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BEES.

(From "Payne's Studies in English Poetry.")*

YE musical hounds of the fairy king,

Who hunt for the golden dew,

Who track, for your game, the green coverts of spring,
Till the echoes that lurk in the flower-bells ring
With the peal of your elfin crew.

How joyous your life, if its pleasures ye knew,
Singing ever from bloom to bloom!

Ye wander the summer years' paradise through,
The sweets of the flowers are the viands for you,
And the air that you breathe, perfume.

But unenvied your joys, while the richest you miss,
And before you no brighter life lies:

Who would part with his cares for enjoyment like this,
When the tears that embitter the pure spirit's bliss,
May be pearls in the crown of the skies!

THE SLEEPING BABE.

(From the same.)

THE baby wept ;

The mother took it from the nurse's arms,

And sooth'd its grief, and still'd its vain alarms,
And baby slept.

Again it weeps,

And God doth take it from the mother's arms,

From present pain and future unknown harms,

And baby sleeps.

We are glad to meet our friend Mr. Payne once more in public, albeit he comes before us, like the subject of this pretty poem, as a pilferer. He has, however, collected so choice a store of honey, and has elaborated and adapted it so cleverly to the requirements of those for whose special use it is intended, that we offer him our heartiest thanks for the banquet. We regard his idea of making poetry subservient to the study of philology, as a very happy one; and are convinced, by the character of the foot-notes and the biographical and critical sketches interspersed throughout this volume, that the subject could not have fallen into abler hands. We hope to see Mr. Payne's Studies,' become a standard educational work. It is beautifully got up, in a style more adapted for the drawing room than the school, but at a price so moderate as to place it within the reach of all.

[graphic]

THE

YOUTHS' MAGAZINE;

OR,

EVANGELICAL MISCELLANY.

JUNE, 1845.

GIGANTIC FLOWERS.

IN the equatorial regions, the soil possesses a vegetative power unknown in our temperate latitudes. We have no trees in Europe, for example, worthy of comparison with the African Baobob; nor can any of our grasses compete with the Bamboo. But what shall we say to the Rafflesia Arnoldi, a flower of more than eight feet in circumference, and which weighs at least fifteen pounds!

*

When Sir Stamford Raffles was governor of Sumatra, Dr. Arnold accompanied him in the first excursion he made to the interior, and has furnished a description of the plant in question, which was then discovered.

He was walking a little in advance of the escort, when one of the Malay servants ran to him, with joy depicted on his countenance, telling him that he had found an immense, handsome, wonderful flower. About a hundred paces brought him back to the spot where it lay flat upon the ground, partially covered up with brambles and underwood. The doctor was about to detach it with a bill-hook, when he found that it had only a small fibrous root, not exceeding six inches in length. It was a thick, fungous, fleshy, succulent plant, and when found in its natural habitat, the nectary was full of flies, attracted apparently

* Figured in our largest engraving. Its name is compounded of those of its two discoverers, Sir Stamford Raffles, and Dr. Arnold.

M

by the smell of tainted meat which it emits.

The diameter of the flower is more than two feet nine inches, or about the size of an ordinary washing-tub! The nectary, it was calculated, would contain about a gallon and a half; and the weight of the whole flower, was not less than fifteen pounds.

The natives of Sumatra call this singular plant krubul, a word which in their language signifies "great flower." They say, that three months elapses between the appearance of the bud and the expansion of the flower, and that they find it only at one period of the year, towards the end of the rainy season. It is parasitic, growing upon the roots and trunks of the Cissus angustifolia, and possessing some of the characters of the mushroom family. Though this species attains to a gigantic size, Dr. Hoesfield has found a Rafflesia very much like it, hardly three inches in diameter. Intermediate varieties have also been discovered.

Our smaller subject represents the Brugmansia zippelli, described in the "Flora of Java." It grows upon the hills, at an elevation of 1200 feet above the level of the Like the Rafflesia, it is a parasite, and its smell is not less disagreeable.

sea.

Reamur notices a fungous plant, almost as wonderful as the Rafflesia; it grew upon the wall of his park in Poitou, and he has described it under the name of Boletus coralloides fætidus. Its odour was that of meat in a state of putrefaction.

THE PARSON'S CHOICE MEMORIES.

CHAP VI.-FILIAL PIETY.*

"The relation which I have already made," said our friend, resuming his subject, "is merely introductory to that peculiar point which it is our present object to consider - in order, as our ve

This narrative, which is substantially true, is so far altered as to disguise its actual reference, lest it should be recognized by those who knew the parties.

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