great employments that have fallen to my share, I have never asked or sought for any one of them, but often endeavored to escape from them, into the ease and freedom of a private scene, where a man may go his own way and his own pace in the common paths or circles of life.

The measure of choosing well is, whether a man likes what he has chosen, which, I thank God, has befallen me; and though among the follies of my life building and planting have not been the least, and have cost me more than I have the confidence to own, yet they have been fully recompensed by the sweetness and satisfaction of this retreat, where, since my resolution taken of never entering again into any public employments, I have passed five years without ever going once to town, though I am almost in sight of it, and have a house there always ready to receive me. Nor has this been any sort of affectation, as some have thought it, but a mere want of desire or humor to make so small a reSIR WILLIAM TEMPLE, 1628-1696.

move.

FLOWERS AND ART.

FROM JOURNAL OF A NATURALIST."

No portion of creation has been resorted to by mankind with more success for the ornament and decoration of their labors than the vegetable world. The rites, emblems, and mysteries of religion; national achievements, eccentric masks, and the capricious visions of fancy, have been wrought by the hand of the sculptor on the temple, the altar, or the tomb; but plants, their foliage, flowers, or fruits, as the most graceful, varied, and pleasing objects that meet our view, have been more universally the object of design, and have supplied the most beautiful, and perhaps the earliest, embellishments of art. The pomegranate, the almond, and flowers were selected, even in the wilderness by divine appointment, to give form to the sacred utensils; the rewards of merit, the wreath of the victor, were arboraceous. In later periods the acanthus, the ivy, the lotus, the vine, the palm, and the oak flourished under the chisel or in the loom of the artist; and in modern days the vegetable world affords the almost exclusive decorations of ingenuity and art. The cultivation of flowers is, of all the amusements of mankind, the one to be selected and approved as the most innocent in itself, and most perfectly devoid of injury or annoyance to others; the employment is not only conducive to health and peace of mind, but probably more good-will has arisen and friendships been founded by the intercourse and communication connected with this pursuit than from any other whatsoever; the pleasures, the ecstasies of the horticulturist are harmless and pure; a streak, a tint, a shade, becomes his triumph, which, though often obtained by chance, are secured alone by morning care, by evening caution, and

the vigilance of days-an employ which in its various grades excludes neither the opulent nor the indigent, and, teeming with boundless variety, affords an unceasing excitement to emulation, without contempt or ill-will. J. L KNAPP.

CHINESE GARDENING.

What is it that we seek in the possession of a pleasure-garden? The art of laying out gardens consists in an endeavor to combine cheerfulness of aspect, luxuriance of growth, shade, solitude, and repose in such a manner that the senses may be deluded by an imitation of rural nature. Diversity, which is the main advantage of free landscape, must therefore be sought in a judicious choice of soil, an alternation of chains of hills and valleys, gorges, brooks, and lakes covered with aquatic plants. Symmetry is wearying, and ennui and disgust will soon be excited in a garden where every part betrays constraint and art.

LIEU-TSCHEW, an ancient Chinese writer-taken from HUMBOLDT's "Cosmos."

EMPLOYMENT.

If as a flower doth spread and die,

Thou wouldst extend me to some good,
Before I were by frost's extremity,
Nipt in the bud--

The sweetness and the praise were thine;
But the extension and the room

Which in thy garland I should fill, were mine
At thy great doom.

For as thou dost impart thy grace,
The greater shall our glory be;
The measure of our joys is in this place,
The stuff with thee.

Let me not languish then, and send
A life as barren to thy praise

As is the dust, to which that life doth tend,
But with delays.

All things are busy; only I

Neither bring honey with the bees,

Nor flowers to make that, nor the husbandry

To water these.

I am no link of thy great chain,

But all my company is as a weed :

Lord place me in thy concert-give one strain
To my poor reed.

GEORGE HERBERT, 1593–1632.

THE GARDEN.

When the light flourish of the blue-bird sounds,
And the south wind comes blandly; when the sky
Is soft in delicate blue, with melting pearl
Spotting its bosom, all proclaiming Spring,
Oh with what joy the garden spot we greet,
Wakening from wintry slumbers. As we tread
The branching walks, within its hollow'd nook
We see the violet by some lingering flake
Of melting snow, its sweet eye lifting up,
As welcoming our presence; o'er our heads
The fruit-tree buds are swelling, and we hail
Our grateful task of molding into form

The waste around us. The quick delving spade
Upturns the fresh and odorous earth; the rake
Smooths the plump bed, and in their furrow'd graves
We drop the seed. The robin stops his work
Upon the apple-bough, and flutters down
Stealing, with oft check'd and uplifted foot
And watchful gaze bent quickly either side,

Toward the fall'n wealth of food around the mouth

Of the light paper pouch upon the earth.

But, fearful of our motions, off he flies,

And stoops upon the grub the spade has thrown
Loose from its den beside the wounded root.

Days pass along. The pattering shower falls down
And then the warming sunshine. Tiny clifts
Tell that the seed has turn'd itself, and now

Is pushing up its stem. The verdant pea
Looks out; the twin-leaf'd scallop'd radish shows
Sprinkles of green. The sturdy bean displays
Its jaws distended wide and slightly tongued.
The downy cucumber is seen; the corn
Upshoots its close-wrapp'd spike, and on its mound
The young potato sets its tawny ear.

Meanwhile the fruit-trees gloriously have broke

Into a flush of beauty, and the grape,
Casting aside in peels its shrivel❜d skin,
Shows its soft furzy leaf of delicate pink,
And the thick midge-like blossoms round diffuse
A strong, delicious fragrance. Soon along
The trellis stretch the tendrils, sharply prong'd,
Clinging tenacious with their winding rings,
And sending on the stem. A sheet of bloom
Then decks the garden, till the summer glows,
Forming the perfect fruit. In showery nights
The fire-fly glares with its pendent lamp

Of greenish gold. Each dark nook has a voice,
While perfume floats on every wave of air.
The corn lifts up its bandrols long and slim;
The cucumber has overflow'd its spot
With massy verdure, while the yellow squash
Looks like a trumpet 'mid its giant leaves;
And as we reap the rich fruits of our care,
We bless the God who rains his gifts on us---
Making the earth its treasures rich to yield
With slight and fitful toil. Our hearts should be
Ever bent harps, to send unceasing hymns
Of thankful praise to One who fills all space,
And yet looks down with smiles on lowly man.

ALFRED STREET.

THE GARDENER.

AN OLD SCOTCH BALLAD.

A maiden stude in her bouir door,
As jimp as a willow wand;
When by there came a gardener lad
Wi' a primrose in his hand.

"O ladye, are ye single yet,

Or will ye marry me?

Ye'se get a' the flouirs in my garden,

To be a weed* for thee."

"I love your flouirs," the ladye said,

"But I winna marry thee;

It is scarcely necessary to observe that weed, in old English, signified garmen. bouir, meant chamber, or apartment; kute, ankle; braune, calf.

For I can live without mankind,
And without mankind I'll dee."

"You shall not live without mankind,
But you shall marry me :

And among the flouirs in my garden,
I'll shape a weed for thee.

"The lilye flouir to be your smock;

It becomes your bodie best;

Your head shall be bushit wi' the gellye-flouir; The primrose in your breist.

"Your gown sall be o' the sweet-william⚫

Your coat o' the cammovine;

Your apron o' the seel of downs

Come smile, sweetheart o' mine!

"Your gloves shall be o' the green clover,

All glitterin to your hand;

Weil spread ower wi' the blue blawort
That grows among corn-land.

"Your stockings shall be o' the cabbage-leaf.

That is baith braid and lang;

Narrow, narrow at the kute,*

And braid, braid at the braune.*

Your shoon shall be o' the gude rue red.

I trow it bodes nae ill;

The buckles o' the marygold

Come smile, sweetheart, your fill!”

Young man, ye've shapit a weed for me

Amang the simmer flouirs;

Now I will shape anither for thee

Amang the winter showirs.

"The snaw so white shall be your shirt,
It becomes your body best;

The cold east wind shall wrap your heid,
And the cold rain on your breist.

"The steed that you shall ride upon
Shall be the weather snell;

Weil bridled wi' the northern wind,
And cold, sharp shouirs o' hail.

*See note on previous page.