THE HUMMING BIRD.

THE HEATH.

ODE TO THE MISSEL THRUSH.

ODE TO THE OLIVE TREE.

38

39

     MRS. TALBOT—EMILY.

     MRS. TALBOT. Come, my Emily, let us now we are returned from our morning's walk set about something. The system of idling, or to use a phrase wholly unknown, I believe, till these last thirty or forty years, lounging, will not do for us. We must not acquire habits here, which it would be perhaps difficult to break thro' when we return to our quiet home.

     EMILY. No indeed, Mamma, I do not find any such pleasure in this place, as would make me sorry to go home, if there was no other reason for our staying here. I do not like the public walks half so well as a ramble with my brother on the hills, nor half a quarter so well as when you

40

 walk with us, and instruct us as to the objects we happen to see.

     MRS. TALBOT. Such a walk I meant to have proposed to-day, after an earlier dinner than usual; as it is one of those mild autumnal days, which the French aptly enough call, "jours des dames"—because there is neither sun nor wind.

     EMILY. And cannot we be indulged with this walk, Mamma?

     MRS. TALBOT. Yes, if George returns in time; but from his not being already at home, I think it very likely he is gone with the acquaintance he met yesterday to some distant village; and if he is, he will be perhaps too much fatigued for a long excursion after dinner.

     EMILY. Perhaps he is gone out in a boat. I heard hom and his compansions talking of going on the water, and some of them said they were to have a sailing party very soon, and to go to fish on some distant rocks.

     MRS. TALBOT. I am sure he is not

41

 gone on such a scheme, because it is one of the things he has promised me never to do, unless I knew and approved of it; and George, my dear Emily, never, as we may be both proud to say, forgets or breaks a promise given.

     EMILY. Indeed, Mamma, I am proud of him; and when I see some other boys of his age so rude, so ill-natured to their sisters, and treating them with contempt, or never seeming to case at all about them, I think myself a very happy girl to have two such brothers as Edward and George. Oh! here he comes to put an end to our conjectures.

     MRS. TALBOT. We began, my dear George, to think you had made some longer excursion than usual, as you are later than you usually are.

     GEORGE. I have had a long walk, and I have seen a sight.

     MRS. TALBOT. Both pleasant, I hope.

     GEORGE. Extremely, so indeed. I

42

 only wished for you and Emily, and then it would have been pleasanter still.

     EMILY. Tell us what you have seen.

     GEORGE. A collection of natural curiosities, most of them from the East and West Indies. Birds, shells, fishes, and the dresses and arms of some of the inhabitants of the South Sea islands. They belong to Beechcroft's uncle, who lives about three miless off, at a very pretty house. I told him you were very fond of seeing such things, and he desired me to tell you, he shall be very glad if you will call any day to look over these objects of natural history. Some of them are foreign birds—among others, several curious Indian birds.

     MRS. TALBOT. It is exactly what I wished you might have an opportunity of seeing: describe some of the birds. Did you see the least and most beautiful of that species of creature, the humming bird?

     GEORGE. Yes, there were two sorts of them; one not much larger than a large

43

 humble bee; another, with a crest upon its head not quite so big as the golden crested wren. And there were their nests like little globes of cotton, and two small eggs in each, white and polished like ivory, not much exceeding peas in size.

     EMILY. Beautiful little creatures!—what colour are they?

     MRS. TALBOT. It is hardly possible to describe their colour; since it is in some parts so changeable, and mingled, that it appears crimson, blue, green, and all these as if laid on a ground of gold. Much of this varied elegance, however, is lost, when the bird is not seen living, because, like the neck of some pigeons and the plumage of the peacock, it varies with the different lights as the bird flies. Its little wings vibrate while it feeds with so quick a motion, as headly to be perceptible; and they are seen glittering like volant gems, among the highly scented glowing blossoms of the warm coyntries which they inhabit.

     EMILY. Oh! Mamma, how I should

44

 like to see one living, or rather to see them in their own country. But are they never brought hither alive?

     MRS. TALBOT. As they live on the honey and the sweet juices secreted in the most odorous flowers, you must suppose that it is extremely difficult to find any substitute which will support these little delicate creatures during a voyage across the Atlantic Ocean; they are therefore usually shot, for the cabinets of the curious, with water forced out of a small tube, as the only means of preserving their plumes uninjured. And sometimes, as I have been told, the children of the Negroes shoot them with small pine. One attempt, however, to bring an humming bird living to England was made some years ago by an Officer of the Artillery. He fed it with sugar, and actually succeeded in keeping it alive till he reached the residence of the late Duchess of Richmond, for whom he designed it: but though he had preserved its fragile life so far, it expired on the very

45

 instant he was presenting it to the Duchess.

     EMILY. How vexed I should have been!

     It was very disappointing, though probably no care could long have preserved it in this climate.—The reason, however, my loves, why I have entered at some length into the history of this bird is, because your aunt, in a packet I received from her his morning, has sent me a very elegant little poem on this plumed beauty, which was composed after reading an account of the various productions of some parts of the West Indies; and where, among the ornaments of its native inhabitants, the bright feathers, minute as they are, of this bird, sometimes make a part. Uncertain of the day of her arrival, she sent me this contrituion to Emily's collection of birds.

     GEORGE. How much are we both

46

 obliged to my aunt. It is in that measure too, which I like so much.

     MRS. TALBOT. Try then to do it justice; and we must afterwards consider when we can accept of the invitation you have brought us, to see the collection which Mr. Beechcroft has made of so many pleasing objects, and which you have so opportunely seen.

THE HUMMING BIRD.

MINUTEST of the feather'd king,
Possessing every cham combin'd,
Nature, in forming thee, design'd
         That thou should'st be
A proof within how liffle space,
She can comprise such perfect grace,
Rendering thy lovely fairy race,
         Beauty's epitome.

Those burnish's colours to bestow,
Her pencil in the heavenly bow
She dipp'd; and made thy plumes to glow
         With every hue

That

47

That in the dancing sun-beam plays;
And with the ruby's vivid blaze,
Mingled the emerald's lucid rays
         With halcyon blue.

Then placed thee under genial skies,
Where flowers and shrubs spontaneous rise,
With richer fragrance, bolder dyes,
         By her endued;
And bade thee pass thy happy hours
In tamarind shades, and palmy bowers,
Extracting from unfalling flowers
         Ambrosial food.

There, lovely Bee-bird! may'st thou rove
Thro' spicy vale, and cirton grove,
and woo, and win thy fluttering love
         With plume so bright;
There rapid fly, more heard than seen,
Mid orange-boughs of polished green,
With glowing fruit, and flowers between
         Of purest white.

There feed, and take thy balmy rest,
There weave thy little cotton nest,
And my no curel hand molest
         Thy timid bride;
Nor those bright changeful plumes of thine
Be offer'd on the unfeeling shrine,
Where some dark beauty loves to shine
         In gaudy pride.

Nor

48

Nor may her sable lover's care
Add to the baubles in her hair
Thy dazzling feathers rich and rare;
         And thou, poor bird,
For this inhyuman purpose bleed;
While gentle hearts abhor the deed,
And mercy's trembling voice may plead,
         But plead unheard!

Such triflers should be taught to know,
Not all the hues thy plumes can show
Become them like the conscious glow
         Of modesty:
And that not half so lovely seems
The ray that from the diamond gleams,
As the pure gem that trembling beams
         In pity's eye!

     EMILY. Indeed my collection of birds will at last be superior to my quadrupeds, and insects.—Those verses are very charming.

     MRS. TALBOT. Perhaps I shall yet contribute another little poem or two, but I despair of equalling these. Now, however, let us, if George is not tired, walk towards the hills this afternoon.

49

     GEORGE. Tired? no, my dear Mother; when I bathe, and breathe the air of these hills, I am insensible of all fatigue, and seem to tread on the clouds.

     GEORGE. Let us walk to that common, or heath, which spreads out beyond the windmills under the downs.—I went towards one of those mills the other day, imagining they were inhabited, but on talking to the miller, I learned that he does not live there, but only goes thither occasionally, to grind the corn.

     MRS. TALBOT. And what did you observe? tell me as we walk.

     GEORGE. The miller showed me that machinery by which the body of the mill is moved, as the wind shifts to different quarters; and how it works the mills, by the action of those vanes or sails.

50

     MRS. TALBOT. The same power is applied to other purposes. Water is often raised by windmills.—You see how man subjugates all the elements to his use. Let us, however, at present, confine outselves to the objects immediately before us.—What a vast horizon this neight affords! you now clearly perceive, that the world is round, since the line, where the sky seems to meet the water, forms a stupendous arch.

     EMILY. Mamma, I often puzzle myself, when I think of these things.—I cannot comprehend how it is, that people who live on the opposite side of the world do not stand upon their heads. I don't at all understand how it is possible, that this globe should turn on its axis, as you told me it did, so as to make day and night, without its inhabitants being sensible of the motion.

     MRS. TALBOT. I was, at your age, equally distressed by all these phenomena, till I was shown an orrery; and instru-

51

 ment invented by a nobleman of that name, or at least under his patronage; where by means of balls representing the planets, and moving by clock work, the revolutions of the heavenly bodies are described much more clearly than can be done by any other method. Your brother will explain this to you, as well as he can, the first day your time and his admit of it; and as soon as we are again settled at home, we will endeavour to enlarge our stock of ideas on these subjects. Let us now confine our studies to objects more within our reach at this moment.

     GEORGE. And we shall not want employment, Emily. How much, Mother, when I see these views, I regret not being able to put them upon paper.—I am afraid I shall never draw well.

     MRS. TALBOT. That, my dear George, is one of the cases in whcih diffidence is misplaced. You have considerable talents, otherwise I should not desire you to give up much time to the pursuit. But I

52

 know you have that disposition towards it, which is usually called genius; and therefore perseverance, and attention to rules, will very soon enable you to excell. But were it even certain that you would nover attain great excellence, I should still be desirous of your studying the art, because it at once forms the taste of the student, and awakens him to a thousand beauties which common observers do not see, or see without pleasure. The gradations of light and shade; the colours that Nature so harmoniously employs; the beautiful forms of trees, and the various effects, sometimes magnificent, sometimes lovely, which are produced by the simple materials she works with, Earth, Water, and Wood; the tender hues and evanescent forms of the clouds, all afford to persons who know how to view them with a painter's eye, the enjoyment of what I may call a new sense, unknown to those who have not a natural or an acquired taste for such studies. A rude and unculti-

53

 vated waste, such as we are now approaching, has as little apparent beauty in the eyes of common observers as any tract of land can have. But the Landscape Painter often prefers rugged masses of broken ground, covered with rude plants, to any thing that is presented by the most polished art, or laboured cultivation. I recollect, Emily, that some time since, when we were talking of blank verse, I promised to compose something for you in that measure; let us try what can be made of the spot immediately present to us, and describe.

THE HEATH.

EVEN the wide Heath, where the unequal ground
Has never on its rugged surface felt
The hand of Industry, though wild and rough,
Is not without its beauty; here the furze,
Enrich'd among its spines, with golden flowers
Scents the keen air; while all its thorny groups
Wide scatter'd o'er the waste are full of life;
For 'midst its yellow bloom, the assembled chats
Wave high the tremulous wing, and with shrill notes,
But clear and pleasant, cheer the extensive heath.

Linnets

54

Linnets in numerous flocks frequent it too,
And beshful, hiding in these scenes remote
From his congeners, (they who make the woods
And the thick copses echo to their song)
The heath-thrush makes his domicile; and while
His patient mare with downy bosom warms
Their future nestlings, he his love lay sings
Loud to the shaggy wild—The Erica here,
That o'er the Caledonia hills sublime
Spreads its dark mantle, (where the bees delight
To seek their parent honey,) flourishes,
Sometimes with bells like Amerhysts, and then
Paler, and shaded like the maiden's check
With gradual blushes—Other while, as white,
As rime that hangs upon the frozen spray,
Of this, old Scotia's hardy mountaineers
Their rustic couches form; and there enjoy
Sleep, which beneth his velvet canopy
Luxurious idleness implores in vain!
Between the matted heath and ragged gorse
Wind natural walks of turf, as short and fine
As clothe the chalky downs; and there the sheep
Under some thorny bush, or where the fern
Lends a light shadow from the Sun, resort,
And ruminate or feed; and frequent there
Nourish'd by evening mists, the mushroom spreads
From a small ivory bulb, his circular roof
The fairies fabled board—Poor is the soil,
And of the plants that clothe it few possess
Succulent moisture; et a parasite

Clings

55

Clings even to them; for its entangling stalk
The wire like dodder winds; and nourishes,
Rootless itself, its small white flowers on them.
So to the most unhappy of our race
Those, on whom never presperous hour has smiled,
Towards whom Nature as a step-dame stern
Has cruelly deal; and whom the world rejects
To those forlorn once, even there adheres
Some self-consoling passion; round their hearts
Some vanity entwines itself; and hides,
And is perhaps in mercy given to hide,
The mortifying and realitics
Of their hard lot.

     EMILY. Dear Mamma! And did all that come into your head at once?

     MRS. TALBOT. It is nothing very wonderful, Emily. When there is no occasion to distort or invert the sense for the purpose of making the closes rhyme, it is not difficult to compose in that way, which Dr. Johnson said was " verse only to the eye;" I mean, that it is not difficult to put together a certain number of words which shall be sense; but to compose good blank verse, which must be

56

 done by varying the pauses, and by a great deal of study and pains, is not at all easy. I pretend not to do that. I cannot, like Milton, " pour out my unpremediated verse" in that way, though I can sometimes do it in Lyrical or Heroic verse, with some facility. All I meant was, as we were speaking of blank verse a few days ago, to give you in that manner a slight sketch of an heath, and some of its inhabitants.

     GEORGE. There are at this moment a great number of the birds you mention ; whin chats they are called in the book I have; and there is also another bird greatly resembling it that lives on heaths, called the stone chat.—See, they sit on the highest points of the furze, and flutter their wings, and sing or rather chirp with a pleasant sort of note.

     MRS. TALBOT. You may see also some of the linnets already, though the great flocks that frequent these downs and heaths do not assemble till a rather later period of

57

 the year. I have seen them like small clouds covering those tracts of land which after having been ploughed three or four years, are thrown up again, and are then covered with thistles, on the seeds of which the linnets as well as goldfinches feed: but look, Emily, for the dodder, I believe it is not yet quite out of bloom.

     GEORGE. Here, Emily, is a knot of it; you see it has twisted itself so strongly round those branches of dwarf furze, that it is hardly possible to get it off.

     MRS. TALBOT. You may perceive, perhaps, that my comparison is not unapt; and we freqently observe prejudices and conceits adjere to the human heart, which are as little supported by reason as singular parasitical plant is by the earth nourishing its own roots; but I allow that there are some harmless errors which hurt nobody, and are rather to be rejoiced in, if they conceal from persons who hold them any mortifying truth; and

58

 if such misconceptions are not offensive or injurious to others. The poor dwarf, whose misfortunes, those of having a person hardly human, and being in the lowest state of poverty, so strongly excited your compassion yesterday, especially when those ill bred and unfeeling young women we met, appeared to be so highly amused by his calamitous appearance; even that poor little ill-fated being does not think himself by any means so contemptible, but has been known to save the small earnings which he gets by carrying out parcels for the market people, or the money bestowed on hum by the charitable, to purchase something like finery, a frill to his shirt, or a ribbon for his hair, and a puffed neckcloth, in which he has often exhibited himself at church, with as much apparent satisfaction as a fine man struts up Bond-street, who fancies himself remarkable for some new and striking absurdity in his dress, or because he has done something which is the topic of con-

59

 versation, and for which he probably deserves to be expelled from society.

     EMILY. I dislike such people, and do so hate to hear about them! Pray tell me rather about birds. I did not know there was a thrush that lives on heaths.

     MRS. TALBOT. Yes, there is such a bird; and his song is said to excell greatly that of the thrush we hear in our thickets in the Spring. Perhaps you have not forgotten Thomson's beautiful lines on the birds?

     EMILY. O no, Mamma!

     MRS. TALBOT. Well! but that description does not of course enumerate the varieties of different species of birds. Of thrushes, for example, there are four or five sorts. I left you this morning with a promise to consider of some other subjects for our little Poems; and I began to recollect what was most likely to answer our purpose. The nightingale has been sung in every language of Europe, even to satiety; and you know there are innumera-

60

 ble verses, and fables in English and French, relating to the nightingale; and there are also some wild and beautiful fictions of the Eastern poets.—It would, therefore, be difficult to find any thing new to say of that most charming of our feathered musicians—but there is a bird, which if it does not sing so exquisitely, is yet usually heard with great pleasure, since it announces the approach of Spring, even before the earliest plants appear, and often in the first days of January. It is also a thrush, the largest of English singing birds, and feeds much on the berries of missletoe; and because of its loud notes from the top of some high tree, in blowing, or showery weather, the country people in Hampshire, and Sussex, call it the storm-cock.—George will read what I have written upon it.

61

ODE TO THE MISSEL THRUSH.

THE Winter Soltice scarce is past,
Loud is the wind, and hoarsely sound
The mill-streams in the swelling blast,
And cold and humid is the ground.
When, to the ivy, that embowers
Some pollard tree, or sheltering rock
The troop of timid warblers flock,
And shuddering wait for milder hours.

While thou! the leader of their band,
Fearless salut'st the opening year;
Nor stay'st, till blow the breezes bland
That bid the tender leaves appear;
But, on some towering elm or pine,
Waving elate thy dauntless wing,
Thous joy'st thy love notes wild to sing,
Impatient of St. Valentine!

Oh, herald of the Spring! while yet
No harebell scents the woodland lane,
Nor starwort fair, not violet,
Braves the bleak gust and driving rain,
'Tis thine, as thro' the copses rude
Some pensive wanderer sighs along,
To sooth him with thy chearful song,
And tell of Hope and Fortitude!

For

62

For thee then, may the hawthorn bush,
The elder, and the spindle tree,
With all their various berries blush,
And the blue sloe abound for thee!
For thee, the coral holly glow
Its arm'd and glossy leaves among,
And many a branched oak be hung
With thy pellucid missletoe.

Still may thy nest, with lichen lined,
Be hidden from the invading jay,
Nor truant boy its covert find,
To bear thy callow young away;
So thou, precursor still of good,
O' herald of approaching Spring,
Shalt to the pensive wanderer sing
Thy song of Hope and Fortitude!

     GEORGE. I remember very well, Mother, hearing that bird last year, and that you gave me White's History of Selbourn to read an account of it.—There it is related, that the missel thrush is of a very courageous nature, and drives away from its neighbourhood many larger birds, whcih would molest his young—An instance, however, is told, in which

63

 this bravery availed nothing.—A missel thrush had built in a garden, where he was often assailed by the jay, magpye, and other girds larger than himself; against these he resolutely defended his family, but at length a great many jays came upon the unfortunate bird together; overpowered him and his mate by their nubmers, tore the nest to pieces, and destroyed the young without mercy.

     EMILY. Hateful!—I shall always detest those jays, though they are so beautiful, particularly in the blue shaded colours of their wings, that it is quite a pleasure to look at them.

     MRS. TALBOT. Beauty is no apology for such ill qualities as they possess.—They are not only most oppressive foes to other birds by destroying their young, but they do a great deal of mischief in the kitchen garden.—Our pease, our currants, and raspberries, they appropriate without ceremony; and ducklings, and young chickens, are equally exposed to their attacks.

64

     GEORGE. There is a jay in Mr. Beechcroft's collection, which came from the East Indies; it is a great deal larger than those in this country, and has a crown of blue feathers on the head. There is also a very beautiful bird, called the oriole, which are plentiful in France, he told me, and are sometimes, though very rarely seen in England. There are other birds from America, and all the different regions of Asia—Rice birds, and Java-sparrows, and many, whose names I have not been able to remember.

     MRS. TALBOT. Well, we shall see them all in a day or two, and they will serve to bring to our recollection those we saw at the Leverian Museum. I cannot, however, say, that I feel as much pleasure in the contemplation of these objects, however beautiful, as I do in looking at a collection of plants.—The birds, or insects, or quadrupeds, though they may be very well preserved, lose that spirit and brilliancy, which living objects only

65

 can possess. The attitudes of the birds are stiff and forced, and without their natural accompaniments. Their eyes are seldom so contrived as to resemble those of the living bird; and altogether, their formal or awkward appearances, when stuffed and set on wires, always convey to my mind ideas of the sufferings of the poor birds when they were caught and killed, and the disagreeable operations of embowelling and drying them. Quadrupeds, which are for the most part larger, are still more difficult subjects to preserve well; and insects, taken for the collections of the curious, must probably have resigned their short lives in some degree of suffering, which nature would not have inflicted. But a collection of plants offers only pleasing ideas—even the most common, that spring up under our feet, and are thrown from our gardens as weeds, are many of them very elegant, and others are of medical utility. I cannot say that I think the pleasure of bo-

66

 tanizing destroyed, by considering plants as convertible into drugs; on the contracy, I reflect with satisfaction, that objects so beautiful in themselves, are also endowed with the power of alleviating pain, or diminishing fever.—And when I am sick, much of the disgust which the taste of medicine exites, is conquered, when I know, that what is proper for me to take is only the roots, bark, flowers, leaves, or seeds of a plant. To the vegetable kingdom we are indebted for most of the conveniences and comforts of life.—Except carpets, and those articles which must bear the fire, our rooms are furnished with the produce of vegetables. Even silk, which in noblemen's houses, or those of persons of fortune, is used for furniture, is only a modification of the vegetable juices of the mulberry, passing, by a wonderful contrivance of nature, through the manufacturing organs of a moth. There is, you perhaps remember, since I think we lately met with

67

 it in the course of our reading, an oriental proverb, or aphorism, that says—

     "By patience and industry, the mulberry leaf becomes silk."

     This may serve as a subject for a little poetical essay, hereafter; at present, I will read to you an ode, or address, to a plant, little known but by its product in this country. I mean the Olive, which is, you kow, cultivated in Spain, Italy, and the southern provinces of France, where it supplies to the cultivators, the want of butter, and other requisites for the table, which are, to a certain degree, denied them by the heat of the country, and forms also a valuable staple of commerce. Oil is, as you, George, remarked, one of the blessings of life enumerated in Scripture; and in stories like the Arabian nights, you often hear of it among valuable merchandise, and articles of luxury or use. You know, that the olive-branch is a symbol of peace; and that it is given in fabulour story to Minerva, who, notwithstanding she is called

68

 the Martial Maid, would hardly have deserved the superior appelation of the Goddess of Wisdom, if she was not supposed to prefer the Olive to the blood-stained Laurel of Victory. The tree, like some characters in human life, is rather to be admired for good than brilliant qualities. It is by no means handsome; the form neither majestic nor elegant; the leaves narrow, and of a dull colour; and the blossom small and white. Even in groups, or small groves, as it is planted about the farms in the South of France, it adds no beauty to the landscape. Under all these disadvantages of figure, however, we will give it a place among our plants; and we must suppose it the accompaniment of scenery in one of the most southern provinces of France, since I am better acquainted with that part of the world than with Italy or Spain; though I have often thought much of the pleasure derived from reading Spanish stories arises from the description of the country. I like to imagine Don

69

 Quixote and Sancho, with their borachio, or goat-skin, filled with wine, carefully provided by the latter, sitting under the shadow of spreading chesnut trees.—Or Gil Blas and Fabrice, eating the remains of the hare they dined upon under a tuft of cork trees, at the foot of a rock; for, while the wearysome descriptions that we read in many works of imagination displease, because we feel that they are only tawdry copies; the simplest sketch which gives us an idea of truth and reality, makes the figures it presents appear with greater effect, and puts the scene and the persons immediately before us.—But this is a digression—let us return to my Ode.—

ODE TO THE OLIVE TREE.

ALTHO' thy flowers minute, disclose
No colours rivalling the rose,
         And lend no odours to the gale;
While dimly thro' the pallid green
Of thy long slender leaves, are seen
         Thy berries pale.

Yet

70

Yet for thy virtues art thou known,
And not the Anna's burnish'd cone,
         Or golden fruits that bless the earth
Of Indian climes, however fair,
         For genuine worth.

Man, from his early Eden driven,
Receiv'd thee from relenting Heaven,
         And thou the whelming surge above,
Symbol of pardon, deign'd to rear
Along thy willowy head, to cheer.
         The wandering dove.

Tho' no green whispering shade is thine,
Where peasant girls at noon recline,
         Or, while the village tabor plays,
Gay vine-dressers, and goatherds, meet
To dance with light unwearied feet
         On holidays;

Yet doth the fruit thy sprays produce,
Supply what ardent Suns refuse,
Nor want of grassy lawn or mead,
To pasture milky herds, is found,
While fertile Olive groves surround
         The lone Bastide.

Thou

71

Thou stillest the wild and troubled waves,
And as the human tempest raves
         When Widsom bids the tumult cease;
Thee, round her calm majestic browns
She binds; and waves thy sacred boughs,
         Emblems of Peace!

Ah! then, tho' thy wan blossoms bear
No odours for the vagrent air,
         Yet genuine worth belongs to thee;
And Peace and Wisdom, powers divine,
Shall plant thee round the holy shrine
         Of Liberty!

     GEORGE. I like the Olive as you have described to me, George, than that of many more profound judges, though you certainly are not an impartial critic. But now our friends, after all the delays that we have experiences regretted, will, I hope, so soon just us, that we shall have only two or three poetical lessons more; and

72

 one of those I intend chiefly to employ in a little composition, which may serve to reconcile Emily to the necessity of learning the heathen mythology, that she may understand many poems and historics, which, without some degree of that knowledge, must be incomprehensible.—For to-night, my dear loves, adieu.