least of nature's gladdening beauties.

In the suburbs of our great metropolis, matters are not so well
managed; though Mr. Loudon, we think, proposes to unite a Botanic with
the Zoological Gardens. Folks in London must study botany on their
window-sills. The wealthy do not encourage it. Their love of the
country is confined to the forced luxuries of kitchen-gardens,
conveyed to them in wicker-baskets; and a few hundred exotics hired
from a florist, to furnish a mimic conservatory for an evening rout.
They shun her gardens and fields; but, as Allan Cunningham pleasantly
remarks in his Life of Bonington: "Her loveliness and varieties are
not to be learned elsewhere than in her lap. He will know little of
birds who studies them stuffed in the museum, and less of the rose and
the lily who never saw anything but artificial nose-gays."[3]

[3] Family Library, No. XXVII.

* * * * *


TO A SNOWDROP.

_A Translation._

(_For the Mirror_.)


First and fairest of flowery visiter--through the dark winter I
have dreamed of thy paleness and thy purity--youngest sister of the
lily--likelier, thou art to be loved for thine own sake. Can so