The fair OSMUNDA* feeks the filent dell, Five fifter-nymphs to join Diana's train With thee, fair LYCHNIST! vow, but vow in vain Flies the fond fwain, and fcorns his offer'd hand; The fell SILENE ‡ and her fifters fair, This plant grows on moift rocks; the parts of its flower or its feeds are scarce difcernible; whence Linneus has given the name of clandeftine marriage to this clafs. The younger plants are of a beautiful vivid green.' + The flowers, which contain the five females, and those which contain the ten males, are found on different plants; and often at a great diftance from each other. When the females arrive at their maturity, they rife above the petals, as if looking abroad for their diftant husbands; the fcarlet ones contribute much to the beauty of our meadows in May and June.' Silene, Catchfly-The viscous material which furrounds the ftalks under the flowers of this plant, and of the Cucubulus Otites, is a curious contrivance to prevent various infects from plundering the honey, or devouring the feed. In the Dionæa Mufcipula there is a still more wonderful contrivance to prevent the depredations of infects: the leaves are armed with long teeth, like the antennæ of infects, and lie fpread upon the ground round the ftem; and are fo irritable, that when an infect creeps upon them, they fold up, and crush or pierce it to death.-The flower of the Arum mufcivorum has the fmell of carrion; by which the flies are invited to lay their eggs in the chamber of the flower, but in vain endeavour to efcape, being prevented by the hairs pointing inwards; and thus perish in the flower, whence its name of Fly-eater.' Z 2 Though Though this bard profeffes to have counteracted the spells of Ovid, yet on fome occafions he takes up the very wand of that great enchanter; and how fkilfully he can manage it, the following tranfmutation will fhew: * • On Dove's green brink the fair TREMELLA food, ** I have frequently obferved fungufles of this genus on old rails and on the ground, to become a tranfparent jelly, after they had been frozen in autumnal mornings; which is a curious property, and diflinguishes them from fome other vegetable mucilage; for I have obferved that the pafte, made by boiling wheat-flour in water, ceafes to be adhesive after having been frozen. I fufpected that the Tremella nofloc, or ftar-jelly, alfo had been thus produced; but have fince been well informed, that the Tremella noftoc is a mucilage voided by Herons after they have eaten frogs; hence it has the ap pearance of having been preffed through a hole; and limbs of frogs are faid fometimes to be found amongst it; it is always feen upon plains, or by the fides of water, places which Herons generally fre quent.' It may here be proper to add, from a note in a different part of the book (p. 166.), what the author fays of another vegetable muci lage, bird lime, made from the bark of hollies; viz. that it seems to be a very fimilar material to the elastic gum, or Indian rubber as it is called.' This intimation may probably give rife to further inquiries, which will doubtlefs prove interefting to fcience, if they hould not be productive of any immediate utility in arts. Some of the funguses are fo acrid, that a drop of their juice blifters the tongue; others intoxicate those who eat them. The Oftiachs in Siberia ufe them for the latter purpofe; one fungus, of the fpecies agaricus mufcarum, eaten raw, or the decoction of three of them, produces intoxication for 12 or 16 hours.-As all acrid plants become less fo if expofed to a boiling heat, it is probable the common mushroom may fometimes difagree from being not fufficiently ftewed. The Oftiachs blifter their fkin by a fungus found on birch trees, and use the officinal agaricus for foap.' She She flies, fhe ftops,-fhe pants,-fhe looks behind, -As the bleak blaft unfurls her fluttering veft, The reader will, by this time, have obferved, that though the Loves of the Plants be the ground-work of the poem, a great variety of collateral poetic ornaments very naturally branch out; and we shall give a fpecimen of one or two of those that can be the best detached from the fubjects that gave rife to them Fair CISTA, IV. Warm with new life, the glittering throngs, Delighted join their votive fongs, And hail thee, goddess of the Spring." The account of a medicinal plant introduces Hygeia,-Contagion,-BENEVOLENCE,-and an Encomium on Mr. Howard, as juft as it is poetic: From realm to realm, with crofs or crefcent crown'd, O'er burning fands, deep waves, or wilds of fnow, Power's rigid heart, and opes his clenching hands; Or guides awaken'd Mercy through the gloom, Difeafe and Death retire, And murmuring Demons hate him, and admire." The circumftance of Caffia trufting her tawny children to the floods,' and of the fruits of fome other American, trees being conveyed by currents to the coafts of Norway, frequently in fo recent a ftate as to vegetate, produces, by way of fimile, a highly pathetic episode of the prefervation of Mofes, in the cradle of Lotus leaves, on the Nile. But the poet does not stop at the prefervation of the infant ;-he sketches out, in glowing colours, the first great act of the adult; majeftic from his lone abode, Wrench'd the red fcourge from proud OPPRESSION's hands, It is not to be expected that the warm imagination, and the benevolent heart, of our philofophic poet, could quit this idea without fome animated touches on the prefent flavery of the Africans; which he concludes with an addrefs to the British fenate : Ye bands of Senators! whofe fuffrage sways With ftill fmall voice the plots of GUILT alarms, "HE, WHO ALLOWS OPPRESSION, SHARES THE CRIME." The The poem is divided into four Cantos, and between them are profe interludes, in the form of dialogues betwixt the poet and his bookfeller; in which various literary fubjects are critically dif cuffed, and placed in a new and, we think, a juft light; fuch as, the effential differerence between poetry and profe; the degree of analogy requifite in fimiles; the relationship between poetry and painting; the fuitableness of allegoric figures for the former, and their unfuitablenefs for the latter; an affinity between poetry and mufic, refpecting their measure or time; fome advantages of the English language for poetical compofition, above those of Rome or Greece, &c. &c. But we have already made fuch large extracts from the poem itself, that our limits will not admit of any more particular account, either of the interludes, or of the notes; and we shall only add, that the notes have great merit, and that science is not lefs indebted to the philofopher, than claffic tafte is to the poet. Ch ART. XIV. Bell's Claffical Arrangement of Fugitive Poetry. The first Three Vols. 12mo. 9s. fewed *. Bell. 1789. our Review for Auguft 1788, we paid a juft tribute of ap INrou Ron to Mr. Bell's edition of Shakespeare, and now we have before us another fpecimen of the elegant productions of the prefs, under his direction. The plan of this new undertaking is, to give to the public a felection of detached pieces of English poetry of acknowleged merit, formerly printed feparately, or in prior collections; and here republifhed, under a claffical arrangement:' a circumftance that will, probably, for the most obvious reasons, recommend the undertaking to moft of its readers. Dodsley's Mifcellany, and others of the kind, will, no doubt, contribute much toward the accomplishment of this defign. The three volumes already published, which are more beautiful than bulky, contain the claffes of Ethic Epiftles,'- Epiftles Familiar and Humorous,' and Epiftles Critical and Didactic.' The periods of publication are monthly. The firft volume appeared in February laft, and the whole collection, as we gather from the advertisements on the covers, will be comprised in about twenty volumes, at 3s. each. The collector (as far as we can venture to pronounce, from the volumes before us) has manifefted no deficiency of taste, either in the choice of his fubjects, or in respect of the merit of thofe pieces that he has felected: but as tafte has no fandard, we muft leave the public to judge for themselves on this point. In the ift volume (containing the Ethic Epiftles) we diftinguish Soame Jenyns's Effay on Virtue,-Melmoth's Poem on • About 180 pages in each volume. Z 4 Active |