No. XIV.

Nemusculum "hoc in loco" est opacum, fontes limpidi et gemmei, antra muscosa, prata semper verna, "flores odoriferi," rivi levis et susurrans per saxa discursus, nec non solitudo, et quies Musis amicissima.

CAMDEN.

TURF, flowers, rocks, and water, form the pleasing subjects of the third book of the Gardens of De Lille, which, after a short exordium of rather too mythological a cast, alludes to the first of these constituents of the pleasureground, as of British introduction and culture, declaring that previous to our countrymen following, in this respect, the footsteps of free nature, the gardens of the continent were little better than a waste of barren sands, which burnt the foot and tired the aching eye. The acknowledgement is liberal and correct; for the beautiful and soothing repose of the closely mown lawn, forming so delightful a fore-ground,

when gradually, and, as it were, mysteriously losing itself amid the adjoining plantations, may be yet said to flourish best in our happy island. "There are," remarked Sir William Temple long ago, "besides the temper of our climate, two things particular to us, that contribute much to the beauty and elegance of our gardens, which are the gravel of our walks, and the fineness and almost perpetual greenness of our turf. The first is not known anywhere else, which leaves all their dry walks, in other countries, very unpleasant and uneasy. The other cannot be found in France or in Holland as we have it, the soil not admitting that fineness of blade in Holland, nor the sun that greenness in France, during most of the summer; nor indeed is it to be found but in the finest of our soils."

From this praise of the smoothly-shorn lawn, when properly diversified by the intermixture of wood and copse, the author hastens to another mode of producing variety by the aid of flowers, and he invokes the assistance of these beautiful children of nature in the following animated

apostrophe, which appears to have sustained no deterioration by assuming an English garb.

Simples tributs du cœur, vos dons sont chaque jour
Offerts par l'amitié, hazardés par l'amour.
D'embellir la beauté vous obtenez la gloire;
Le laurier vous permet de parer la victoire;
Plus d'un hameau vous donne en priz à la pudeur;
L'autel même où de Dieu repose la grandeur,
Se parfume au printems de vos douces offrandes,
Et la Religion sourit à vos guirlandes.

Mais c'est dans nos jardins qu'est votre heureux séjour.

Filles de la rosée et de l'astre du jour,

Venez donc de nos champs décorer le théâtre.

Chant 3.

Ye simply-charming tributes of the heart!
E'en Friendship deigns your gentle aid to prove,
You weave the fairest gift of trembling Love;
By you adorn'd more brightly Beauty shines,
You 'mid her laurel-wreath, proud Conquest twines,
You at the village feast are oft decreed
To modest maidens as the dearest meed;
To God himself with grateful hearts we bring
The earliest incense of the breathing spring,

And on his altar throw your blushing spoils, While with your chaplet crown'd Religion smiles; Haste then, with all your charms our plain adorn, Ye dewy daughters of the youth of morn.

The locality and disposition, however, of these fragrant gems "with colours dipt in heaven," demand no small portion of taste and judgment; for, as Mason has justly observed,

In the general Landscape's broad expanse Their little blooms are lost; but there are glades, Circled with shade, yet pervious to the sun, Where, if enamell'd with their rainbow-hues, The eye would catch their splendour:

His taste will best conceive

Their due arrangement, whose free footsteps, us'd
To forest haunts, have pierc'd their opening dells,
Where frequent tufts of sweetbriar, box, or thorn,
Steal on the greensward, but admit fair space
For many a mossy maze to wind between.
So here may Art arrange her flow'ry groups
Irregular: - *

English Garden, Book iv., 1. 179. —l. 194.

and in unison with this judicious advice of his accomplished contemporary, does De Lille teach us to scatter or to group the collected treasures of his Flora, gracefully finishing his precepts with a distinct eulogy on that queen of the garden, the unrivalled rose:

Sans obéir aux lois d'un art capricieux,
Fleurs, parure des champs et délices des yeux,
De vos riches couleurs venez peindre la terre.
Venez; mais n'allez pas dans les buis d'un parterre
Renfermer vos appas tristement relégués.

Que vos heureux trésors soient partout prodigués ;
Tantôt de ces tapis émaillez la verdure;
Tantôt de ces sentiers égayez la bordure;
Serpentez en guirlande; entourez ces berceaux ;
En méandres brillans courez au bord des eaux,
Ou tapissez ces murs, ou dans cette corbeille
Du choix de vos parfums embarrassez l'abeille.
Que Rapin *, vous suivant dans toutes les saisons,
Décrive tous vos traits, rappelle tous vos noms;

*The author of "Hortorum libri quatuor," a poem first printed at Paris in 1665. It was translated by the celebrated Evelyn, in 1673, and by Mr. James Gardiner of Jesus College, Cambridge, in 1706. The subject of his first book is flowers; of his second, orchards; of his third, waters; and of his fourth, forests. He is thus characterized by Mason: