Has a thought about its nest,
Thou wilt come with half a call,
Spreading out thy glossy breast
Like a careless Prodigal ;
Telling tales about the sun,
When we 've little warmth, or none."

WORDSWORTH.

66

The most imaginative and harmonious of poets has grouped the most charming of flowers around his “Sensitive Plant:'

A Sensitive Plant in a garden grew,
And the young winds fed it with silver dew,
And it opened its fan-like leaves to the light,
And closed them beneath the kisses of night.

And the Spring arose on the garden fair,
And the Spirit of Love fell everywhere ;
And each flower and herb on earth's dark breast
Rose from the dreams of its wintry rest.

But none ever trembled and panted with bliss
In the garden, the field, or the wilderness,
Like a doe in the noontide with love's sweet want,
As the companionless Sensitive Plant.

The snowdrop, and then the violet,
Arose from the ground with warm rain wet,
And their breath was mixed with fresh odour sent
From the turf, like the voice and the instrument.

Then the pied windflowers and the tulip tall,
And narcissi, the fairest among them all,
Who gaze on their eyes in the stream's recess,
Till they die of their own dear loveliness.

And the Naiad-like lily of the vale,
Whom youth makes so fair and passion so pale,
That the light of its tremulous bells is seen
Through their pavilions of tender green;

And the hyacinth purple, and white, and blue,
Which flung from its bells a sweet peal anew
Of music so delicate, soft, and intense,
It was felt like an odour within the sense ;

And the rose like a nymph to the bath addrest,
Which unveiled the depth of her glowing breast,
Till, fold after fold, to the fainting air
The soul of her beauty and love lay bare;

And the wand-like lily, which lifted up,
As a Mænad, its moonlight-coloured cup,
Till the fiery star, which is its eye,
Gazed through the clear dew on the tender sky;

And the jessamine faint, and the sweet tuberose,
The sweetest flower for scent that blows;
And all rare blossoms from every clime
Grew in that garden in perfect prime.”

SHELLEY.

The "Field Flowers" of the poet of Hope' beautifuily contrast with the · Garden Flowers’ of Shelley :

“ Ye field flowers ! the gardens eclipse you, 'tis true,
Yet, wildings of Nature, I dote upon you,

For ye waft me to summers of old,
When the earth teem'd around me with fairy delight,
And when daisies and buttercups gladden'd my sight,

Like treasures of silver and gold.

I love

you for lulling me back into dreams
Of the blue Highland mountains and echoing streams,

And of birchen glades breathing their balm,
While the deer was seen glancing in sunshine remote,
And the deep mellow crush of the wood-pigeon's note,

Made music that sweeten'd the calm.

Not a pastoral song has a pleasanter tune
Than ye speak to my heart, little wildings of June :

Of old ruinous castles ye tell,
Where I thought it delightful your beauties to find,
When the magic of Nature first breathed on my mind,
And

your blossoms were part of her spell.

Even now what affections the violet awakes !
What loved little islands, twice seen in their lakes,

Can the wild water lily restore !
What landscapes I read in the primrose's looks,
And what pictures of pebbled and minnowy brooks

In the vetches that tangled the shore.

Earth's cultureless buds, to

my

heart ye are dear,
Ere the fever of passion, or ague of fear,

Had scathed my existence's bloom;
Once I welcome you more, in life passionless stage ;
With the visions of youth to revisit my age,
And I wish you to grow on my tomb.”

CAMPBELL.

We conclude with one of the most graceful poems

of an age from which a taste for the highest poetry was fast vanishing :

"Go, lovely rose !

Tell her that wastes her time and me,
That now she knows

When I resemble her to thee,
How sweet and fair she seems to be.

Tell her that 's young,

And shuns to have her graces spied,
That hadst thou sprung

In deserts, where no men abide,
Thou must have uncommended died.

Small is the worth

Of beauty from the light retired :
Bid her come forth,

Suffer herself to be desired,
And not blush so to be admired.

Then die! that she

The common fate of all things rare
May read in thee,

How small a part of time they share
That are so wondrous sweet and fair."

WALLER.

38.-ACCOUNT OF THE GREAT FIRE OF LONDON.

EVELYN.

[John EVELYN, of Wotton, Surrey, was a younger son of an ancient family. During a long life, in eventful times, he maintained a character for independence and honesty, without being a violent partisan ; and in a profligate age he displayed the decorous virtues of an English gentleman. His · Memoirs' were found about thirty years ago, in a mutilated state, in the old mansion in which he lived and died Wotton, near Dorking; and they offer some of the most curious pictures we possess of the events and manners of the 17th century. We subjoin his narrative of the great fire of London, in 1666. Mr. Evelyn died in 1706, in his 86th year.]

1666. 2nd Sept. This fatal night about ten began that deplorable fire near Fish Street in London.

3. The fire continuing, after dinner I took coach with my wife and son and went to the bank-side in Southwark, where we beheld that dismal spectacle, the whole city in dreadful flames near the waterside; all the houses from the bridge, all Thames Street, and upwards towards Cheapside down to the Three Cranes were now consumed.

The fire having continued all this night, (if I may call that night which was as light as day for ten miles round about, after a dreadful manner,) when conspiring with a fierce eastern wind in a very dry season; I went on foot to the same place, and saw the whole south part of the city burning from Cheapside to the Thames, and all along Cornhill, (for it kindled back against the wind as well as forward,) Tower Street, Fenchurch Street, Gracechurch Street, and so along to Bainard's Castle, and was now taking hold of St. Paul's Church, to which the scaffolds contributed exceedingly. The conflagration was so universal, and the people so astonished, that from the beginning, I know not by what despondency or fate, they hardly stirred to quench it, so that there was nothing heard or seen but crying out and lamentation, running about like distracted creatures, without at all attempt ing to save even their goods; such a strange consternation there was upon them, so as it burned both in breadth and length, the churches, public halls, exchange, hospitals, monuments, and ornaments, leaping after a prodigious manner from house to house and street to street, at great distances one from the other; for the heat, with a long set of fair and warm weather, had even ignited the air and prepared the materials to conceive the fire, which devoured after an incredible manner, houses, furniture and everything. Here we saw the Thames covered with goods floating, all the barges and boats laden with what some had time and courage to save, as, on the other, the carts, &c., carrying out to the fields, which for many miles were strewed with moveables of all sorts, and tents erecting to shelter both people and what goods they could get away. Oh the miserable and calamitous spectacle ! such as haply the world had not seen the like since the foundation of it, nor be outdone till the universal conflagration. All the sky was of a fiery aspect, like the top of a burning oven, the light seen above forty miles round about for many nights. God grant my eyes may never behold the like, now seeing above 10,000 houses all in one flame; the noise and cracking and thunder of the impetuous flames, the shrieking of women and children, the hurry of people, the fall of towers, houses, and churches was like an hideous storm, and the air all about so hot and inflamed, that at last one was not able to approach it; so that they were forced to stand still and let the flames burn on, which they did for near two miles in length and one in breadth. The clouds of smoke were dismal, and reached upon computation near fifty miles in length. Thus I left it this afternoon burning, a resemblance of Sodom, or the last day. London was, but is no more!

4. The burning still rages, and it has now gotten as far as the Inner Temple, all Fleet Street, the Old Bailey, Ludgate Hill, Warwick .- Lane, Newgate, Paul's Chain, Watling Street, now flaming, and most of it reduced to ashes; the stones of Paul's flew like granados, the melting lead running down the streets in a stream, and the very pavements glowing with fiery redness, so as no horse nor man was able to tread on them, and the demolition had stopped all the passages, so that no help could be applied. The eastern wind still more impe