of various kinds which are to us almost a second nature, but to our heads, as artificially, accidentally, and unequally furnished, or stuffed, by books, or colleges, or laboratories. For the most part, therefore, it fails of making any deep impression; but not unfrequently the effect is even jarring, and a note is struck altogether different from what the poet intended, just as would happen with a musician, who, with whatever power of fingering, or other brilliancy in execution, should persist in disregarding any natural peculiarity of his instrument. As little or no aid is sought from the ordinary associations which may be presumed to be in the reader's mind, so whenever it is convenient such associations and preconceptions are outraged without hesitation. Thus a story of two lovers (in the address to the Water Nymphs, in the third canto of the Economy of Vegetation), intended to be very pathetic, is commenced in the following droll fashion :

"Where were ye, nymphs? in those disastrous hours
Which wrapt in flames Augusta'se sinking towers?
Why did ye linger in your wells and groves
When sad Woodmason mourned her infant loves?
When thy fair daughters, with unheeded screams,
Ill-fated Molesworth! called the loitering streams?

We must give the rest of this narrative for the sake of some choice Darwinian epithets, and other flowers of speech

"The trembling nymph, on bloodless fingers hung,
Eyes from the tottering wall the distant throng,
With ceaseless shrieks her sleeping friends alarms,
Drops with singed hair into her lover's arms,

e London's.

The illumined mother seeks with footsteps fleet
Where hangs the safe balcony o'er the street;
Wrapped in her sheet, her youngest hope suspends,
And, panting, lowers it to her tiptoe friends;
Again she hurries on affection's wings,

And now a third, and now a fourth she brings,
Safe all her babes, she smooths her horrent brow,
And bursts through bickering flames, unscorched below.
So, by her son arraigned, with feet unshod
O'er burning bars indignant Emma trod.

"E'en on the day when youth with beauty wed,
The flames surprised them in their nuptial bed;
Seen at the opening sash with bosom bare,
With wringing hands and dark dishevelled hair,
The blushing bride with wild disordered charms
Round her fond lover winds her ivory arms;
Beat, as they clasp, their throbbing hearts with fear,
And many a kiss is mixed with many a tear.
Ah me! in vain the labouring engines pour
Round their pale limbs the ineffectual shower!
Then crashed the floor, while shrinking clouds retire,
And love and virtue sunk amid the fire!
With piercing screams afflicted strangers mourn,
And their white ashes mingle in their urn."

Besides that every line in this laboured description is manifestly prompted and regulated chiefly by the necessities of the metre, were it not that the most prosaic or most affected account of such a situation cannot hide its real horrors, the picture of the blushing, and the kissing, and the winding of the ivory arms, and the ineffectual deluging of the pale limbs, would be almost ludicrous. But the sense of the ludicrous was wanting in Darwin : as there is little genuine pathos in any thing he has written, so there is not a trace of humour. It is in his first published poem, however, The Loves of the Plants' (now forming the second part of the Botanic Garden'), that this insensibility to the ridiculous is most remark

ably shown; the whole conception of that performance, the idea of making a serious poem out of the Linnæan system of botany, is an absurdity which would be incredible if the thing had not been actually attempted. In what manner, and with what success, let the commencement of the singular rhapsody show :—

First the tall Cannaf lifts his curled brow
Erect to heaven, and plights his nuptial vow;
The virtuous pair, in milder regions born,
Dread the rude blast of autumn's icy morn;
Round the chill fair he folds his crimson vest,
And clasps the timorous beauty to his breast.
Thy love, Callitriche,s two virgins share,
Smit with thy starry eye and radiant hair;
On the green margin sits the youth, and laves
His floating train of tresses in the waves;
Sees his fair features paint the streams that pass,
And bends for ever o'er the watery glass.

Two brother swains, of Collin's gentle name,h
The same their features, and their forms the same,
With rival love for fair Collinia sigh,

Knit the dark brow, and roll the unsteady eye.
With sweet concern the pitying beauty mourns,
And soothes with smiles the jealous pair by turns.
Sweet blooms Genistai in the myrtle shade,
And ten fond brothers woo the haughty maid.
Two knights before thy fragrant altar bend,
Adored Melissa,j and two squires attend.
Meadia's soft chains five suppliant beaux confess,
And hand in hand the laughing belle address ;

The cane, or Indian reed; each flower of which contains one male and one female.

Fine-hair, star-grass; one male and two females.
h Collinsonia; two males and one female.
Dyer's broom; ten males and one female.
Balm; four males and one female.

* American cowslip; five males and one female.

Alike to all she bows with wanton air,
Rolls her dark eye, and waves her golden hair.
Wooed with long care, Curcuma,' cold and shy,
Meets her fond husband with averted eye:

Four beardless youths the obdurate beauty move
With soft attentions of Platonic love.

With vain desires the pensive Alceam burns
And, like sad Eloisa, loves and mourns.
The freckled Iris" owns a fiercer flame,
And three unjealous husbands wed the dame.
Cupressus dark disdains his dusky bride;
One dome contains them, but two beds divide.
The proud Osyrisp flies his angry fair;
Two houses hold the fashionable pair.
With strange deformity Plantagoч treads,
A monster birth! and lifts his hundred heads.
Yet with soft love a gentle belle he charms,
And clasps the beauty in his hundred arms.
So hapless Desdemona, fair and young,
Won by Othello's captivating tongue,

Sighed o'er each strange and piteous tale distressed,
And sunk enamoured on his sooty breast.

Is all this really a whit less ridiculous than the parody of it in The Loves of the Triangles ? '—

For me, ye Cissoids, round my temples bend
Your wandering curves; ye Conchoids, extend;
Let playful Pendules quick vibration feel,
While silent Cyclois rests upon her wheel;
Let Hydrostatics, simpering as they go,
Lead the light Naiads on fantastic toe;
Let shrill Acoustics tune the tiny lyre;
With Euclid sage fair Algebra conspire;

Turmeric; one male and one female, together with four filaments without anthers.

m Double hollyhocks.

Flower-de-luce; three males and one female.
Cypress.

P The males and females of the Osyris are on different plants.

• Rose-plantain.

The obedient Pulley strong Mechanics ply;
And wanton Optics roll the melting eye.

Alas that partial Science should approve
The sly Rectangle's too licentious love!

For three bright nymphs the wily wizard burns;
Three bright-eyed nymphs requite his flame by turns.

Her timid arms with virgin blush unfold!
Though on one focus fixed, her eyes betray
A heart that glows with love's resistless sway;
Though, climbing oft, she strive with bolder grace
Round his tall neck to clasp her fond embrace,
Still, ere she reach it, from his polished side
Her trembling hands in devious Tangents glide.
Not thus Hyperbole ;-with subtlest art
The blue-eyed wanton plays her changeful part.

Yet why, Ellipsis, at thy fate repine?
More lasting bliss, securer joys are thine.
Though to each fair his treacherous wish may stray,
Though each in turn may seize a transient sway,
"Tis thine with mild coercion to restrain,

Twine round his struggling heart, and bind with end-
less chain.

So down thy hill, romantic Ashbourn, glides
The Derby Dilly, carrying three insides.

One in each corner sits, and lolls at ease,

With folded arms, propped back, and outstretched knees;

While the pressed Bodkin, punched and squeezed to death,

Sweats in the midmost place, and scolds, and pants for breath.

ANNA SEWARD.-LADY MILLER. THE DELLA CRUSCANS.

It must be regarded as a real misfortune for Dr. Darin's fame, though a ludicrous one, that he should have