PRIMROSES FILLED WITH MORNING DEW.

Why doe ye weep, sweet babes ? can teares

Speak griefe in you,

Who were but borne

Just as the modest morn

Teemed her refreshing dew?

Alas! you have not known that shower
That marres a flower;

Nor felt th' unkind

Breath of a blasting wind:

Nor are ye worne with yeares,

Or warpt as we,

Who think it strange to see

Such pretty flowers, like to orphans young,

To speak by teares before

ye have a tongue.

Speak, whimp'ring younglings, and make known

The reason why

Ye droop and weep,

Is it for want of sleep,

Or childish lullaby?

Or that ye have not seen as yet

The violet?

Or broughte a kisse

From that sweetheart to this?

No, no, this sorrow shown

By your teares shed,

Wo'd have this lecture read;

That things of greatest, so of meanest worth,

Conceived with griefe are, and with tears brought forth

The cowslip bells are generally named by poets as the resort of fairies; Shakspeare's "dainty Ariel" sings

Where the bee sucks, there suck I;

In a cowslip's bell I lie :

There I couch when owls do cry.

And the Fairy, talking to Puck, in the "Midsummer-night's Dream"-that" paradise of dainty devices"-says, in speaking of Titania

The cowslips tall her pensioners be;
In their gold coats' spots you see;
Those be rubies, fairy favours,
In those freckles live their savours:

I must go seek some dewdrops here,

And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.

Herrick alludes to the cowslip gatherers in his sweet verses

Another lovely Spring Flower, which is very familiar to us, and often found in company with the primrose, is the blue-bell, or wild hyacinth,-scilla nutans. The soft delicate blue of the bells hanging gracefully from the tall stem, and its waving leaves of bright green, which grow in great profusion, render it conspicuously beautiful; nor is its odour unworthy of its appearance. I intended to introduce portraits of the primrose and blue-bell, grouped, among the illustrations of Spring; but having exceeded the number of plates, that drawing, among others, is omitted. It is remarkable that two flowers, so distinct from each other as the Spring blue-bell and the fragile harebell of Autumn, should be so frequently described as one and the same flower. No one thinks of mistaking a snowdrop for a lily, and yet these two blue-bells are more unlike.

Two more popular favourites among Spring's rainbowed children are the celandine and buttercup; and their bright golden faces tell us many a tale of infancy and happiness,—of the time "when daisies and buttercups gladdened our sight like treasures of silver and gold." There is the arum, too, with its curious sheaths, enfolding the singular spire of yellow, purple, or pink, which children call " cows and calves;" a title which my floral etymology has not yet enabled me to make any sense of: but I well remember the pleasure of seeking and gathering the plant; and now the sight of the arum's broad shining barbed leaves in a hedge or on a bank, is an irresistible attraction to peep for the well-known treasure. The modest "tender-hued woodsorrel" gives to the lane its "neat enamelling," with its triple crimson-lined leaves and soft blossoms. And how delicately do