pity. We blink the question of beauty, and become one-eyed for his sake. Nature seems to do him an injustice in gifting him with sympathies so human, and at the same time preventing them from being answered; and we feel impatient with the all-beautiful Galatea, if we think she ever showed him scorn as well as unwillingness. We insist upon her avoiding him with the greatest possible respect. These fictions of the poets, therefore, besides the mere excitement which they give the imagination, assist remotely to break the averseness and uncharitableness of human pride. And they may blunt the point of some fancies that are apt to come upon melancholy minds. When Sir Thomas Brown, in the infinite range of his metaphysical optics, turned his glass, as he no doubt often did, towards the inhabitants of other worlds, the stories of angels and Centaurs would help his imaginative good-nature to a more willing conception of creatures in other planets unlike those on earth; to other "lords of creation;" and other, and perhaps nobler humanities, noble in spirit, though differing in form. If indeed there can be anything in the starry endlessness of existence, nobler than what we can conceive of love and generosity. XXXIV. SPRING AND DAISIES. SPRING, while we are writing, is complete. The winds have done their work. The shaken air, well tempered and equalised, has subsided; the genial rains, however thickly they may come, do not saturate the ground, beyond the power of the sun to dry it up again. There are clear crystal mornings; noons of blue sky and white cloud; nights, in which the growing moon seems to lie looking at the stars, like a young shepherdess at her flock. A few days ago she lay gazing in this manner at the solitary evening star, like Diana, on the slope of a valley, looking up at Endymion. His young eye seemed to sparkle out upon the world; while she, bending inwards, her hands behind her head, watched him with an enamoured dumbness. But this is the quiet of Spring. Its voices and swift movements have come back also. The swallow shoots by us, like an embodied ardour of the season. The glowing bee has his will of the honied flowers, grappling with them as they tremble. We have not yet heard the nightingale or the cuckoo; but we can hear them with our imagination, and enjoy them through the content of those who have. Then the young green. This is the most apt and perfect mark of the season,-the true issuing forth of the Spring. The trees and bushes are putting forth their crisp fans; the lilac is loaded with bud; the meadows are thick with the bright young grass, running into sweeps of white and gold with the daisies and buttercups. The orchards announce their riches, in a shower of silver blossoms. The earth in fertile woods is spread with yellow and blue carpets of primroses, violets, and hyacinths, over which the birch-trees, like stooping nymphs, hang with their thickening hair. Lilies-of-the-valley, stocks, columbines, ladysmocks, and the intensely red piony which seems to anticipate the full glow of summertime, all come out to wait upon the season, like fairies from their subterraneous palaces. Who is to wonder that the idea of love mingles itself with that of this cheerful and kind time of the year, setting aside even common associations? It is not only its youth, and beauty, and budding life, and "the passion of the groves," that exclaim with the poet, Let those love now, who never loved before; And those who always loved, now love the more *. All our kindly impulses are apt to have more sentiment in them, than the world suspect; and it is by fetching out this sentiment, and making it the ruling association, that we exalt the impulse into generosity and refinement, instead of degrading it, as is too much the case, into what is selfish, and coarse, and pollutes all our systems. One of the greatest inspirers of love is gratitude,-not merely on its common grounds, but gratitude for pleasures, whether consciously or unconsciously conferred. Thus we are thankful for the delight given us by a kind and sincere face; and if we fall in love with it, one great reason is, that we long to return what we have received. The same feeling has a considerable influence in the love that has been felt for men of talents, whose persons or address have not been much calculated to inspire it. In spring-time, joy awakens the heart with joy, awakes gratitude and nature; and in our gratitude, we return, on its own principle of participation, the love that has been shown us. This association of ideas renders solitude in spring, and solitude in winter, two very different things. In the latter, we are better content to bear the feelings of the season by ourselves: in the former they are so sweet as well as so overflowing, that we long to share them. Shakspeare, in one of his sonnets, describes himself as so identifying the beauties of the Spring with the thought of his absent mistress, that he says he forgot them in their own character, and played with them only as with her shadow. See how exquisitely he turns a common-place into this fancy; and what a noble brief portrait of April he gives us at the beginning. There is indeed a wonderful mixture of softness and strength in almost every one of the lines. Pervigilum Veneris.-Parnell's translation. From you have I been absent in the spring, That heavy Saturn laughed and leaped with him. Of different flowers in odour and in hue, Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew: Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose: They were but sweet, but patterns of delight, Drawn after you, you pattern of all those. Yet seemed it winter still; and, you away, As with your shadow, I with these did play. Shakspeare was fond of alluding to April. He did not allow May to have all his regard, because she was richer. Perdita, crowned with flowers, in the Winter's Tale, is beautifully compared to When daisies pied, and violets blue, Do paint the meadows with delight. We owe a long debt of gratitude to the daisy; and we take this opportunity of discharging a millionth part of it. If we undertook to pay it all, we should have had to write such a book, as is never very likely to be written,— a journal of numberless happy hours in childhood, kept with the feelings of an infant and the pen of a man. For it would take, we suspect, a depth of delight and a subtlety of words, to express even the vague joy of infancy, such as our learned departures from natural wisdom would find it more difficult to put together, than criticism and comfort, or an old palate and a young relish.-But knowledge is the widening and the brightening road that must conduct us back to the joys from which it led us; and which it is destined perhaps to secure and extend. We must not quarrel with its asperities, when we can help. We do not know the Greek name of the daisy, nor do the dictionaries inform us; and we are not at present in the way of consulting books that might. We always like to see what the Greeks say to these things, because they had a sentiment in their enjoyments. The Latins called the daisy Bellis or Bellus, as much as to say Nice One. With the French and Italians it has the same name as a Pearl, -Marguerite, Margarita, or, by way of endear ment, Margheretina*. The same word was the name of a woman, and occasioned infinite intermixtures of compliment about pearls, daisies, and fair mistresses. Chaucer, in his beautiful poem of the Flower and the Leaf, which is evidently imitated from some French poetess, says, And at the laste there began anon A bargaret in praising the daisie, For as me thought among her notes sweet, "The Margaret is so sweet." Our Margaret, however, in this allegorical poem, is undervalued in comparison with the laurel; yet Chaucer perhaps was partly induced to translate it on account of its making the figure that it does; for he has informed us more than once, in a very particular manner, that it was his favourite flower. There is an interesting passage to this effect in his Legend of Good Women; where he says, that nothing but the daisied fields in spring could take him from his books. And as for me, though that I can ‡ but lite+ As she that is of all flowers the flower. He Adown full softèley I gan to sink, This etymology, which we have no doubt is the real one, is repeated by Ben Jonson, who *This word is originally Greek,-Margarites; and as the Franks probably brought it from Constantinople, perhaps they brought its association with the daisy also. † Bargaret, Bergerette, a little pastoral. + Know but little. § Dawneth. Shaped. Mr. Wordsworth introduces his homage to the daisy with a passage from George Wither; which, as it is an old favourite of ours, and extremely applicable both to this article and our whole work, we cannot deny ourselves the pleasure of repeating. It is the more interesting, inasmuch as it was written in prison, where the freedom of the author's opinions had thrown him*. He is speaking of his Muse, or Imagination. Her divine skill taught me this; Mr. Wordsworth undertakes to patronise the Celandine, because nobody else will notice it; which is a good reason. But though he tells us, in a startling piece of information, that Poets, vain men in their mood, yet he falls in with his old brethren of England and Normandy, and becomes loyal to the daisy. Be violets in their secret mews The flowers the wanton Zephyrs chuse ; Thou liv'st with less ambitious aim, The freak is over; The freak will vanish, and behold! I see thee glittering from afar ; In heaven above thee! Yet like a star, with glittering crest, Sweet flower! for by that name at last, I call thee, and to that cleave fast; That breath'st with me in sun and air, ફ્રૂટ Mr. Wordsworth calls the daisy an unassuming common-place of Nature," which it is; and he praises it very becomingly for discharging its duties so cheerfully, in that universal character. But we cannot agree with him in thinking that it has a "homely face." Not that we should care, if it had; for homeliness does not make ugliness; but we appeal to everybody, whether it is proper to say this of la belle Marguerite. In the first place, its shape is very pretty and slender, but not too much so. Then it has a boss of gold, set round and irradiated with silver points. Its yellow and fair white are in so high a taste of contrast, that Spenser has chosen the same colours for a picture of Leda reposing: Oh wondrous skill and sweet wit of the man! It is for the same reason, that the daisy, being chiefly white, makes such a beautiful show in company with the buttercup. But this is not all; for look at the back, and you find its fair petals blushing with a most delightful red. And how compactly and delicately is the neck set in green! Belle et douce Marguerite, aimable sœur du roi Kingcup, we would tilt for thee with a hundred pens, against the stoutest poet that did not find perfection in thy cheek. But here somebody may remind us of the spring showers, and what drawbacks they are upon going into the fields.-Not at all so, when the spring is really confirmed, and the showers but April-like and at intervals. Let us turn our imaginations to the bright side of spring, and we shall forget the showers. You see they have been forgotten just this moment. Besides, we are not likely to stray too far into the fields; and if we should, are there not hats, bonnets, barns, cottages, elm-trees, and good wills? We may make these things zests, if we please, instead of drawbacks. XXXV.-MAY-DAY. MAY-DAY is a word, which used to awaken in the minds of our ancestors all the ideas of youth, and verdure, and blossoming, and love; and hilarity; in short, the union of the two best things in the world, the love of nature, and the love of each other. It was the day, on which the arrival of the year at maturity was kept, like that of a blooming heiress. They caught her eye as she was coming, and sent up hundreds of songs of joy. Now the bright Morning-Star, Day's harbinger, Hail, bounteous May, that dost inspire These songs were stopped by Milton's friends the Puritans, whom in his old age he differed with, most likely on these points among others. But till then, they appear to have been as old, all over Europe, as the existence of society. The Druids are said to have had festivals in honour of May. Our Teutonic ancestors had, undoubtedly; and in the countries which had constituted the Western Roman Empire, Flora still saw thanks paid for her flowers, though her worship had gone away*. The homage which was paid to the Month of Love and flowers, may be divided into two sorts, the general and the individual. The first consisted in going with others to gather May, and in joining in sports and games afterwards. On the first of the month," the juvenile part of both sexes," says Bourne, in his Popular Antiquities, "were wont to rise a little after midnight and walk to some neighbouring wood, where they broke down branches from the trees, and adorned them with nosegays and crowns of flowers. When this was done, they returned with their booty about the rising of the sun, and made their doors and windows to triumph in the flowery spoil. The after part of the day was chiefly spent in dancing round a May-pole, which being placed in a convenient part of the village, stood there, as it were, consecrated to the Goddess of Flowers, without the least violation offered to it, in the whole circle of the year." Spenser, in his Shepherd's Calendar, has detailed the circumstances, in a style like a rustic dance. The great May holiday observed over the West of Europe was known for centuries, up to a late period, under the name of the Belte, or Beltane. Such a number of etymologies, all perplexingly probable, have been found for this word, that we have been surprised to miss among them that of Bel-temps, the Fine Time or Season. Thus Printemps, the First Time, or Prime Season, is the Spring. Younge folke now flocken in every where To gather May-buskets *-and swelling brere; * Sicker this morowe, no longer agoe, I saw a shole of shepherds outgoe With singing, and shouting, and jolly chere; The day was passed in sociality and manly sports;-in archery, and running, and pitching the bar,-in dancing, singing, playing music, acting Robin Hood and his company, and making a well-earned feast upon all the country dainties in season. It closed with an award of prizes. As I have seen the Lady of the May, Built by the Maypole, where the jocund swains A handkerchief cast o'er and o'er again; Among the gentry and at court the spirit of the same enjoyments took place, modified according to the taste or rank of the entertainers. The most universal amusement, agreeably to the general current in the veins, and the common participation of flesh and blood (for rank knows no distinction of legs and knee-pans), was dancing. Contests of chivalry supplied the place of more rural gymnastics. But the most poetical and elaborate entertainment was the Mask. A certain flowery grace was sprinkled over all; and the finest spirits of the t Yode, Went. § Tho, Then. Buskets-Boskets-Bushes-from Boschetti, Ital. Tabrere, a Tabourer. Attone, At once-With him. ¶ Britannia's Pastorals, by William Browne. Song the 4th. Browne, like his friend Wither, from whom we quoted a passage last week, wanted strength and the power of selection; though not to such an extent. He is however well worth reading by those who can expatiate over a pastoral subject, like a meadowy tract of country; finding out the beautiful spots, and gratified, if not much delighted, with the rest. His genius, which was by no means destitute of the social part of passion, seems to have been turned almost wholly to description, by the beauties of his native county Devonshire. time thought they showed both their manliness and wisdom, in knowing how to raise the pleasures of the season to their height. Sir Philip Sydney, the idea of whom has come down to us as a personification of all the refinement of that age, is fondly recollected by Spenser in this character. His sports were faire, his joyance innocent, For he could pipe, and daunce, and caroll sweet, Individual homage to the consisted in paying respect to and in plucking flowers and flowering boughs to adorn apartments with. This maiden, in a morn betime, Went forth when May was in the prime To get sweet setywall, The honey-suckle, the harlock, The lily, and the lady-smock, Drayton's Pastorals, Eclog. 4. But when morning pleasures are to be spoken of, the lovers of poetry who do not know Chaucer, are like those who do not know what it is to be up in the morning. He has left us two exquisite pictures of the solitary observance of May, in his Palamon and Arcite. They are the more curious, inasmuch as the actor in one is a lady, and in the other a knight. How far they owe any of their beauty to his original, the Theseide of Boccaccio, we cannot say; for we never had the happiness of meeting with that rare work. The Italians have so neglected it, that they have not only never given it a rifacimento or re-modelling, as in the instance of Boiardo's poem, but are almost as much unacquainted with it, we believe, as foreign nations. Chaucer thought it worth his while to be both acquainted with it, and to make others so; and we may venture to say, that we know of no Italian after Boccaccio's age who was so likely to understand him to the core, as his English admirer, Ariosto not excepted. Still, from what we have seen of Boccaccio's poetry, we can imagine the Theseide to have been too lax and long. If Chaucer's Palamon and Arcite be all that he thought proper to distil from it, it must have been greatly so; for it was an epic. But at all events the essence is an exquisite one. The tree must have been a fine old enormity, from which such honey could be drawn. To begin, as in duty bound, with the lady. How she sparkles through the antiquity of the language, like a young beauty in an old hood! Thus passeth yere by yere, and day by day, Till it felle ones in a morowe of May, That Emelie But we will alter the spelling where we can, as in a former instance, merely to let the reader see what a notion is in his way, if he suffers the look of Chaucer's words to prevent his enjoying him. Thus passeth year by year, and day by day, And fresher than the May with flowers new, She walketh up and down where as her list; Bright was the sun, and clear that morwèning [How finely, to our ears at least, the second line of the couplet always rises up from this full stop at the first !] Bright was the sun, and clear that morwèning Sir Walter Scott, in his edition of Dryden, says upon the passage before us, and Dryden's version of it, that "the modern must yield the palm to the ancient, in spite of the beauty of his versification." We quote from memory, For but this is the substance of his words. our parts, we agree with them, as to the consignment of the palm, but not as to the exWith some ception about the versification. allowance as to our present mode of accentuation, it appears to us to be touched with a finer sense of music even than Dryden's. It is more delicate, without any inferiority in strength, |