SYSTEMATIC name-.
-Lobelia syphilitica; Class
V., Pentandria; Order I., Monogynia; Natu-
ral Order, Lobeliacea.

Generic Character.-Calyx five-cleft: corol monopetalous, irregular, often irregularly slitted, inserted into the calyx, five-lobed, or deeply five-cleft: anthers curved, cohering: pollen oval: stigma two-lobed; capsule two or three-celled.

Specific Character.-Erect, simple, hirsute, with short hairs; leaves alternate, without stipules, lance-ovate, sub-serrate; calyx hirsute, with reflexed sinuses. It grows about two feet high. The blossoms are blue, and appear in July. Perennial.

Geography. It is found in the Middle, Western, and New England States.

Properties.-All the plants in this natural order are of suspicious and dangerous character, in consequence of the excessive acridity of their milky juice. The Lobelia tupa of Chil yields a very dangerous poison. "The Lobelia Longiflora, a native of some of the West India Islands, is one of the most venomous of plants. The Spanish Americans call it Rebenta Cavellos, because it proves fatal to horses that eat it, swelling them until they burst. Taken internally, it acts as a violent cathartic, the effects of which no remedy can assuage, and which end in death. The leaves are an active vesicatory." It is said that the Indians once used the Lobelia syphilitica with great and certain success, but its virtues are now generally discredited.

* Lindley.

Remarks.-This plant is named in honor of M. De Lobel, a distinguished botanist of Germany. Several species of the Lobelia are very ornamental, especially the L. syphilitica and the L. cardinalis, and these being perennial and hardy, may easily be cultivated in gardens and ornamental grounds. The L. crinis is a pretty trailing plant, and yields its beautiful blue flowers in abundance through the summer.

Sentiment. The delusive smile.

Although this species of the Lobelia has very delicate, smiling blossoms, yet if it be tasted, an exceedingly acrid and disgusting sensation, like that produced by tobacco, remains in the mouth for a long time therefore it is considered a fit emblem of the smile of hypocrisy, and is made to personify itself by using the following enticing language:

O come to the bank where my blue blossoms

smile;

How can ye suspect a fair creature of guile? Recline on my bed, and enjoy the cool breeze; Think not I can fail my admirers to please.

They say that I act the vile hypocrite's partThat I smile while I cherish a bane in my heart; But why should ye list to the slanderer's tongue, And ever be smarting before ye are stung?

Come, come to the bank where my blue blossoms smile;

No longer suspect a fair creature of guile;
Recline on my bed and enjoy the cool breeze,
For sure I'll not fail my admirers to please.

NEMUS.

"BRING FLOWERS."-It is wonderful how a flower, it may be the meanest one by the roadside, will sometimes preach to one's heart, and fill it with thoughts and emotions that seem to come up from the dim, dreamy, "long time ago" of childhood's innocent hours. Did you never, gentle reader, feel constrained to stoop and pluck the dandelion, and brushing off the dust that had gathered upon it, look on its unfragrant and homely face as upon that of an old friend whom you knew and sported with, when you rolled upon the grass near your childhood's home? We are foolish enough to do just so, at times, and we have heard worse sermons than those of the flower. Did you never, at an upper window of some poor dwelling in a lane or narrow court of the city, observe a broken tea-pot, with a sprig of geranium, or a rose, or a verbena, sustained by a rude rail? You may be sure, says a pious writer, that some poor old soul dwells there who has been transplanted by hard necessity into the cheerless privations of that home from some fresh cottage, where the spring bubbled up in crystal beauty in the well, where the grass, sown with daisies and buttercups, approached even to the door step, and the free breeze of heaven blew all around her. We never see a flower nursed under such circumstances by the poor denizen of the city, without a feeling of pleasure, and a sort of confidence that the flower is a wise, beautiful, and tender inmate, repaying the hand that tends it with silent ministries of love, reviving sweet yet mournful memories; ever as it blossoms recalling some past gladness, and as it fades becoming a memento mori to its too thoughtless mortal companion.

GEMS FROM COLERIDGE.-Of pure poetry, strictly so called, that is to say, consisting of nothing but its essential self, without conventional and perishing helps, Coleridge was, says Leigh Hunt, the greatest master of his time. We agree cordially with this appreciating admirer of C., that no man has written whole poems of equal length so perfect in all respects, and that leave on the ear and heart so unbroken and single an effect. We have thought sometimes of seating ourselves to the task of culling some of the gems in his writings for those of our readers who may not be familiar with him, but our narrow space in this Miscellany forbids it. Take, however,

one or two:

O Henry! always striv'st thou to be great
By thine own act-yet art thou never great
But by the inspiration of great passion.

The whirl-blast comes, the desert sands rise up

And shape themselves; from earth to heaven they stand,

As though they were the pillars of a temple,

Built by Omnipotence in its own honor!

But the blast pauses, and their shaping spirit

Is fled; the mighty columns were but sand,
And lazy snails trail o'er the level ruins!
And this from the "Picture :"

How fair the sunshine spots that mossy rock,
Isle of the river, whose disparted waves
Dart off asunder with an angry sound,
How soon to re-unite! And see! they meet,
Each in the other lost and found; and see,
Placeless as spirits, one soft water-sun
Throbbing within them, heart at once and eye,
With its soft neighborhood of filmy clouds,
The stains and shadings of forgotten tears,
Dimness o'erswum with lustre! Such the hour
Of deep enjoyment following love's brief feuds.
How sweetly musical this :

It ceas'd; yet still the sails made on
A pleasant noise till noon-

A noise like of a hidden brook

In the leafy month of June,

That to the sleeping woods all night
Singeth a quiet tune.

The image in the following, from Christabel,

is impressive:

Each spake words of high disdain

And insult to his heart's best brother;
They parted, ne'er to meet again!
But never either found another

To free the hollow heart from paining-
They stood aloof, the scars remaining,
Like cliffs which had been rent asunder;
A dreary sea now flows between, &c.

A neat pocket volume, containing the cream of Coleridge's poetry, would be inestimable. Who will produce it?

JEAN PAUL.-The true doctrine of happiness is well stated in Jean Paul's preface to his Quintus Fixlien, in which he discloses the purpose for which he writes: "That I may show to the whole earth that we ought to value little joys more than great ones; the night-gown more than the dress coat; that Plutus' heaps are worth less than his handfuls; and that not great but little good-haps can make us happy. Can I accomplish this, I shall, through my book, bring up a race of men finding refreshment in all things. You perceive my drift is, that man may become a little tailor-bird, which, not amid the crashing boughs of the storm-tost, roaring, immeasurable tree of life, but upon one of its leaves, sews itself a nest together, and there lies snug." Quaintly expressed, but sound, common sense philosophy, this.

THE FATHER IS COMING.

The following is in Mary Howitt's best vein:

The clock is on the stroke of six,

The father's work is done;

Sweep up the hearth and mend the fire,

And put the kettle on!

253

The wild night-wind is blowing cold, 'Tis dreary crossing o'er the wold.

He's crossing o'er the wold apace,
He's stronger than the storm;
He does not feel the cold, not he,
His heart it is so warm;

For father's heart is stout and true
As ever human bosom knew!

He makes all toil, all hardship light;
Would all men were the same,
So ready to be pleased, so kind,
So very slow to blame!
Folks need not be unkind, austere,
For love hath readier will than fear!

Stay, do not close the shutters, child,
For far along the lane,

The little window looks, and he

Can see it shining plain;

I've heard him say he loves to mark
The cheerful fire-light through the dark.

And we'll do all that father likes,
His wishes are so few!

Would they were more, that every hour
Some wish of his I knew!

I'm sure it makes a happy day
When I can please him any way!

I know he's coming by this sign,

That baby's almost wild;

See how he laughs, and crows, and stares

Heaven bless the merry child!

His father's self in face and limb,

And father's heart is strong in him!

Hark! hark! I hear his footsteps now-
He's through the garden-gate;

Run little Bess and ope the door,
And do not let him wait!
Shout, baby, shout, and clap thy hands,
For father at the threshold stands.

HOME AFFECTIONS.-Speaking of the private correspondence between Sir John Eliot and John Hampden, who had charge of Eliot's sons while the latter lay in prison, Forster, in his British Statesmen, has this remark: "The secret of their public exertions is here expressed. It is by the strength and right direction of the private affections that we are taught the duty of serving mankind. The more intense the faculty of enjoyment and comfort in the narrow circle of family regards, the more readily is its indulgence sacrificed in behalf of the greater family of man. The lofty patriotism of Eliot in the House of Commons is explained by the tender sweetness of these letters from the Tower." Paradoxical as this may seem, all experience corroborates the sentiment. It would be difficult to find either in English history or our own an eminent patriot whose home affections had not in early life been remarkably developed and disciplined. The salvation and glory of the state have ever rested upon a wise home influence, and without this, constitutional forms and Magna Chartas are mere waste paper.

POEMS BY AMELIA.-We are pleased to see that

a second edition of these delightful poems has been called for, and that Appleton & Co. have responded, producing the work in an enlarged and beautiful form. It is understood that Amelia is the assumed name of Mrs. Welby, of Louisville, Ky., whose productions first made their appearance in one of the daily journals of that city, and were immediately reprinted all over the country, and read with great delight. An appreciating critic says of the volume: "There is no preface to tell us who Amelia is, yet there are traces in it which bespeak the young wife. It is dedicated to a beloved father; perhaps her mother has joined the 'departed ;' and then there are odes to sleeping infants, which a mother could only write, and stanzas to sisters which reveal the deep sources of feeling in the heart of the sweet singer. It is impossible to read the volume without imagining at times that the harp of Hemans is once more touched. There is not one piece in the whole collection which has not some bud, some blossom, some leaf, some thought, which a poetic mind alone could embody in language. There is life, and beauty, and feeling in every page."

These lines have been quoted as very beautiful. We think we met them in the Knickerbocker several years ago:

"I sometimes have thoughts in my loneliest hours
That lie on my heart like the dew on the flowers,
Of a ramble I took one bright afternoon

When my heart was as light as a blossom in June.
The green earth was moist with the late fallen showers,
The breeze fluttered down and blew open the flowers,
While a single white cloud, to its haven of rest,
On the white wing of peace, floated off in the west."

The thoughts, lying on her heart like the dew on flowers-her heart light as a blossom in June -the breeze blowing the flowers open-the white cloud sailing to its haven of rest, on the white wing of peace, are each and all, observes the critic referred to, beautiful conceptions, and justly entitled to a place among elegant poetical fancies.

This, from "Musings," is perfect music :

Again,

"One fleecy cloud upon the air
Was all that met my eyes;

It floated like an angel there
Between me and the skies;

I clapped my hands and warbled wild
As here and there I flew,
For I was but a careless child,
And did as children do.”

"The twilight hours, like birds, flew by
As lightly and as free."

One more quotation from this sparkling piece:

"I heard the laughing wind behind
A-playing with my hair;

The breezy fingers of the wind-
How cool and moist they were."