not only advise," said Frederic, (being previously instructed by Mrs. Gossamer,) "but also make a proposition. I will myself marry the widow, provided you annul the clause in your will which disinherits me in case of my marrying. As for the maid, you must leave her without explanation or apology. Your secret will be safe, when Mrs. Gossamer is your niece." Mr. Singlesides had too long appreciated the blessings of liberty, not to seize the first occasion to release himself from shackles, with which the delirious excitement of a moment had encumbered him. Very soon after the interview between the uncle and nephew, the widow and the latter were united under the roof of Mr. Singlesides, who bestowed a substantial benediction on them by settling a liberal annuity upon the bride. Meanwhile Miss Bud remained immersed in matrimonial preparations-alas! too premature. She did not fail, however, to remind her intended husband of her existence, by repeated messages and presents, which were almost entirely disregarded. There was an unusual air of bustle and confusion about the quiet and orderly domicil of the bachelor; who himself was busily employed in superintending the packing of several trunks, with a countenance on which was strongly impressed mingled feelings of satisfaction and regret. A gentle tap at the door, drew his attention-it was a maid with a plate of batter-cakes and Miss Betsey's compliments. "D-n Miss Betsey," cried Mr. Singlesides-slamming the door in her face. The following hour he was off to Texas. Miss Betsey Bud-but we will draw a veil over her sorrows. No, we will leave it for an instant unclosed, and just glance at her as she paces frantically from room to room, calling out in allusion to Texas, "Well, well indeed, may it be called 'rogue's refuge.'" Macon, Bibb County, Georgia. M. G. M. Milward? DO YOU REMEMBER? ΤΟ ΑΝΝΑ. I. Do you remember how our childhood's hours That on the air a pleasant fragrance shed? 11. THE GOOD AND THE BAD. The good generally attribute the actions of persons to better motives than the bad; and this is very natural. For the latter having been often impelled by such motives, can more easily imagine others to act from their influence, than the former can; who must necessarily have but a faint idea of such feelings, never having themselves experienced them. In fact, they both generalize from themselves to others. If the world be as bad as some assert, I should suppose that a knowledge of human nature would conduce very much to our own fall. For, by habit we may accustom ourselves to any thing; and the constant sight of vice deadens our horror for it; seeing also so many around us doing wrong, we will be apt to consider it not very heinous for us also to act thus. G. LADIES AND GENTLEMEN OF THE MARYLAND HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY: At your request I appear this evening to discharge a pleasing duty, and offer with you on this fragrant and pure shrine of Nature, the homage and gratitude which these her gifts of fruit and flower demand. From the engrossing and dull pursuits of artificial life-from the marts of commerce and the feverish paths of politics and ambition, we here solicit all ages and classes to unite in a festival and taste a cup unmingled and unembittered by selfishness or pride. up here, the young, the beautiful, the aged, to behold and adore the wisdom and benignity of Him, whose wonderful works are now spread out before us, and to whom human pageants are as sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal,'-for the lilies of the valley are his, and Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.' Upon an occasion of such unalloyed interest and pleasure, it would ill become me to detain you with any labored or scientific dissertation, even had I the ability or the time to do so: I therefore choose rather to dwell on some of the more obvious advantages of your society, and enforce upon the public attention, the claims it so irresistibly presents to more general and zealous support. The Maryland Horticultural Society was formed in 1832, by a few gentlemen of taste and education, who then determined to give to the long neglected subject their attention; and among its officers and members at that date, will be found several beloved fellow citizens, now no more, associated with many who are still its Had I consulted my own just estimate of the occasion, and my unfitness to make it interesting or useful, the duty I now perform should have been declined; but there was something so refreshing and beautiful in the asso-friends and patrons-they subsequently obtained an ciations of your society, that I yielded rather to instinct and feeling than to judgment, and determined to throw myself upon the same kind opinion and indulgence which had called me to its discharge. The anniversaries of national disenthralment and renown are stirring and patriotic in themselves-but the very achievements they celebrate, have been won by the blood of patriots and the sufferings of a whole people-the laurel and the willow entwine the chaplet on the hero's brow; and many a tear for the gallant dead, saddens the 'flowing bowl' in which their deeds are freshly remembered.' In other lands less favored and free than our own, the waving of banners, the falchion's gleam, and the roar of cannon, proclaim too often the sanguinary triumph of power over civil liberty-and the proud pageant is darkened by the retrospect of battles, the sack of cities, the burning of villages, and the flight and massacre of thousands, before the conqueror's sword. Even in the earlier days of chivalry and romance, with the tilt and the tournament, where was sung and commemorated 'Knighthood's dauntless deed, And beauty's matchless eye there, alas, so servile and degrading a barrier separated the lord from the serf, that it robbed these heroic jubilees of that freshness and attraction which freedom alone bestows. act of incorporation, which in its preamble declares the object to be, an association for the purpose of improving and encouraging the science and practice of horticulture, and of introducing into the state new species and varieties of trees, fruits, plants, vegetables and flowers.' The first annual exhibition was held in June, 1833; and at this, its sixth anniversary, it presents to the public the most cheering evidences of its beneficial and successful progress. To an increased list of members, it has added and united by its own attractive pursuits, many of our admired and spirited townswomen, whose zeal and devotion have already imparted a charm and impulse to the society, not to be resisted by the most selfish and obdurate benedict or misanthrope; while, apart from these attractions and resources, it is now giving life and energy to innumerable cultivators of the soil, by awarding weekly and annual premiums to the most enterprising and successful among them, and thereby affording to industry and taste a stimulus, and to horticulture a prominent place among the sister arts. Indeed the present exhibition of flowers alone, might challenge competition in our country, while the rapid improvements manifested in the culture of fruits and vegetables since the society's foundation, will speak its best eulogy: and the regret must now arise, that in this, our Baltimore, distinguished for the beauty and moral loveliness of her daughters, and the valor and public spirit of her sons, so many years should have But this, your anniversary, simple and unostenta tious, though it be, is, compared with those, the refresh-been suffered to elapse in which the culture of the gar ing shower, and the balmy air, after the thunder-cloud has burst, and the summer heat has passed away. It is the union of all that is useful with all that is beautiful—the rainbow of the fields, displaying every color and fraught with every sweet. Surely then, if the smiles of Heaven ever descend, it must be upon a scene like this—for you have come *In accordance with our previously expressed determination, not to be restricted altogether to original matter when a good selection is at hand, we take great pleasure in spreading before our readers a rich and delicious repast in the address of Zac cheus Collins Lee, Esq, delivered before the Horticultural Society of Maryland, at its annual exhibition in June last. We trust that none of our readers, and especially our fair readers, will think of laying down the Messenger until they have admired with us this beautiful literary gem.-[Editor S. Lit. Mes. den and the husbandry of the field (taught us thirty years ago by the West Indian emigrant) were without this great auxiliary and stimulant, and that more regard and attention is not now given to the society. Around us, and on every hand, our hills and valleys are blooming with the growth of almost every plant and tree; and we are in our walks and rides enchanted by the rich scenes which open from some adjacent and once barren spot, where, emparadised in flowers,' the col tage of the horticulturalist peeps forth to win the heart and gratify the eye. Our markets too, in the abundance they offer and the returns they make to the industrious and thrifty farmer and gardener, will convince you, that interest as well as pleasure, are moving onward, hand in hand, in the dif fusion and enlargement of the society's benefits-while reddening apple, the luscious fig, the glowing pomeby its direct agency, every foot of ground near our city, and landed property generally in its neighborhood, is rapidly enhanced in value; and by being converted into gardens and rural retreats, afford even to the dull edge of sated appetite,' some luscious fruit, or early plant and vegetable, before strangers to our boards-and then the ornamental trees which embosom so many cool sequestered country seats, where the invalid and man of business may repair for renovation and repose-all proclaim, with most 'miraculous organ,' the usefulness and the elegant and refined pleasures of horticulture. granate, the juicy pear, the verdant olive, and the bending vine, can be regarded as bright exceptions--these being the offspring rather of poetry than mother earth. From the days of Theophrastus to those of Pliny, during an interval of nearly four hundred years, there had been only enumerated about six hundred plants, regarded more for their medicinal than nourishing qualities, and the account we have of them is very indistinct and unsatisfactory. Following came on the darker ages, in which the few known arts of life shared the sad fate of civil liberty, leaving to the world the discovery, by a few Moorish and Arabian physicians, of one or two herbs-such as Rhubarb and Senna, which are now recognised in our materia medica. The Roman era, deriving, as it did, its taste for gardening from Greece, to the extent it had gone there, opened a wider field to its cultivation. Numerous beautiful passages in the Latin poets, prove the high estimation in which gardening was held among the Romans. Tacitus describes a palace built by Nero, which was on a site laid out on the principles of modern gardening; he says, 'the usual and common luxuries of gold and jewels, which adorned this palace were not so much to be admired, as the fields and lakes and flow The great Roman orator declared in one of his finest orations that there was no better pursuit in life, none more full of enjoyment or more worthy a freeman, than agriculture. The same may be said of the kindred art which gave birth to this society and Lord Bacon, the great master of human learning, has borne testimony to its value, in an essay on this subject, in which he describes gardening and horticultural avocations as the purest of human pleasures as well as the greatest refreshments to the spirits of men; and considers the perfection of this art, as the indication of a nation having attained the highest degree of civilization and refinement. He says, in his quaint language, when ages grow to civility and elegancy, men come to build state-ers, which here and there opened in prospects before it.' ly, sooner than to garden finely, as if gardening were not the greater perfection.' The sacred volume also breathes throughout its holy pages, the sanction and encouragement of rural and innocent pursuits; and the Creator, by placing our first parents in a garden-a paradise And place of rural charms and various views, But it is to modern times we must look for the revival With groves whose rich trees wept odorous gum and balm, classification of plants according to their natural affini- seemed indeed to indicate the preference and favor Profane history has brought down to us its mythology and civil rites, associated and invested with fruits and flowers; and the song of the Bacchanal and the lute of Pan, tell of the clustering grape and the overhanging bough. But the knowledge of plants was then greatly limited, and few, very few of the wonderful creations which modern botany has since disclosed, were known or regarded. The revelations of the Creator to the tenants of Eden, doubtless discovered to them such productions of the earth as were necessary to their sustenance; but the Bible only speaks of the three general divisions of the vegetable world, into the grass, the herb and the tree; and Solomon, the most celebrated for his botanical knowedge, enumerates particularly the Mandrake, the Cedar of Lebanon, and the Hyssop that groweth on the wall, as most prominent in his day. For centuries afterwards, botany was but the humble hand-maiden of medicine and surgery; hence we find the balm of Gilead extolled in Judea as the panacea of all diseases, and of more inestimable value than all our modern panaceas for the assuaging of the ills that 'flesh is heir to.' The heroic age added little or nothing to the preceding period, unless indeed the fabled gardens of the Hesperides and Alcinous, in which Homer has placed the ties, demonstrated, that like man, their domestic life was regulated and sweetened by the presence of the gentler sex, and their being depended upon constitutions and habits peculiar to themselves. In England, during the reigns of Henry and Elizabeth, much of the taste and natural beauty of the gardens of Rome were lost sight of, and substituted by an artificial and grotesque deformity, which maintained for many years, and which, by torturing the box, the yew, and evergreens, into the shape of beasts and other whimsical forms, degraded the standard of horticulture; so that many of the English gardens of that period are described, as being adorned with yew trees in the shape of giants-Noah's ark cut in holly—St. George and the dragon, in box-cypress lovers, laureline bears, and all the race of root-bound monsters which flourished, and looked tremendous around the edges of every grass plat.* But a better spirit soon succeeded, and the works and philosophy of Dr. William Turner, the father of English botany and gardening, gave a right direction to its pursuit, and added countless treasures to the researches of his predecessor-and by the innumerable varieties of shrubs and flowers, to which he gave a local habitation and a name,' the sea-girt island became the home and nursery for almost every tree and plant; and it is now to the annals of English agriculture and gardening, that we look for the most valuable improvements in the useful and ornamental departments of horticulture. See the eloquent address of Mr. Poinsett, in 1836, before the Horticultural Society of South Carolina. The science of botany, being thus founded solely on the natural affinities and fixed laws of vegetation, the great masters to whom I have referred, raised it at once from being the obscure handmaid of medicine, to be the most enlarged and delightful study to which the head and heart of man could be devoted. The poorest plant and the most unobtrusive flower that 'blushed unseen,' under their hands in a moment unfolded the mysteries of its being and the hidder lore of nature. For, if the flowers on the mountains and in the valleys, are the alphabet of angels, with which they have written secret and divine truths upon the hill-tops, how doubly at tractive must become a study, which shall disclose the loves of those angels or the higher destiny of man. Standing as we do, at an immeasurable distance from the olden time-living in an age and land where all who have the spirit to be free, or the virtue to be just, may become public benefactors-how strong are the calls which duty and interest, in every art and department of life, make on us, to be active and beneficent in our efforts. If we cast our eyes over the world, its past and present condition, how infinitely exalted appears the physical and intellectual resources of our generation. The face of nature too, is more prolific and interesting, and exhibits ten thousand beauties and benefits, unknown to past ages. The history, therefore, of the vegetable world, written as it now is, in every language and on every green field, developed then but little compared with the present hour, in which we have assembled to celebrate its triumphs, and to behold, by the light of truth and christianity, what was denied to the darker eras of man. But the great temple of nature, though thus opened, is not explored; beyond us there are many meandering streams and flowery fields to be traced, and hidden treasures to be discovered. The promised land rises in bright perspective, and our children must finish what has been commenced by us-kindling brighter lights, and erecting nobler altars to nature and religion. What a theatre for horticultural effort does our own country afford? The vegetation of the United States is as various as its climate and soil. In the Floridas grow the majestic palm, the orange, the cotton, the indigo and the sugar-cane. In the Carolinas, the eye of the traveller is charmed with the beauty and grandeur of the forest trees, the evergreen oak, the various species of pine, walnut, and plane tree, the splendid tulip, the curious cypress, and the superb magnolia,-while the oaks, the firs, and the chesnuts of the middle and northern states, afford to the naturalist a rich scene for investigation and study. Already ten species of the walnut are distinguished for their use and beauty, in the soil and in manufactures; and as many of the maple, the spruce, the hickory, and the larch; most of them, now transplanted to our gardens, and public pleasure grounds, are the objects of daily converse and admiration. There, too, is the giant sycamore, the king of our western forests, exhibiting in its growth, a fit emblem of the vigorous and hardy race, who people the young but glorious west. It rises, as Mr. Washington Irving has described it, in the most graceful form, with vast spreading lateral branches, covered with bark of a brilliant white. These hundred white arms interlacing with the other green forest trees, form one of the most striking traits of American scenery. A tree of this kind near Marietta, measured fifteen feet and a half in diame ter; and it is said, that Judge Tucker, of Virginia, obtained a section of such a tree, put a roof to it, and furnished it as a study, which contained a stove, bed, and table, making a comfortable apartment. Horticulture is domesticating the birch, the elm, the acacia, and the poplar, and beautifying our gardens with the magnolia, the holly, the almond, and the Catawba, and many others, whose existence was almost unknown to us ten years ago. Some of the most luscious fruits we now prize and cultivate, are strangers to our soil. Modern horticalture, within the last two centuries, has domesticated them. The fig was brought from Syria, the citron from Medea, the peach from Persia, the pomegranate from Africa, apricots from Epirus, apples, pears, and plums from Armenia, and cherries from Pontus-to Rome they first passed, then to Europe; and with our progenitors many of them became the pilgrims of freedom in Ainerica. Public gardens of any note and extent, owe also their establishment to modern times. The first known in Europe, was that of Lorenzo de Medici, in Florence: afterwards the celebrated botanic garden of Padua was planted, and flourished in 1533. That of Bologna was also founded by the liberality of Pope Pius the VI; then followed that of Florence, erected by the Grand Duke; since which period they have steadily increased, and there is now one to be found in almost every city of Italy. The botanic garden of Leyden was established in 1577, forty-four years after that of Padua, which it surpassed in number and variety of plants—in 1663 the catalogue of this garden numbered 1,104 species. And in Boerhaave's time, who, when professor of botany there, neglected nothing to augment its riches, it contained 6,000 plants. Nearly all the beautiful flowers from the Cape of Good Hope, which now adorn our gardens, were first cultivated there. The first botanic garden in France, was established at Montpelier, in 1597; but the Garden of Plants at Paris was afterwards founded, in 1620, by Louis XIII-this noble institution has been greatly enlarged by successive monarchs and is now regarded as the most scientific garden and the best botanic school in Europe. A taste for flowers is said to have been introduced into England, by the Flemish emigrants, who fled (as did those of St. Domingo to our state,) to that country, to escape the cruelties of the Duke of Alva, in 1567. The first botanic garden in England was afterwards founded at Oxford; and the royal gardens at Kew, were begun about the middle of the eighteenth century, by Frederic, Prince of Wales, father of George the Third, and now contain a rich and extensive collection of exotics, equalled, however, if not surpassed by those in the botanic garden at Liverpool; an institution founded by the influence and efforts of Mr. Roscoe, who established it in 1800. In our country we know of no extensive establishment of this description. That commenced by Dr. David Hosac, of New York, has been suffered to go to decay by the government of the state, who purchased it from the learned and enterprising proprietor. Here, in Maryland, there is as yet no public garden of the kind— but our society is we trust awakening public attention | keep pace with the wide-spreading manufactures and to the subject. commerce of our union. To the farmer and agriculturist is offered a climate and soil more fertile, varied and healthy, than any under the sun-combining the heat of the tropics with the temperatures of the north and west, and inviting him to cultivate every variety of produce: while the growth of distinct and inexhaustible staples, presents what is no where to be found under the same government, agricultural resources of priceless value, which can in no event compete with and oppose cach other in the same foreign or domestic market. A taste is now springing up amongst us-and many private gardens, beautifully represented here to-night, attest the success of individual efforts. The field is before us-laborers are wanted-its limits are the confines of our republic. Look to the south, clothed at this time in a garb of rural splendor, to which its tropical flowers and brilliant evergreens, give a surpassing lustre. There alone flourishes the live oak, that tree, which upon the ocean is the bulwark of our land and the boast of our prowess. How irresistible and magical is the march of improvement, and the triumph of culture The south, opulent in the mimic snow of the cotton and art! Let the rover or naturalist seek some cool and the golden harvests of the rice fields, binds the sequestered spot by the sources of the Missouri or the planter to his soil by the strong tie of interest, and Mississippi, and pleased with the bright and lively rill makes his staple the very life's blood of exchange and which dances from rock to rock, to the murmuring ca- commerce; while the northern, western and middle dence of its own music, watch and follow it as it steals states, by their grain and the culture of tobacco, form under the osier and the vine, with gentle wing, till he a vast store-house and granary for domestic and exfinds it the majestic river upon whose bank Wealth porting uses, unlike the granaries of Rome, inexhaust. builds his palace, Science his temple, and Religion herable, and not filled from plundered provinces. sacred fane; could his wonder be greater or his joy more intense than ours, at the triumphs of art and refinement over the rudeness of uncultured nature? Methinks the progenitors of many who hear me, once sought the fresh breeze of the evening, and plucked the scented wild flower on this very spot, now covered and adorned by edifices of taste and splendor, and crowded with monuments of civilization. So rapid and imperceptible, therefore, are the improvements of the great age, that if we would preserve around us at all the pristine charms of hill and dale, of wild flowers and native forests, it must be by horticulture, and in our gardens,-for the hammer and the noise of the busy multitude, and the axe of the emigrant, and the sweep of commerce, and the sister arts, are onward, with the velocity of our rail roads, clearing the way and settling the waste places, for more enduring power and extended wealth than the woods and wilds of our native soil can afford. Our national resources, too, physical and political, and the giant strides of our people, already proclaim, even beyond the Mississippi, the sway of civil institutions and the glories of freedom. Hurried before their resistless march, the red man, and his once countless tribes, is flying from his hunting grounds and council fires-and his lion heart and eagle eye has cowered before the victorious arm of the white man. I might dilate upon these animating motives to exertion, which our favored position and resources so strongly urge-but I forbear-pausing only to add, that if the cause of agriculture and the claims of this society have no recommendation from considerations like these, there is yet one precious and irresistible motive to be found in the opinions and practice of him, the mention of whose name raises a throb of gratitude in every heart that loves liberty. Among the letters preserved and published of the immortal Washington, is one addressed by him in 1782, to Mr. Young, an English horticulturist, in which the father of his country uses the following language: 'Agriculture in the field and garden has ever been among the most favorite of my amusements, though I never have possessed much skill in the art, and nine years total inattention to it, has added nothing to a knowledge which is best understood from practice.' He then desires his correspondent to send him the following horticultural items: 'A little of the best kind of cabbage seed for the field culture-twenty pounds of the best turnip seedten bushels of sanfoin seed-eight bushels of winter vetches-two bushels of rye grass seed, and fifty pounds of best clover seed.' What a touching illustration of the simple habits and practical sense of this illustrious man. At the time this letter was penned, he had just returned victorious from the revolutionary struggle to the shades of Mount Vernon;-we there find him turning from the voice of praise and the blaze of military glory, to his farm and garden, with the same fondness with which the infant seeks the maternal bosom-and Scarce two hundred years have rolled away, since the rock of Plymouth and the heights of Jamestown were pressed by pilgrims' feet, and consecrated to human rights. Now, twenty-six commonwealths, bounded by the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico, are before us, united by a common bond, and flourishing under the same bright banner, and crowded with upwards of fif-in the unostentatious amusements and healthful exerteen millions of freemen. What a spectacle for the world to admire! what a cause of self-gratulation to us? cises of his fields, becoming the first American farmer, as he had proved himself the greatest hero and general on the tented plain. The 'May Flower,' laden with the seeds of liberty, What a lesson and rebuke should this incident contouched then with drooping sails a savage and inhospi-vey to the noisy pride and bustling littleness of some table shore-now, from the same strand, the moving of the miscalled great men of our day. To the placepalaces of steam and the countless ships of commerce, man and demagogue, even the garden of Mount Verdepart and arrive between cities of astonishing wealth non, blooming under the eye and hand of Washington, and population. I repeat it, that now is the time for could afford no charm or solace for the loss of power or our most active exertions in the noble cause of Agri- emolument-these serve their country but to serve themculture, and its patron, Horticulture, if we desire to selves. Marius, in his defeated hour, sighed amid the |