So fair the veil that twilight weaves
Around its golden shows,

Or shadow of its own green leaves

Upon the crimson rose."--ARCHAEUS.

Nay, this is not exactly it either; the lines are beautiful, but the flower-the flower is that of love, and must not be likened to any other than Juliet,-rich, delicate, and glowing;-breathing her heart out in sighs of passionate perfume to Romeo, the nightingale of her affections. What shall it be then, the pansy? Nay, that is already appropriated to the "fair vestal throned in the west." Ah! we have it. The timid Miranda, of course, is like

"A violet, by a mossy stone

Half hidden from the eye;
Fair as a star, when only one

Is shining in the sky."-WORDSWORTH.'

Modesty is ever akin to virtue, as those flowers which shrink most from sight, hiding in leafy copses, and green dells, and shady woodlands, are the sweetest and most tenderly beautiful. They remind us of

"Humility, that low sweet root

From which all heavenly virtues shoot."-MOORE.

We must here be permitted to quote again from the "Proverbial Philosopher;" the lines which follow are so admirable both in sentiment and expression, that we could not resist the temptation which the subject offered of using them :

"Humility is the softening shadow before the statue of excellence,

And lieth lowly on the ground, beloved and lovely as the violet:

"Thou didst die

Even like a flower beneath the summer ray,
In incensed beauty, and didst take thy way
Even like its fragrance, up into the sky."

J. W. ORD.

"The faces of the maidens seemed to resemble their own flower gardens; there was the snow-drop, so delicate and retiring; the primrose, looking boldly up in its innocence; the daisy, only plain because it grows so commonly; the rose-bud red and beautiful;—and so might the fancy go on in imagining and tracing in each face a resemblance to some flower." This is a picture of a group of maidens drawn by THOMAS MILLER, who well knows how to deck his "Rural Sketches" with floral similes. But if this conceit had entered into the mind of the lover of either of those maidens, would he not have said, think ye ?—

"Even as a flower!

No, loveliest! be not to me as a flower,

The uncertain sun calls forth its odorous breath,
The sweeter perfume gives the speedier death,

The sport and victim of a summer hour

Loveliest, be not a flower."

H. G. BELL.

Let us suppose that misfortune had fallen upon this lover, or that he was fearful that such might visit him, and is expressing to the object of his affections his doubts as to her constancy under such circumstances, would she not reply, with Agnes in the "Prodigal Son"

"Thou surely dost not think my faith a flower

To live or droop with fortune's sun and shade."
D. JERROLD

We will now imagine that the storm has burst upon the head of the devoted swain; his prospects are blighted, sickness, and then death ensues, and the disconsolate maiden thus makes her lament:

"Woods, hills, and rivers, now are desolate,

Since he is gone, the which did all them grace:
And all the fields do wail their widowed state,
Since death their fairest flower did late deface.
The fairest flower in field that ever grew,
Was Astrophel, that was, we all may rue.

"What cruel hand of cursed foe unknown

Hath cropt the stalk that bore so fine a flower?
Untimely cropt before it well was grown,

And clean defaced it in untimely hour.
Great loss to all that ever him did see,
Great loss to all, but greater loss to me!

"Break now your garlands. O! ye shepherd lasses,
Since the fair flower that them adorned is gone;
The flower that them adorned is gone to ashes;
Never again let lass put garland on;

Instead of garland, wear sad cypress now,
And bitter elder, broken from the bough."

Thus mourned the sister of SIR PHILIP SIDNEY Over the memory ci her incomparable brother; and thus, though in somewhat different language, might have mourned the village maiden for her departed lover Let us take one more lament, it is that of a parent for his lost children ::

"Five were ye, the beauteous blossoms

Of our hopes, and hearts, and hearth;
Two asleep lie buried under-

Three light forms yet gladden earth :

Thee, our Hyacinth, gay Charlie,
Willie, thee, our Snowdrop pure,
Back to us, shall second spring-time,

Never more restore."-MOIR.

The language of deep passion, whether it be love, hate, joy, or sorrow, which prompts the utterance, is ever poetical; and next to the first named of these, we may place the latter, as having given rise to the greatest number of beautiful compositions. Witness SPENSER'S "Teares of the Muses," etc.; MILTON'S "Lycidas;" SHELLEY'S "Adonais," and a thousand other exquisitely touching Elegies and Laments, to which we might refer; we must give one Stanza in honour of poor KEATS, for the sake of the simile embodied in it:

"But now, thy youngest, dearest, one has perished,
The nursling of thy widowhood, who grew
Like a pale flower, by some sad maiden cherished,
And fed with true-love tears instead of dew:
Most musical of mourners, weep anew!

Thy extreme hope, the loveliest, and the last,
The bloom, whose petals nipt before they blew,
Died in the promise of the fruit, is waste;

The broken lily lies-the storm is overpast."-SHELLEY. We have now reached the limits prescribed for this division of our subject, and therefore conclude with these consolatory lines of MISS BREMER :

"The flowers of love and hope we gather here,
Shall yet bloom for us on the home of God;
They shed not their last fragrance o'er the bier,
They lie not withered on the cold grave sod."

FLORAL

SIMILITUDES.

BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

The snowdrop, and then the violet,

Arose from the ground with warm rain wet,

And their breath was mixed with fresh odour, sent
From the turf, like the voice and the instrument.

Then the pied wind flowers and the tulip tall,
And narcissi, the fairest among them all,
Who gaze on their eyes in the stream's recess,
Till they die of their own dear loveliness.

And the Naiad-like lily of the vale,

Whom youth makes so fair, and passion so pale,
That the light of its tremulous bells is seen
Through their pavilions of tender green;

And the hyacinth purple, and white, and blue
Which flung from its bells a sweet peal anew
Of music so delicate, soft and intense,

It was felt like an odour within the sense;

And the rose like a nymph to the bath address'd,
Which unveiled the depth of her glowing breast,
Till, fold after fold, to the fainting air
The soul of her beauty and love lay bare;

And the wand-like lily, which lifted up,
As a Mænad, its moonlight-coloured cup,
Till the fiery star which is its eye,

Gazed through the clear dew on the tender sky;