These beauteous children of Nature do not appear all at once, but in the most enchanting regularity of succession. Each month displays the beauties peculiar to itself. Soon succeeds the tulip, the transient glory of the garden; the anemone, encircled at the bottom with a spreading robe, and rounded, at the top, into a beautiful dome; and the ranunculus, which displays all the magnificence of foliage, and charms the eye, with such a brilliant assemblage of colours. Nor lingers behind the rose, the favourite flower of poets, which glows with its own vivid tints, and diffuses around its aromatic sweets;-yet this rose, one of the greatest ornaments of our garden, the sweetest flower' That ever bloomed in any bower, like the rest of its sister tribe, and that beauty of which it is so often mentioned as an emblem quickly hastens to decay: Poore silly flowre! Though in thy beauty thou presume, And breath which doth the spring perfume; And though it may Then thy good fortune be, to rest O'th' pillow of some ladie's brest ; For 'tis thy doome However, that there shall appeare Ere the tempestuous winter come. HABINGTON. The carnation, as if centering in itself the perfection of every flower next attracts the wanderer, by that lustre and variety of hues, and that fragrancy of scent, which entitle it to a kind of preeminence over the most beautiful of the painted tribes. But not to proceed with the later flowers of the year, I will conclude my observations on this head with Thomson's picturesque recapitula tion: At once arrayed In all the colours of the flushing year, By Nature's swift and secret-working hand, * * * * * Along these blushing borders bright with dew, The yellow wall-flower, stained with iron-brown; With shining meal o'er all their velvet leaves; Then comes the tulip race, where Beauty plays The varied colours run; and, while they break Low bent, and, and blushing inward; nor jonquils, Nor broad carnations, nor gay-spotted pinks; With hues on hues expression cannot paint, What an inexhaustible source of grateful admiration does this regular succession of flowers present! What manifest displays of Divine Wisdom and ever active Goodness! Were all the flowers of the dif ferent seasons to bloom together in one gay assemblage, we should sometimes be overpowered with profusion, and at other times lament a total privation. Scarce should we be able to discern one half of their innumerable beauties, when the eye, with unspeakable regret, would witness their decay. But while its proper time and place is allotted to every kind of flower, this delightful succession enables us to contemplate them with greater convenience and exactness. We can often repeat the pleasing examination, enjoy all their beauties at our leisure, and form a more intimate acquaintance with them. This wise arrangement of Providence affords us another inestimable advantage. We not only view the various kinds of flowers, as they flourish, in the most beautiful perfection, but we become less sensible on this account of their transient duration. The early flowers flourish awhile and wither; but a variety of new kinds is constantly springing up, to prolong the beauty of the garden, and, as it were, to perpetuate our pleasure. The infinite variety of flowers is not less a subject of admiration than their regular succession, and equally evinces consummate wisdom and design. Had there been an exact uniformity in the structure, form and colour, the fragrancy and other properties of flowers, that uniformity would have become fatiguing, and we should soon have languished for the charms of novelty. Or if the summer were to be productive of no other flowers than what adorn the spring, we should not only become weary of contemplating them, but neglect to bestow upon them the necessary care of cultivation. The Divine Goodness is indeed apparent, in having diversified the productions of the vegetable kingdom in such a delightful manner, as to add to their perfections the charms of a variety ever pleasing and ever new. This diversity is not discernible only in the different families of flowers, but it is to be seen, moreover, in the individuals. While the carnation is different from the tulip, and the tulip from the auricula; each carnation, each tulip, and each auricula has its peculiar character, with its particular beauties and varieties. In each there is something original. In a bed of tulips or carnations, there is scarce a flower in which some difference may not be observed in its structure, size or assemblage of colours; nor can any two flowers be found in which the shape and shades are exactly similar. Some flowers rear their lofty heads, as if in proud pre-eminence over others, that rise to a moderate height, or keep their humble station near the ground. Some glow with the most gaudy colours, while others charm the eye with their elegant simplicity. With what masterly skill are the varying tints disposed; magnificently bold in some; in others delicately faint; laid on in these with a kind of negligence, and adjusted in those by the nicest touches of art! Some perfume the air with the most exquisite odours; while others are content to delight the eye, without gratifying the sense of smell. In fine, we behold that successive beauty, that pleasing variety, and that endearing novelty in flowers, in comparison of which all the works of art must appear insipid and digusting. Flowers, it may be supposed, have not only furnished the poets, as I have before observed, with inexhaustible description, but the philosophers in every age with a variety of moral sentiments. But reflections of this kind will lead me too far: I shal therefore conclude this paper with some beautiful lines, which I have selected, in particular, for the instruction of my fair readers. Ye lovely Fair, while flowery chaplets bind Arrayed in purple pride; as on your breast Their odoriferous sweets, and shoot profuse So beauty fades, so fleets its showy life, ANON. No. XXVI, THE ANATOMY OF FLOWERS. Go, mark the matchless workings of the Power In colour these, and those delight the smell; COWPER. IN my former paper I considered the subject of flowers in a poetical, philosophical, and moral view; deducing such reflections from their order of succession, their exquisite beauty, and infinite va |