Go mark the matchless workings of the power
That shuts within the seed the future flower;
Bids these in elegance of form excel,

In colours these, and those delight the smell;
Sends nature forth, the daughter of the skies,
To dance on earth, and charm all human eyes.

Cowper.

When the mind becomes animated with a love of nature, nothing is seen that does not become an object of curiosity and inquiry. A person under the influence of this principle can converse with a picture, and find an agreeable companion in a statue. He meets with a secret refreshment in a description, and often feels a greater satisfaction in the prospect of fields and meadows, than another does in the possession. It gives him, indeed, a kind of property in every thing he sees, and makes the most rude, uncultivated parts of nature administer to his pleasures; so that he looks upon the world, as it were, in another light, and discovers in it a multitude of charms, that conceal themselves from the generality of mankind. A river is traced to its fountain; a flower to its seed; an animal to its embryo, and an oak to its acorn. If a marine fossil lies on the side of a mountain, the mind is employed in the endeavour to ascertain the cause of its position. If a tree is buried in the depths of a morass, the history of the world is traced to the deluge; and he who grafts, inoculates, and prunes, as well as he who plants and transplants, will derive an innocent pleasure in noting the habits of trees, and their mode of culture; the soils in which they delight, the shapes into which they mould themselves; and will enjoy as great a satisfaction from the symmetry of an oak, as from the symmetry of an animal. Évery tree that bends, and every flower that blushes, even a leafless copse, a barren plain,

the cloudy firmament, and the rocky mountain, are objects for his attentive meditation. Such ideas as these must have been impressed on the mind of the venerable biographer of Leo when he wrote the following

LINES,

Prefixed to a Work on Monandrian Plants.

BY WILLIAM ROSCOE, ESQ.

God of the changeful year!-amidst the glow
Of strength and beauty and transcendant grace,
Which on the mountain heights, or deep below
In sheltered vales, and each sequestered place,
Thy forms of vegetable life assume;

Whether thy pines, with giant arms displayed,
Brave the cold north, or wrapt in eastern gloom,
Thy trackless forests sweep a world of shade ;—
Or whether, scenting Ocean's heaving breast,
Thy odoriferous isles innumerous rise,

Or under various lighter forms imprest,

Of fruits and flowers, Thy works delight our eyes;
God of all life! whate'er those forms may be,
O may they all unite in praising Thee!

Winter's Wreath, 1830.

Among the principal plants in flower during this month are the damask rose, ( rosu damascena ;) tulip tree, (ciriodendron tulipifera;) yellow lupin, (lupinus flavus:) African marygold, (tagetes erecta;) house-leek, (sempervivum tectorum ;) sweet pea, (lathyrus tingitanus ;) musk flower, (scabiosa atropurpur;) annual sunflower, (helianthus annuus ;) snapdragon, (antivetrinum orontium;) martagon lily, (lilium chalcedonicum;) Japan lily, (lilium japonicum;) tiger lily, (lilium tigrinum;) African lily, (agapanthus umbellatus ;) white lily, (lilium candium ;)

In Friendship's Offering for 1830, is the following pretty sonnet :

TO THE WHITE LILY.

O lady of the summer! that dost rear
Thy pearly coronal so gracefully,

And lookest proudly toward the golden sky,
Eying bright Phoebus in his mid career

With undashed brow-thou of all flow'rs most dear,
Bringing blithe days, and skies of glorious dye,
And harvest hopes, and woodland melody,
For all the summer pomps with thee appear;
My heart doth hymn thee, pure and peerless one!
Whose simple vest of dazzling loveliness
Far passeth Soldan's on his gorgeous throne!
As, 'bove thy sister blossoms, fair, alone,
Thou standest stately in thy radiant dress,
Queen of the Summer! daughter of the Sun!

H. L.

The bee-hive still continues the seat of industry; we have in it, as in the swallow's nest, one of the numerous proofs of the wise and ingenious works of nature; the latter as an example merely of that incontestible truth, namely, that the truth of Providence fills all things created, and that divine wisdom inspires (so far as is necessary for the ends of creation) every genus and species of living creature; the swallow is a prudent and provident artist, endowed with a degree of foresight which leads it to the curious fabrication of that tenement wherein to ensconce its body from hostile elements, and to nourish its young. There is something clever in the confirmation of its abode, and a thinking man cannot behold its cleaving the air, bearing the material of its building, without reflecting on the immensity of its Omnipotence, Omniscience, and Omnipresence, which all nature's works so loudly proclaim-in great things as well as little things, in the most important facts, and in the minutest trivialities of this nether globe. But if the swallow's nest can excite admiration, ten times more interesting and surprising is the habitation filled

like a store-house, with the sweet labor of the busy bee; the industrious laborer humming over its work, is not less a link of the creative chain, than the cheerfully toiling fabricator of works of art and science; genius and soul stimulate the latter, instinct and necessity direct the former.

Another industrious insect, the silk-worm, is now found on the mulberry trees, and is the only insect that feeds on its leaves. The amiable bard of Sheffield has some pleasing stanzas in the Forget me Not for 1830, on this industrious and serviceable little being.

THE WORM AND THE FLOWER.

BY JAMES MONTGOMERY, ESQ.

You're spinning for my lady, worm!
Silk garments for the fair;
You're spinning rainbows for a form
More beautiful than air,-
When air is bright with sun-beams
And morning mists arise,

From woody vales and mountain streams,
To blue autumnal skies.

You're training for my lady, flower!
You're opening for my love;
The glory of her summer bower,
While sky-larks soar above.
Go, twine her locks with rose buds,
Or breathe upon her breast,
While zephyrs curl the water-floods,
And rock the halcyon's nest.

But, oh! there is another worm
Ere long will visit her,

And revel on her lovely form
In the dark sepulchre :

Yet from that sepulchre shall spring
A flower as sweet as this;

Hard by the nightingale shall sing,

Soft winds its petals kiss.

Frail emblems of frail beauty, ye!

In beauty who would trust?
Since all that charms the eye must be
Consigned to worms and dust:

Yet, like the flower that decks her tomb,
Her spirit shall quit the clod,
And shine in amaranthine bloom,

Fast by the throne of God.

Evening too has its charms in the country; at this season what can be more delightful, after the extreme heat of the day, than to recline on some mossy bank, and watch the glorious sun reclining behind the distant hills; it is a scene of gorgeous splendour that baffles all description. It has, however, often engaged the pen of the poet, and we subjoin two efforts certainly of no mean character.

SUN-SET.

BY THE REV. G. M. JOHNSON.

Veiling in clouds his gorgeous brow,
Whilst far his parting glories spread,
The king of day, majestic, slow,

Sinks on the crimson'd ocean's bed.

Now lower and still lower yet,-
A moment, and he disappears:
'Tis past:-his god-like form is set,
To shine the life of other spheres.
But still a radiance fires the skies,
Far up the regions of the west,
Bright'ning with deep vermilion dyes
Th' horizon where he sank to rest.

So when, his goal of glory won,

The Christian sinks in death's embrace,
A thousand deeds of goodness done,

Leave on the heart their hallow'd trace.

So when, my earthly trial past,

I yield to heaven's all-righteous doom,
May justice, truth, and friendship, cast
Their glorious halo round my tomb.