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But I apprehend my readers will begin to think I have led them by the nose quite long enough; and lest they should suspect that I am making a handle of the subject, I shall conclude at once with a

SONNET TO MY OWN NOSE.

O nose! thou rudder in my face's centre,
Since I must follow thee until I die,-
Since we are bound together by indenture,
The master thou, and the apprentice I,-
O be to your Telemachus a Mentor,

Though oft invisible, for ever nigh;
Guard him from all disgrace and misadventure,
From hostile tweak, or Love's blind mastery.
So shalt thou quit the city's stench and smoke,
For hawthorn lanes, and copses of young oak,

Scenting the gales of Heaven, that have not yet
Lost their fresh fragrance since the morning broke,
And breath of flowers "with rory May-dews wet,"
The primrose-cowslip-blue-bell-violet.

WALKS IN THE GARDEN.-No. I.

Heureux qui, dans le sein de ses dieux domestiques,
Se dérobe au fracas des tempêtes publiques,
Et dans un doux abri, trompant tous les regards,
Cultive ses jardins, les vertus, et les arts.

DELILLE.

A GENTLE fertilizing shower has just fallen-the light clouds are breaking away-a rainbow is exhibiting itself half athwart the horizon, as the sun shoots

forth its rays with renewed splendour, and the reader is invited to choose the auspicious moment, and accompany the writer into his garden. He will not exclaim with Dr. Darwin,

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Stay your rude steps! whose throbbing breasts enfold
The legion fiends of glory or of gold ;”-

but he would warn from his humble premises all those
who have magnificent notions upon the subject; who
despise the paltry pretensions of a bare acre of ground
scarcely out of the smoke of London, and require
grandeur of extent and expense before they will con-
descend to be interested. To such he would recom-
mend the perusal of Spence's translation from the
Jesuits' Letters, giving an account of the Chinese em-
peror's pleasure-ground, which contained 200 palaces,
besides as many contiguous ones for the eunuchs, all
gilt, painted, and varnished; in whose enclosure
were raised hills from twenty to sixty feet high;
streams and lakes, one of the latter five miles round ;
serpentine bridges, with triumphal arches at each
end undulating colonnades; and in the centre of the
fantastic paradise a square town, each side a mile long.
Or they may recreate their fancies with the stupen-
dous hanging gardens of Babylon-a subject which
no living imagination could perfectly embody and de-
pict, unless it be his who has realised upon canvass
such a glorious conception of Belshazzar's feast. Or
he may peruse Sir William Temple's description of a
perfect garden, with its equilateral parterres, foun-
tains, and statues,
so necessary to break the effect
of large grass-plots, which, he thinks, have an ill ef-

:

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fect
upon the eye;" its four quarters regularly divided
by gravel walks, with statues at the intersections; its
terraces, stone flights of steps, cloisters covered with
lead, and all the formal filigree-work of the French
and Dutch schools.-If the reader be a lover of poetry,
let him forget for a moment, if he can, the fine taste
and splendid diction of Milton, in describing the Gar-
den of Eden, the happy abode of our first parents-

-From that sapphire fount the crisped brooks,
Rolling on orient pearl and sands of gold,
With mazy error under pendant shades
Ran nectar, visiting each plant, and fed
Flow'rs worthy of Paradise, which not nice art
In beds and curious knots, but nature boon,
Pour'd forth profuse on hill, and dale, and plain,
Both where the morning sun first warmly smote
The open field, and where the unpierced shade
Imbrown'd the noontide bowers. Thus was this place
A happy, rural seat of various view."-

Let him also banish from his recollection the far-famed garden of Alcinous, which however, as Walpole justly observes, after being divested of Homer's harmonious Greek and bewitching poetry, was a small orchard and vineyard, with some beds of herbs, and two fountains that watered them, enclosed within a quickset-hedge, and its whole compass only four acres. Such was the rural magnificence which was in that age deemed an appropriate appendage to a palace with brazen walls and columns of silver. - Modern times, however, have shewn us how much may be accomplished in a small space. Pope, with the assistance of Lord Peterborough, "to form his quincunx, and to

rank his vines," contrived to impart every variety of scenery to a spot of five acres; and might not, perhaps, have been insincere when he declared, that of all his works, he was most proud of his garden.—But a truce to these deprecations and dallyings with our own modesty: the breezes are up, the sky is cloudless; let us sally forth, and indulge in the associations and chitchat suggested by the first objects that we encounter.

This border is entirely planted with evergreens, so benignantly contrived by nature for refreshing us with their summer verdure and cheerfulness, amid the sterility and gloom of winter. This, with its graceful form, dark-green hue, and substantial texture, is the prickly-leaved Phillyræa, said to have been first brought into Europe by the Argonauts, from the island of the same name in the Pontus Euxinus. From the river Phasis in Colchis these voyagers are reported to have first introduced pheasants, though many writers contend that the whole expedition was fabulous, and that all the bright imaginings and poetical embellishments lavished upon the Golden Fleece, resolve themselves into the simple and not very dignified fact of spreading sheep-skins across the torrents that flowed from Mount Caucasus, to arrest the particles of gold brought down by the waters. Our own Crusades, however irrational their object, were attended with many beneficial results, not only introducing us to the knowledge of Saracenic architecture, but supplying our European gardens with many of the choicest Oriental productions. While we are on the subject of the Crusades, let us not omit to notice this Planta

genista, or broom, said to have been adopted in those wars as a heraldic bearing, and ultimately to have furnished a name to our noble English family, the Plantagenets. Next to it is the Arbutus, the most graceful and beautiful of all plants, and nearly singular in bearing its flowers and strawberry-like fruit at the same time, although the florets be but the germ of the next year's fruit. Virgil seems to have been very partial to this elegant shrub. By its side is a small plant of that particular Ilex, or holm oak, on which, in the south of Europe, more especially in Crete, are found those little insects, or worms, called kermes, whence a brilliant scarlet dye is extracted, and which are so rapidly reproduced, that they often afford two crops in a year. From these small worms the French have derived the word vermeil, and we our vermillion; though the term is a misnomer, as the genuine vermillion is a mineral preparation. The Juniper-tree need not detain us long, now that its berries are no longer used for flavouring gin, the distillers substituting for that purpose oil of turpentine, which, though it nearly resembles the berries in flavour, possesses none of their valuable qualities. Box and Arbor vitæ, those treasures of our ancient gardeners, may also exclaim that their occupation is nearly gone, since the taste for verdant sculpture is exploded, and giants, animals, monsters, coats of arms, and peacocks, no longer startle us at every turn*. Yews also, which,

*This false taste, however, may boast the sanction of a most classical age. Pliny, in the description of his Tuscan Villa,

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