"Sometimes a poet from that bridge might see

A nymph reach downwards, holding by a bough
With tresses o'er her brow;

And with her white back stoop

The pushing stream to scoop

In a green gourd cup, shining sunnily."

HUNT'S NYMPHS.

Cowper appears in the following passage to have confounded the Gourd with the cucumber:

"To raise the prickly and green-coated gourd,
So grateful to the palate, and, when rare,
So coveted; else base and disesteemed,
Food for the vulgar merely *; is an art
That toiling ages have but just matured."

GREEK VALERIAN.

POLEMONIUM CÆRULEUM.

PENTANDRIA MONOGYNIA.

POLEMONIACEE.

Jacob's Ladder; Ladder to Heaven.

THIS plant has no affinity to the valerian: it has only some little resemblance in the shape of the leaves. The flowers are pretty, blue or white, and open about the end of May. It is a native of Asia and the North of Europe. The seeds may be sown in spring, in a fresh light soil, not very rich. At Michaelmas they may be transplanted into separate pots, of a middle size: or they may be in

* A new species of Gourd has been very lately introduced from Persia under the name of vegetable marrow; the flesh, when not fully ripe, having a peculiar softness, and, when peeled and boiled, resembling the buttery quality of the beurré pears. It is easily cultivated, and promises to be a great acquisition to our tables.

creased by parting the roots in autumn. should be moderately moist, but never wet.

The earth

CAPRIFOLIEE.

GUELDER-ROSE.

VIBURNUM OPULUS.

PENTANDRIA TRIGYNIA.

Elder-rose; Rose-elder; Snowball-tree.

The

THIS elegant shrub is a variety of a species of viburnum called Water-elder, and delights in a moist soil. name of Snowball-tree is so appropriate as naturally to suggest itself to the mind; and I have more than once heard it remarked by persons who knew it only by its more general title of Guelder-rose, that it should have been called the Snowball-tree.

It has, at first sight, the appearance of a little mapletree that has been pelted with snowballs; and we almost fear to see them melt away in the sunshine. This beautiful snowball of summer continues, however, to adorn the green leaves, which so finely contrast with its whiteness, for two or three successive months, first appearing towards the end of May.

When kept in pots, the Guelder-rose will require watering every evening in dry summer weather. Being a native of North America, it will bear our climate very well; but it will be important, when in blossom, to shelter it from heavy rains, which would be apt partially to thaw these delicate flowers.

Cowper, who loved his garden, and found new pleasure

in transplanting his flowers into his poems, describes the

French, l'aubepine; l'épine-blanche; la noble épine; le senellier.Italian, bianco-spino; amperlo; bagaia.-English, Hawthorn, from the Anglo-Saxon, hægthorn; Whitethorn; Quick; May-bush.

FEW trees exceed the Common Hawthorn in beauty, during the season of its bloom. Its blossoms have been justly compared to those of the myrtle: they are admirable also for their abundance, and for their exquisite fragrance. This shrub usually flowers in May; and being the handsomest then, or perhaps at any time, wild in our fields, has obtained the name of May, or May-bush. The country-people deck their houses and churches with the blossoms on May-day, as they do with holly at Christmas, "Youth's folk now flocken everywhere,

To gather May-buskets and smelling breere;
And home they hasten the posts to dight,
And all the kirk-pillars ere day-light,
With hawthorne buds, and sweet eglantine,
And girlonds of roses, and sops-in-wine."

SPENSER'S SHEPHERD'S CALENDAR.

There are many species of Hawthorn. India has its Hawthorn America, China, Siberia, have each their Hawthorn several are Europeans: but our own British

M

shrub yields to none of them. It is very

common in every

part of England; is to be seen in every hedge:

"And every shepherd tells his tale

Under the hawthorn in the dale."

MILTON, L'ALLEGRO.

We must not, however, let our fancies run so riot, as to suppose that the poet here intends that we should conceive a beautiful and youthful nymph sitting by the shepherd's side, to whom he is pouring forth his fond tale of love; for, in very truth, the real image present in the poet's mind was simply that of a shepherd telling his tale, or, in unpoetic language, counting his sheep, as he lies extended in the shade of this tree; and to those who take pleasure in a country life, and rural associations, perhaps this image will appear scarcely less poetical, or less pleasing, than the former interpretation, which many readers give to this passage at first sight.

This tree not only delights our senses with its beauty and perfume, and affords a cooling shade in sunny fields, a benevolence for which it has been celebrated by many of our best poets, but it also harbours the little birds which cheer us with their joyous music. The thrush, and many others, feed in winter on its berries, the bright scarlet haws. A decoction of the bark yields a yellow dye: the wood is used for axle-trees and tool-handles. "The root of an old Thorn," says Evelyn, " is excellent for boxes and combs. When planted single, it rises with a stem big enough for the use of the turner; and the wood is scarcely inferior to box."

The Glastonbury variety, commonly called the Glastonbury Thorn, usually flowers in January or February; but it is sometimes in blossom on Christmas-day. In many countries the peasants eat the berries of the Hawthorn; and the Kamschatkadales make a wine from them.

The Hawthorn will grow many years in a pot or tub, and require no other care than watering it occasionally in dry weather, and removing it into a larger pot as it outgrows the old one.

The scent of the May-blossom is proverbially sweet. How much is said in praise both of its beauty and sweetness in the following couplet!

"A bush of May-flowers with the bees about them;
Ah, sure no tasteful nook would be without them!"

KEATS.

Chaucer frequently speaks of the Hawthorn : "There sawe I growing eke the freshe hauthorne In white motley, that so sote doeth ysmell."

COMPLAINT OF THE BLACK KNIGHT.

In the celebration of May-day, in the Court of Love,

he says:

"And furth goth all the Courte both most and lest

To fetche the flouris freshe, and braunch and blome,
And namely hauthorne brought both page and grome,
With fresh garlandis, party blew and white,
And than rejoysin in their grete delight."

"Amongst the many buds proclaiming May,
(Decking the fields in holiday's array,
Striving who shall surpasse in bravery)
Marke the faire blooming of the hawthorne-tree;
Who, finely cloathed in a robe of white,
Feeds full the wanton eye with May's delight;

Yet for the bravery that she is in

Doth neyther handle carde nor wheele to spin,

Nor changeth robes but twice, is never seene

In other colors than in white or greene.

Learn then content, young shepherd, from this tree,
Whose greatest wealth is Nature's livery."

"All the trees are quaintly tyred
With greene buds of all desired;
And the hauthorne every day
Spreads some little show of May.