In the “Flora Domestica” there is a beautiful quotation from Cowley, in
proof that the emperor Dioclesian preferred his garden to a throne:
Methinks I see great Dioclesian walk
In the Salonian garden’s noble shade,
Which by his own imperial hands was made
I see him smile, methinks, as he does talk
With the ambassadors, who come in vain
T’entice him to a throne again.
“If I, my friends,” said he, “should to you show
All the delights which in these gardens grow,
’Tis likelier far that you with me should stay,
Than ’tis that you should carry me away;
And trust me not, my friends, if, every day,
I walk not here with more delight,
Than ever, after the most happy fight,
In triumph to the capitol I rode,
To thank the gods, and to be thought myself almost a god.”
To the author of the “Flora Domestica,” and to the reader who may not
have seen a volume so acceptable to the cultivator of flowers, it would
be injustice to extract from its pages without remarking its usefulness,
and elegance of composition. Lamenting that “plants often meet with an
untimely death from the ignorance of their nurses,” the amiable author
“resolved to obtain and to communicate such information as should be
requisite for the rearing and preserving a _portable garden_ in
pots;--and henceforward the death of any plant, owing to the
carelessness or ignorance of its nurse, shall be brought in at the best
as _plant-slaughter_.”
* * * * *
The cultivation of plants commences with our infancy. If estranged from
it by the pursuits of active life, yet, during a few years’ retirement
from the “great hum” of a noisy world, we naturally recur to a garden as
to an old and cheerful friend whom we had forgotten or neglected, and
verify the saying, “once a man, and twice a child.” There is not “one of
woman born” without a sense of pleasure when she sees buds bursting into
leaf; earth yielding green shoots from germs in its warm bosom; white
fruit-blossoms, tinted with rose-blushes, standing out in clumps from
slender branches; flowers courting the look by their varied loveliness,
and the smell by their delicacy; large juicy apples bowing down the
almost tendril-shoots wherefrom they miraculously spring; plants of
giant growth with multiform shrubs beyond, and holly-hocks towering like
painted pinnacles from hidden shrines:
------------- Can imagination boast,
’Mid all its gay creation, _charms_ like these?
Dr. Forster, the scientific author of a treatise on “Atmospheric
Phenomena,” and other valuable works, has included numerous useful
observations on the weather in his recently published “Perennial
Calendar,” a volume replete with instruction and entertainment. He
observes, in the latter work, that after certain atmospheric appearances
on this day in the year 1809, “a hard and freezing shower of hail and
sleet came with considerable violence from the east, and glazed every
thing on which it fell with ice; it incrusted the walls, encased the
trees and the garments of people, and even the plumage of birds, so that
many rooks and other fowls were found lying on the ground, stiff with an
encasement of ice. Such weather,” Dr. Forster observes, “has been aptly
described by Philips as occurring oftentimes during a northern
winter:--
Ere yet the clouds let fall the treasured snow,
Or winds begun through hazy skies to blow,
At evening a keen eastern breeze arose,
And the descending rain unsullied froze.
Soon as the silent shades of night withdrew,
The ruddy morn disclosed at once to view
The face of Nature in a rich disguise,
And brightened every object to my eyes;
For every shrub, and every blade of grass,
And every pointed thorn, seemed wrought in glass,
In pearls and rubies rich the hawthorns show,
While through the ice the crimson berries glow,
The thick-sprung reeds the watery marshes yield
Seem polished lances in a hostile field.
The stag in limpid currents, with surprise,
Sees crystal branches on his forehead rise.
The spreading oak, the beech, and tow’ring pine,
Glaz’d over, in the freezing ether shine.
The frighted birds the rattling branches shun,
That wave and glitter in the distant sun.
When, if a sudden gust of wind arise,
The brittle forest into atoms flies;
The cracking wood beneath the tempest bends,
And in a spangled shower the prospect ends.
_Philips, Lett. from Copenhagen._
“It may be observed, that in both the above descriptions of similar
phenomena, the east wind is recorded as bringing up the storm. There is
something very remarkably unwholesome in east winds and a change to that
quarter often disturbs the nervous system and digestive organs of many
persons, causing head-aches, fevers, and other disorders. Moreover, a
good astronomical observation cannot be made when the wind is east: the
star seems to oscillate or dance about in the field of the telescope.”
In the truth of these observations as regards health, he who writes this
is unhappily qualified to concur from experience; and were it in his
power, would ever shun the _north-east_ as his most fearful enemy.
Sir, the north-east, more fierce than Russian cold,
Pierces the very marrow in the bones,
Presses upon the brain an arid weight,
And superflows life’s current with a force
That checks the heart, and soul, and mind, and strength,
In all their purposes.----
Up with the double window-sashes--quick!
Close every crevice from the withering blast,
And stop the keyhole tight--the wind-fiend comes!
*
~January 20.~
_St. Fabian_, Pope. _St. Sebastian._ _St. Enthymius._ _St. Fechin._
_St. Fabian._
This saint is in the church of England calendar; he was bishop of Rome,
A. D. 250: the Romish calendar calls him pope.
_St. Sebastian’s Day_
Is noted in Doblada’s Letters from Spain, as within the period that
ushers in the carnival with rompings in the streets, and vulgar mirth.
“The custom alluded to by Horace of sticking a tail, is still practised
by the boys in the streets, to the great annoyance of old ladies, who
are generally the objects of this sport. One of the ragged striplings
that wander in crowds about Seville, having tagged a piece of paper with
a hooked pin, and stolen unperceived behind some slow-paced female, as
wrapt up in her veil, she tells the beads she carries in her left hand,
fastens the paper-tail on the back of the black or walking petticoat
called Saya. The whole gang of ragamuffins, who, at a convenient
distance, have watched the dexterity of their companion, set up a loud
cry of ‘Làrgalo, làrgalo’--‘Drop it, drop it’--this makes every female
in the street look to the rear, which, they well know, is the fixed
point of attack with the merry light-troops. The alarm continues till
some friendly hand relieves the victim of sport, who, spinning and
nodding like a spent top, tries in vain to catch a glance at the
fast-pinned paper, unmindful of the physical law which forbids her head
revolving faster than the great orbit on which the ominous comet flies.”