with nature and innocence, and is something to love. And if it cannot love you in return, it cannot hate you; it cannot utter a hateful thing even for your neglecting it; for, though it is all beauty, it has no vanity; and such being the case, and living as it does purely to do you good and afford pleasure, how will you be able to neglect it?

2. But, pray, if you choose a geranium, or possess but a few of them, let us persuade you to choose the scarlet kind, the “old original" geranium, and not a variety of it, not one of the numerous diversities of red and white, blue and white, ivy-leaved, etc. Those are all beautiful, and very fit to vary a large collection; but to prefer them to the originals of the race is to run the hazard of preferring the curious to the beautiful, and costliness to sound taste.

3. It may be taken as a good general rule that the most popular plants are the best; for otherwise they would not have become such. And what the painters call "pure colors" are preferable to mixed ones, for reasons which Nature herself has given when she painted the sky of one color, and the fields of another, and divided the rainbow itself into a few distinct colors, and made the red rose the queen of flowers.

4. Every thing is handsome about the geranium, not excepting its name; which cannot be said of all flowers, though we get to love ugly words when associated with pleasing ideas. The word "geranium" is soft and pleasant; the meaning is poor, for it comes from a Greek word. which signifies a crane, the fruit having the form of a crane's head or bill. Cranes-bill is the English name for geranium, though the learned appellation has superseded the vernacular. But what a reason for naming a flower! as if the fruit were anything in comparison, or any one cared about it.

5. Such distinctions, it is true, are useful to botanists; but as a plenty of learned names are sure to be reserved for the freemasonry of the science, it would be well for the world at large to invent joyous and beautiful names for these images of joy and beauty. In some instances we have them; such as heart's-ease, honeysuckle, marigold, mignonette (little darling), daisy (day's eye), etc. And many flowers are so lovely, and have associated names otherwise unmeaning so pleasantly with one's memory, that no new ones would sound so well, or seem even to have such proper significations.

6. In pronouncing the words lilies, roses, tulips, pinks, jonquils, we see the things themselves, and seem to taste all their beauty and sweetness. Pink is a harsh, petty word in itself, and yet assuredly it does not seem so; for in the word we have the flower. It would be difficult to persuade ourselves that the word rose is not very beautiful. Pea is a poor, Chinese-like monosyllable; and brier is rough and fierce, as it ought to be; but when we think of sweet-pea and sweet-brier, the words appear quite worthy of their epithets. The poor monosyllable becomes rich in sweetness and appropriation; the rough dissyllable also, and the sweeter for its contrast.

7. The names of flowers, in general, among the polite, are neither pretty in themselves, nor give us information. The country people are apt to do them more justice. Goldylocks, ladies'-fingers, rose-a-ruby, shepherd's-clock, shepherd's-purse, sauce-alone, scarlet-runners, sops-in-wine, sweet-william, etc., give us some ideas, either useful or pleasant. But from the peasantry come many uncongenial names, as bad as those of the botanist. It is a pity that all fruits and flowers, and animals too except those with

good names, could not be passed in review before somebody with a genius for christening, as the creatures did before Adam in paradise, and so have new names given them, worthy of their creation.

8. Suppose flowers themselves were new! Suppose they had just come into the world, a sweet reward for some new goodness, and that we had not yet seen them quite developed; that they were in the act of growing; had just issued, with their green stalks, out of the ground, and engaged the attention of the curious. Imagine what we should feel when we saw the first lateral stem bearing off from the main one, or putting forth a leaf. How we should watch the leaf gradually unfolding its little graceful hand; then another, then another; then the main stalk rising and producing more; then one of them giving indications of astonishing novelty—a bud! then this mysterious bud gradually unfolding, like the leaf, amazing us, enchanting us, almost alarming us with delight, as if we knew not what enchantment were to ensue, till at length in all its fairy beauty, and odorous voluptuousness, and mysterious elaboration of tender and living sculpture, shone forth

"The bright consummate flower!"

9. Yet this phenomenon, to a person of any thought and lovingness, is what may be said to take place every day; for the commonest objects are wonders at which habit has made us cease to wonder, and the marvellousness of which we may renew at pleasure, by taking thought.

10. Last spring, walking near some cultivated grounds, and seeing a multitude of green stalks peeping forth, we amused ourselves with imagining them the plumes or other head-gear of fairies, and wondered what faces might ensue;

and from this exercise of the fancy, we fell to considering how true, and not merely fanciful, those speculations were; what a perpetual reproduction of the marvellous was carried on by nature; how utterly ignorant we were of the causes of the least and most disesteemed of the commonest vegetables, and what a quantity of life and beauty, and mystery, and use, and enjoyment, was to be found in them, composed of all sorts of elements, and shaped as if by the hands of fairies.

LEIGH HUNT.

22. - BRING FLOWERS.

BRING flowers, young flowers for the festal board,
To wreathe the cup ere the wine is poured;
Bring flowers! they are springing in wood and vale;
Their breath floats out on the southern gale;
And the torch of the sunbeam hath waked the rose,
To deck the hall where the bright wine flows.

Bring flowers to strew in the conqueror's path!
He hath shaken thrones with his stormy wrath,
He comes with the spoils of nations back,
The vines lie crushed in his chariot's track,
The turf looks red where he won the day;
Bring flowers to die in the conqueror's way!

Bring flowers to the captive's lonely cell;
They have tales of the joyous woods to tell,
Of the free blue streams and the glowing sky,
And the bright world shut from his languid eye.
They will bear him a thought of the sunny hours,

And the dream of his youth;- bring him flowers, wild flowers.

Bring flowers, fresh flowers, for the bride to wear!
They were born to blush in her shining hair.
She is leaving the home of her childhood's mirth,
She hath bid farewell to her father's hearth;
Her place is now by another's side;

Bring flowers for the locks of the fair young bride!

Bring flowers, pale flowers, o'er the bier to shed,
A crown for the brow of the early dead!

For this through its leaves hath the white rose burst,
For this in the woods was the violet nursed!

Though they smile in vain for what once was ours,
They are love's last gift; - bring ye flowers, pale flowers.

Bring flowers to the shrine where we kneel in prayer;
They are nature's offering, their place is there!
They speak of hope to the fainting heart,
With a voice of promise they come and part;
They sleep in dust through the wintry hours,

They break forth in glory;— bring flowers, bright flowers.

FELICIA HEMANS.

ed'i-ble, fit to eat.

23. THE FRUIT.

ex-pe'di-ents, contrivances.

fash'ioned [-und], formed, shaped.

flō'ret, separate little flower of an
aggregate flower.
in-dis-pen'sa-ble, quite necessary.

1. It is not alone the delicious grape, the grateful apple, the luscious pear, the clustered cherries, the tart currants, the golden orange, the sweet blackberries, the refreshing melon, the blooming peach, the purple plum, the sun-fed