When it upriseth early by the morrow :
That blissful sight softeneth all my sorrow.
So glad am I, when that I have presènce
Of it, to doin it all reverence,

As she that is of all flowers the flower."

He says that he finds it ever new, and that he shall love it till his "heart dies ;" and afterwards, with a natural picture of his resting on the grass :

This etymology, which we have no doubt is the real one, is repeated by Ben Jonson, who takes occasion to spell the word days-eyes;" adding, with his usual tendency to overdo a matter of learning

66

"Days-eyes, and the lippes of cows;"

videlicit, cowslips: which is a disentanglement of compounds, in the style of our pleasant parodists :

"Puddings of the plum,

And fingers of the lady."

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 his opinions had thrown him.† He is speaking of his Muse, or Imagination.

It is not generally known that Chaucer was four years in prison, in his old age, on the same account. He was a Wickliffite,-one of the precursors of the Reformation. His prison, doubtless, was no diminisher of his love of the daisy.

"Her divine skill taught me this;

That from everything I saw

I could some invention draw,
And raise pleasure to her height
Through the meanest object's sight:
By the murmur of a spring,
Or the least bough's rustelling;
By a daisy, whose leaves spread
Shut when Titan goes to bed;
Or a shady bush or tree;

She could more infuse in me
Than all Nature's beauties can

In some other wiser man."

But

Mr Wordsworth undertakes to patronise the celandine, because nobody else will notice it; which is a good reason. though he tells us, in a startling piece of information, that

"Poets, vain men in their mood,

Travel with the multitude,"

yet he falls in with his old brethren of England and Normandy, and becomes loyal to the daisy.

The shape will vanish, and behold!
A silver shield with boss of gold,
That spreads itself, some fairy bold
In fight to cover.

"I see thee glittering from afar ;
And then thou art a pretty star,
Not quite so fair as many are

In heaven above thee!

Yet like a star, with glittering crest,

Self-poised in air, thou seem'st to rest ;-
May peace come never to his nest
Who shall reprove thee.

"Sweet flower! for by that name at last,
When all my reveries are past,

I call thee, and to that cleave fast;

Sweet silent creature!

That breath'st with me in sun and air,
Do thou, as thou art wont, repair

My heart with gladness, and a share

Of thy meek nature!"

Mr Wordsworth calls the daisy "an unassuming commonplace 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 really 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!

That her in daffodillies sleeping made,

From scorching heat her dainty limbs to shade."

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.

ΤΗ

OF DREAMS.

HE materialists and psychologists are at issue upon the subject of dreams. The latter hold them to be one among the many proofs of the existence of a soul: the former endeavour to account for them upon principles altogether corporeal. We must own that the effects of their respective arguments, as is usual with us on these occasions, is not so much to satisfy us with either as to dissatisfy us with both. The psychologist, with all his struggles, never appears to be able to get rid of his body; and the materialist leaves something extremely deficient in the vivacity of his proofs by his ignorance of that Primum Mobile which is the soul of everything. In the meantime, while they go on with their laudable inquiries (for which we have a very sincere respect), it is our business to go on recommending a taste for results as well as causes, and turning everything to account in this beautiful star of ours, the earth, whether body or soul. There is no reason why the most learned investigator of the most subtle mysteries should not enjoy his existence, and have his earthly dreams made as pleasant as possible; and for our parts we see nothing at present, either in body or soul, but a medium for a world of perceptions, the very unpleasantest of whose dreams are but warnings to us how we depart from the health and natural piety of the pleasant

ones.

What seems incontrovertible in the case of dreams is, that