P. Not if they so much interest the reader or spectator as to induce the reverie above described. Nature may be seen in the market-place, or at the card-table; but we expect something more than this in the play-house or picture-room. The farther the artist recedes from nature, the greater novelty he is likely to produce; if he rises above nature, he produces the sublime; and beauty is probably a selection and new combination of her most agreeable parts. Yourself will be sensible of the truth of this doctrine, by recollecting over in your mind the' works of three of our celebrated artists. Sir Joshua Reynolds has introduced sublimity even into its portraits; we admire the representation of persons, whose reality we should have passed by unnoticed. Mrs. Angelica Kauffman attracts our eyes with beauty, which, I suppose, no where exists; certainly few Grecian faces are seen in this country. And the daring pencil of Fuseli transports us beyond the boundaries of nature, and ravishes us with the charm of the most interesting novelty. And Shakespeare, who excells in all these together, so far captivates the spectator, as to make him unmindful of every kind of violation of time, place, or existence. As, at the first appearance of the Ghost of Hamlet, "his ear must be dull as the fat weed which roots itself on Lethe's brink," who can attend to the improbability of the exhibition. So, in many scenes of the Tempest, we perpetually believe the action passing before our eyes, and relapse, with somewhat of distaste, into common life, at the intervals of the representation.

B. I suppose a poet of less ability would find such great machinery difficult and cumbersome to manage?

P. Just so, we should be shocked at the apparent improbabilities. As in the gardens of a Sicilian nobleman, described in Mr. Brydone's and in Mr. Swinburne's travels, there are said to be six hundred statues of imaginary monsters, which so disgust the spectators, that the State had once a serious design of destroying them; and yet the very improbable monsters in Ovid's Metamorphoses have entertained the world for many centuries.

B. The monsters in your Botanic Garden, I hope, are of the latter kind?

P. The candid reader must determine.

THE

BOTANIC GARDEN.

LOVES OF THE PLANTS,

CANTO II,

AGAIN the Goddess strikes the golden lyre,
And tunes to wilder notes the warbling wire;
With foft fufpended ftep Attention moves,
And Silence hovers o'er the liftening groves;
Orb within orb the charmed audience throng,
And the green vault reverberates the fong.

"Breathe foft, ye Gales!" the fair CARLINA cries, "Bear on broad wings your Votrefs to the skies.

5

Carlina. 1. 7. Carline Thiftle. Of the clafs Confederate Males. The feeds of this and of many other plants of the fame class are furnished with a plume, by which admirable mechanism they perform long aerial journeys, croffing lakes and deferts, and are thus diffeminated far from the original plant, and have much the appearance of a Shuttlecock as they fly, The wings are of different conftruction, fome being like a divergent tuft of hairs, others are branched like feathers, fome are elevated from the crown of the feed by a flender foot-ftalk, which gives them a very elegant appearance, others fit immediately on the crown of the feed.

Nature has many other curious vegetable contrivances for the difperfion of feeds: fee note on Helianthus. But perhaps none of them has more the appearance of defign than the admirable apparatus of Tillandfia for this pur❤ pofe. This plant grows on the branches of trees, like the misletoe, and never on the ground; the feeds are furnished with many long threads on their crowns; which, as they are driven forwards by the winds, wrap round the arms of the trees, and thus hold them fast till they vegetate. This is very analogous to the migration of Spiders on the goffamer, who are faid to attach themselves to the end of a long thread, and rife thus to the tops of trees or buildings, as the accidental breezes carry them.

"How fweetly mutable yon orient hues,
"As Morn's fair hand her opening roses strews;
"How bright, when Iris, blending many a ray,
"Binds in embroider'd wreath the brow of Day;
"Soft, when the pendant Moon with luftres pale
"O'er heaven's bluc arch unfurls her milky veil;
"While from the north long threads of filver light
"Dart on fwift fhuttles o'er the tiffued night!
"Breathe foft, ye Zephyrs! hear my fervent fighs,
"Bear on broad wings your Votrefs to the fkies!".
-Plume over plume in long divergent lines
On whale-bone ribs the fair Mechanic joins;
Inlays with eider down the filken ftrings,
And weaves in wide expanfe Dædalian wings;
Round her bold fons the waving pennons binds,
And walks with angel-ftep upon the winds.

ΙΟ

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20

So on the fhorelefs air the intrepid Gaul Launch'd the vaft concave of his buoyant ball.--Journeying on high, the filken caftle glides

25

Bright as a meteor through the azure tides;

O'er towns, and towers, and temples, wins its way,
Or mounts fublime, and gilds the vault of day.
Silent with upturn'd eyes unbreathing crowds
Purfue the floating wonder to the clouds;

30

And, flufh'd with transport or benumb'd with fear,
Watch, as it rifes, the diminish'd sphere.
-Now lefs and lefs!—and now a fpeck is feen!-
And now the fleeting rack obtrudes between !—
With bended knees, raised arms, and fuppliant brow,
To every fhrine with mingled cries they VOW.-
"Save Him, ye Saints! who o'er the good prefide;
"Bear Him, ye Winds! ye Stars benignant! guide."
-The calm Philofopher in ether fails,

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40

Views broader stars, and breathes in purer gales;

Sees, like a map, in many a waving line,

Round Earth's blue plains her lucid waters shine;
Sees at his feet the forky lightnings glow,

45

And hears innocuous thunders roar below.

-Rife, great MONGOLFIER! urge thy venturous flight
High o'er the Moon's pale ice-reflected light;
High o'er the pearly Star, whose beamy horn
Hangs in the east, gay harbinger of morn;
Leave the red eye of Mars on rapid wing,
Jove's filver guards, and Saturn's crystal ring;
Leave the fair beams, which, iffuing from afar,
Play with new luftres round the Georgian star;

50

Shun with ftrong oars the Sun's attractive throne,
The sparkling zodiac, and the milky zone;
Where headlong Comets, with increasing force,
Through other fyftems bend their blazing course.-
For thee Caffiope her chair withdraws,

55

For thee the Bear retracts his fhaggy paws;

60

High o'er the North thy golden orb shall roll,
And blaze eternal round the wondering pole.
So Argo, rifing from the fouthern main,
Lights with new stars the blue etherial plain;
With favouring beams the mariner protects,
And the bold courfe, which firft it fteer'd, directs.

Inventress of the Woof, fair LINA flings
The flying fhuttle through the dancing strings;
Inlays the broider'd weft with flowery dyes,
Quick beat the reeds, the pedals fall and rife;
Slow from the beam the lengths of warp unwind,
And dance and nod the maffy weights behind.—
Taught by her labours, from the fertile foil
Immortal Isis clothed the banks of Nile;

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70

For thee the Bear. 1. 60. Tibi jam brachia_contrahit ardens Scorpius. Virg. Georg. 1. 1. 34. A new ftar appeared in Caffiope's chair in 1572. Herfchel's Conftruction of the Heavens. Phil. Tranf. vol. lxxv. p. 266.

Linum. 1. 67. Flax. Five males and five females. It was firft found on the banks of the Nile. The Linum Lufitanicum, or Portugal flax, has ten males: fee the note on Curcuma. Ifis was faid to invent fpinning and weav ing: mankind before that time were clothed with the fkins of animals. The fable of Arachne was to compliment this new art of fpinning and weav ing, fuppofed to furpass in fineness the web of the Spider.

And fair ARACHNE with her rival loom
Found undeferved a melancholy doom.-
Five Sifter-nymphs with dewy fingers twine.
The beamy flax, and ftretch the fibre-line;
Quick eddying threads from rapid spindles reel,
Or whirl with beaten foot the dizzy wheel.

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80

-Charm'd round the busy Fair five fhepherds press,

Praife the nice texture of their fnowy drefs,

Admire the Artifts, and the art approve,

And tell with honey'd words the tale of love.

So now, where Derwent rolls his dusky floods
Through vaulted mountains, and a night of woods,
The Nymph, GoSSYPIA, treads the velvet fod,
And warms with rofy fmiles the watery God;
His ponderous oars to flender fpindles turns,
And pours o'er maffy wheels his foamy urns;
With playful charms her hoary lover wins,
And wields his trident,-while the Monarch spins.

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95

Goffypia. 1. 87. Goffypium. The cotton plant. On the river Derwent, near Matlock, in Derbyshire, Sir RICHARD ARKWRIGHT has erected his curious and magnificent machinery for spinning cotton, which had been in vain attempted by many ingenious artists before him. The cotton-wool is firft picked from the pods and feeds by women. It is then carded by cylindrical cards, which move against each other, with different velocities. It is taken from these by an iron-hand or comb, which has a motion fimilar to that of fcratching, and takes the wool off the cards longitudinally in refpect to the fibres or staple, producing a continued line loosely cohering, called the Rove or Roving. This Rove, yet very loosely twifted, is then received or drawn into a whirling canister, and is rolled by the centrifugal force in fpiral lines within it; being yet too tender for the spindle. It is then paffed between two pairs of rollers; the fecond pair moving faster than the first elongate the thread with greater equality than can be done by the hand; and is then twisted on fpoles or bobbins.

The great fertility of the Cotton-plant in these fine flexile threads, while thofe from Flax, Hemp, and Nettles, or from the bark of the Mulberrytree, require a previous putrefaction of the parenchymatous substance, and much mechanical labour, and afterwards bleaching, renders this plant of great importance to the world. And fince Sir Richard Arkwright's ingenious machine has not only greatly abbreviated and simplified the labour and art of carding and fpinning the Cotton-wool, but performs both these circumftances better than can be done by hand, it is probable, that the clothing of this fmall feed will become the principal clothing of mankind; though animal wool and filk may be preferable in colder climates, as they are more imperfect conductors of heat, and are thence a warmer clothing.