Who broke that morning from their half-year's sleep, To fly o'er flow'rs where they were wont to creep.

Above the sovereign oak, a sovereign skims, The purple Emperor, strong in wing and limbs; There fair Camilla takes her flight serene, Adonis blue, and Paphia silver green1;

With every filmy fly from mead or bower,

And hungry Sphinx who treads the honey'd flower;
She o'er the larkspur's bed, where sweets abound,
Views ev'ry bell, and hums th' approving sound:
Pois'd on her busy plumes, with feeling nice
She draws from ev'ry flower, nor tries a floret twice.2

He fears no bailiff's wrath, no baron's blame
His is untax'd and undisputed game;

Nor less the place of curious plant he knows ;
He both his Flora and his Fauna shows;
For him is blooming in its rich array

The glorious flower which bore the palm away:
In vain a rival tried his utmost art,

His was the prize, and joy o'erflow'd his heart.

"This, this! is beauty; cast, I pray, your eyes On this my glory! see the grace! the size! Was ever stem so tall, so stout, so strong, Exact in breadth, in just proportion long! These brilliant hues are all distinct and clean, No kindred tint, no blending streaks between ; This is no shaded, run-off, pin-ey'd3 thing, A king of flowers, a flower for England's king:

1 The names of different kinds of butterflies.

The Humming-bird Sphinx extracts the honey from the flowers by means of its enormously long proboscis, without sitting upon the plant.

A pin-eyed flower is one that shows only the stigma, and not the anthers, and is of no value to the florist.

I own my pride, and thank the favouring star
Which shed such beauty on my fair Bizarre."1

Thus may the poor the cheap indulgence seize, While the most wealthy pine and pray for ease; Content not always waits upon success, And more may he enjoy who profits less.

CRABBE.

ROME.

I AM in Rome! Oft as the morning-ray
Visits these eyes, waking at once I cry,

Whence this excess of joy? What has befallen me?
And from within a thrilling voice replies,

Thou art in Rome! A thousand busy thoughts
Rush on my mind, a thousand images;
And I spring up as girt to run a race !

Thou art in Rome! the city that so long
Reign'd absolute, the mistress of the world;
The mighty vision that the prophets saw,
And trembled; that from nothing, from the least,
The lowliest village (what but here and there
A reed-roof'd cabin by the river's side?)
Grew into every thing; and, year by year,
Patiently, fearlessly, working her way
O'er brook and field, o'er continent and sea,
Not like the merchant with his merchandise,
Or traveller with staff and scrip exploring,
But always hand to hand and foot to foot,
Through nations numberless in battle-array,

Florists arrange carnations into three classes; - Flakes, regularly striped with one colour; Bizarres, irregularly striped, and with two colours; and Picotées (Fr. piquettée), spotted or pounced with other colours, and the edges of the petals jagged.

Each behind each, each, when the other fell,
Up and in arms, at length subdu'd them all.
Thou art in Rome! the city, where the Gauls,
Entering at sun-rise through her open gates,
And, thro her streets silent and desolate,
Marching to slay, thought they saw gods, not men;
The city, that, by temperance, fortitude,
And love of glory, tower'd above the clouds,
Then fell-but, falling, kept the highest seat,
And in her loneliness, her pomp of woe,

Where now she dwells, withdrawn into the wild,
Still o'er the mind maintains, from age to age,
Her empire undiminish'd. -There, as though
Grandeur attracted grandeur, are beheld
All things that strike, ennoble-from the depths
Of Egypt, from the classic fields of Greece,
Her groves, her temples-all things that inspire
Wonder, delight! Who would not say the forms
Most perfect, most divine, had by consent
Flock'd thither to abide eternally,

Within those silent chambers where they dwell,
In happy intercourse? And I am there!

Ah, little thought I, when in school I sate,
A school-boy on his bench, at early dawn
Glowing with Roman story, I should live
To tread the Appian1, once an avenue
Of monuments most glorious, palaces,
Their doors seal'd up and silent as the night,
The dwellings of the illustrious dead—to turn
Toward 2 Tibur, and, beyond the city-gate,
Pour out my unpremeditated verse,

Where on his mule I might have met so oft
Horace himself3-or climb the Palatine,

1 The Via Appia is perhaps the most striking vestige of antiquity that remains to us.

2 Tivoli.

8 And Augustus in his litter, coming at a still slower rate.

Dreaming of old Evander and his guest,
Dreaming and lost on that proud eminence,
Long while the seat of Rome, hereafter found
Less than enough (so monstrous was the brood
Engender'd there, so Titan-like) to lodge
One in his madness1; and inscribe my name,
My name and date, on some broad aloe-leaf,
That shoots and spreads within those very walls
Where Virgil read aloud his tale divine,
Where his voice falter'd2, and a mother wept
Tears of delight!

But what the narrow space

Just underneath? In many a heap the ground
Heaves, as if ruin in a frantic mood

Had done his utmost. Here and there appears,
As left to show his handy-work, not ours,
An idle column, a half-buried arch,

A wall of some great temple. -It was once,
And long, the centre of their universe,

The FORUM-whence a mandate, eagle-wing'd,
Went to the ends of the earth.3 Let us descend
Slowly. At every step much may be lost.
The very dust we tread, stirs as with life;

He was borne along by slaves; and the gentle motion allowed him to read, write, and employ himself as in his cabinet. Though Tivoli is only sixteen miles from the city, he was always two nights on the road.

1 Nero.

2 As the story is told, Virgil, having been instructed by Augustus to let him hear the Eneid, recited the sixth book, and Octavia, the sister of Augustus, who had just lost her son Marcellus, the darling of Rome, and the adopted son of Augustus, made one of the audience to alleviate and divert her sorrow. When Virgil recited the beautiful lamentation on Marcellus's death, Octavia fainted away; and when she recovered, she made Virgil a present of ten sesterces for every line in praise of her son, a sum amounting in the whole to about 2000l. sterling.

From the golden pillar in the Forum the ways ran to the gates, and from the gates to the extremities of the Empire.

And not a breath but from the ground sends up
Something of human grandeur.

We are come,

Are now where once the mightiest spirits met
In terrible conflict; this, while Rome was free,
The noblest theatre on this side heaven.

-Here the first Brutus stood, when o'er the

corse

Of her so chaste all mourn'd, and from his cloud
Burst like a god. Here, holding up the knife
That ran with blood, the blood of his own child,
Virginius call'd down vengeance.
But whence

spoke

They who harangued the people; turning now
To the twelve tables, now with lifted hands
To the Capitoline Jove, whose fulgent shape
In the unclouded azure shone far off1,
And to the shepherd on the Alban mount2
Seem'd like a star new-risen? Where were rang'd
In rough array as on their element,

The beaks of those old galleys, destined still3
To brave the brunt of war at last to know
A calm far worse, a silence as in death?
All spiritless; from that disastrous hour
When he, the bravest, gentlest of them all,
Scorning the chains he could not hope to break,
Fell on his sword!

1 Now called Monte Cavo.

2 The vault and the external roof of the temple were covered with plates of gold. To this temple the victorious generals and emperors went in triumphal procession to sacrifice to the gods.

3 When the Romans conquered the maritime city of Antium, B. c. 337, they took from the vessels they found in the port the bronze beaks of the ships, (called in Latin rostra) with which they decorated the orator's pulpit in the Forum, which thence was called the Rostrum.

4 Marcus Junius Brutus.