great employments that have fallen to my share, I have never asked or sought for any one of them, but often endeavored to escape from them, into the ease and freedom of a private scene, where a man may go his own way and his own pace in the common paths or circles of life. The measure of choosing well is, whether a man likes what he has chosen, which, I thank God, has befallen me; and though among the follies of my life building and planting have not been the least, and have cost me more than I have the confidence to own, yet they have been fully recompensed by the sweetness and satisfaction of this retreat, where, since my resolution taken of never entering again into any public employments, I have passed five years without ever going once to town, though I am almost in sight of it, and have a house there always ready to receive me. Nor has this been any sort of affectation, as some have thought it, but a mere want of desire or humor to make so small a re move. SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE, 1628-1696. FLOWERS AND ART. FROM "JOURNAL OF A NATURALIST." No portion of creation has been resorted to by mankind with more success for the ornament and decoration of their labors than the vegetable world. The rites, emblems, and mysteries of religion; national achievements, eccentric masks, and the capricious visions of fancy, have been wrought by the hand of the sculptor on the temple, the altar, or the tomb; but plants, their foliage, flowers, or fruits, as the most graceful, varied, and pleasing objects that meet our view, have been more universally the object of design, and have supplied the most beautiful, and perhaps the earliest, embellishments of art. The pomegranate, the almond, and flowers were selected, even in the wilderness by divine appointment, to give form to the sacred utensils; the rewards of merit, the wreath of the victor, were arboraceous. In later periods the acanthus, the ivy, the lotus, the vine, the palm, and the oak flourished under the chisel or in the loom of the artist; and in modern days the vegetable world affords the almost exclusive decorations of ingenuity and art. The cultivation of flowers is, of all the amusements of mankind, the one to be selected and approved as the most innocent in itself, and most perfectly devoid of injury or annoyance to others; the employment is not only conducive to health and peace of mind, but probably more good-will has arisen and friendships been founded by the intercourse and communication connected with this pursuit than from any other whatsoever; the pleasures, the ecstasies of the horticulturist are harmless and pure; a streak, a tint, a shade, becomes his triumph, which, though often obtained by chance, are secured alone by morning care, by evening caution, and the vigilance of days-an employ which in its various grades excludes neither the opulent nor the indigent, and, teeming with boundless variety, affords an unceasing excitement to emulation, without contempt or ill-will. J. L KNAPP. CHINESE GARDENING. What is it that we seek in the possession of a pleasure-garden? The art of laying out gardens consists in an endeavor to combine cheerfulness of aspect, luxuriance of growth, shade, solitude, and repose in such a manner that the senses may be deluded by an imitation of rural nature. Diversity, which is the main advantage of free landscape, must therefore be sought in a judicious choice of soil, an alternation of chains of hills and valleys, gorges, brooks, and lakes covered with aquatic plants. Symmetry is wearying, and ennui and disgust will soon be excited in a garden where every part betrays constraint and art. LIEU-TSCHEN, an ancient Chinese writer-taken from HUMBOLDT's "Cosmos." EMPLOYMENT. If as a flower doth spread and die, Thou wouldst extend me to some good, The sweetness and the praise were thine; Which in thy garland I should fill, were mine For as thou dost impart thy grace, Let me not languish then, and send As is the dust, to which that life doth tend, All things are busy; only I Neither bring honey with the bees, Nor flowers to make that, nor the husbandry I am no link of thy great chain, But all my company is as a weed: Lord place me in thy concert-give one strain GEORGE HERBERT, 1593-1632. THE GARDEN. When the light flourish of the blue-bird sounds, The waste around us. The quick delving spade Upturns the fresh and odorous earth; the rake Smooths the plump bed, and in their furrow'd graves Toward the fall'n wealth of food around the mouth But, fearful of our motions, off he flies, And stoops upon the grub the spade has thrown Loose from its den beside the wounded root. Days pass along. The pattering shower falls down Is pushing up its stem. The verdant pea Meanwhile the fruit-trees gloriously have broke Into a flush of beauty, and the grape, Forming the perfect fruit. In showery nights The fire-fly glares with its pendent lamp Of greenish gold. Each dark nook has a voice, With massy verdure, while the yellow squash ALFRED STREET. THE GARDENER. AN OLD SCOTCH BALLAD. A maiden stude in her bouir door, "O ladye, are ye single yet, Or will ye marry me? Ye'se get a' the flouirs in my garden, To be a weed* for thee." "I love your flouirs," the ladye said, "But I winna marry thee; It is scarcely necessary to observe that weed, in old English, signified garmen. bouir, meant chamber, or apartment; kute, ankle; braune, calf. For I can live without mankind, "You shall not live without mankind, And among the flouirs in my garden, "The lilye flouir to be your smock; Your head shall be bushit wi' the gellye-flouir; The primrose in your breist. "Your gown sall be o' the sweet-william⚫ Your coat o' the cammovine; Your apron o' the seel of downs Come smile, sweetheart o' mine! "Your gloves shall be o' the green clover, All glitterin to your hand; Weil spread ower wi' the blue blawort That grows among corn-land. Your stockings shall be o' the cabbage-leaf, That is baith braid and lang; Narrow, narrow at the kute,* And braid, braid at the braune.* "Your shoon shall be o' the gude rue red, I trow it bodes nae ill; The buckles o' the marygold Come smile, sweetheart, your fill !" Young man, ye've shapit a weed for me Now I will shape anither for thee Amang the winter showirs. "The snaw so white shall be your shirt, The cold east wind shall wrap your heid, "The steed that you shall ride upon Weil bridled wi' the northern wind, *See note on previous page. |