THE

ENGLISH REVIEW,

For

JULY 1789.

ART. I. The Botanic Garden, Part II.; containing the Loves of the Plants; a Poem. With Philofophical Notes. Vol. II. 4to. 12s. boards Johnson. London, 1789.

AS this work contains a variety of matter, and much novelty,

we shall make no apology for prefenting our readers with a criticism of fome length. The publication of the first part, which contains the phyfiology of plants, is deferred to another year, for the purpose of repeating fome experiments. The defign of the work before us is to explain the sexual system of Linneus, with the remarkable properties of many particular plants. The preface contains a general account of the Linnean fyftem, which, though fhort, is not only comprehenfive, but perfpicuous. The poem opens with the following invocation, well fuited to the occafion and the scene:

Defcend, ye hovering fylphs! aerial quires,
And sweep with little hands your filver lyres;
With fairy footsteps print your graffy rings,
Ye gnomes! accordant to the tinkling strings;
While in foft notes I tune to oaten reed
Gay hopes, and amorous forrows of the mead.
From giant oaks, that wave their branches dark,
To the dwarf mofs that clings upon their bark,
ENG. REV. VOL. XIV. JULY 1789.

A

What

What beaux and beauties crowd the gaudy grovesi
And woo and win their vegetable loves.

How fnowdrops cold, and blue-ey'd harebels blend
Their tender tears, as o'er the stream they bend;
The love-fick violet, and the primrose pale,
Bow their sweet heads, and whisper to the gale;
With fecret fighs the virgin lily droops,
And jealous cowflips hang their tawny cups.
How the young rofe in beauty's damask pride
Drinks the warm blushes of his bashful bride;
With honey'd lips enamour'd woodbines meet,
Clafp with fond arms, and mix their kiffes fweet.
Stay thy foft-murmuring waters, gentle rill;
Hufh, whispering winds, ye ruftling leaves, be still;
Reft, filver butterflies, your quivering wings;
Alight, ye beetles, from your airy rings;
Ye painted moths, your gold-eyed plumage furl,
Bow your wide horns, your fpiral trunks uncurl;
Glitter, ye glow-worms, on your moffy beds;
Defcend, ye fpiders, on your lengthen'd threads;
Slide here, ye horned fnails, with varnish'd shells;
Ye bee-nymphs, liften in your waxen cells!

Thy love, Callitriche, two virgins fhare,
Smit with thy ftarry eye and radiant hair;
On the green margin fits the youth, and laves
His floating train of treffes in the waves;
Sees his fair features paint the streams that pafs,
And bends for ever o'er the watery glass.

• Two brother fwains of Collin's gentle name;
The fame their features, and their forms the fame,

Vegetable loves, 1. 10. Linneus, the celebrated Swedish naturalift, has demonftrated that all flowers contain families of male or females, or both; and on their marriages has conftructed his invaluable fyftem of botany.

Callitriche, 1. 45. Fine-hair, ftargrafs. One male and two females inhabit each flower. The upper leaves grow in form of a ftar, whence it is called Stellaria Aquatica by Ray and others; its stems and leaves float far on the water, and are often fo matted together, as to bear a perfon walking on them. The male fometimes lives in a feparate flower.

Collinfonia, 1. 51. Two males one female. I have lately obferved. a very fingular circumftance in this flower; the two males ftand widely diverging from each other, and the female bends herself into contact firft with one of them, and after fome time leaves this, and applies herself to the other. It is probable one of the anthers may be mature before the other. See note on Gloriofa and Genifta. The females in Nigella, devil in the bush, are very tall compared to the males; and

bending

1

With rival love for fair Collinia figh,

Knit the dark brow, and roll the unfteady eye.
With fweet concern the pitying beauty mourns,
And fooths with fmiles the jealous pair by turns.
• With vain defires the penfive Alcea burns,
And, like fad Eloifa, loves and mourns.
The freckled Iris owns a fiercer flame,
And three unjealous husbands wed the dame.
Cupreffus dark difdains his dufky bride,

One dome contains them, but two beds divide.
The proud Ofyris flies his angry fair,
Two houfes hold the fafhionable pair.'

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By these paffages the reader will see how beautifully the fexual fyftem of Linneus may be improved by poetical allufions; but these are not the only fubjects in which our author displays his genius; even the dull clafs of cryptogamia, which has fo often

bending over in a circle to them, give the flower fome resemblance to a regal crown. The female of the epilobium anguftifolium, rose bay willow herb, bends down among ft the males for several days, and becomes upright again, when impregnated.

Alcea, 1.69. Flore pleno. Double hollyhock. The double flowers, fo much admired by the florists, are termed by the botanist vegetable monsters; in fome of these the petals are multiplied three or four times, but without excluding the ftamens; hence they produce fome feeds, as Campanula and Stramoneum; but in others the petals become fo numerous as totally to exclude the ftamens, or males; as Caltha, Peonia, and Alcea; these produce no feeds, and are termed eunuchs.

• Iris, 1.71. Flower de luce. Three males, one female. Some of the fpecies have a beautifully freckled flower; the large ftigma or head of the female covers the three males, counterfeiting a petal with its divifions.

Cupreffus, 1.73. Cyprefs. One houfe. The males live in separate flowers, but on the fame plant. The males of fome of thefe plants, which are in feparate flowers from the females, have an elastic membrane; which difperfes their duft to a confiderable diftance when the anthers burft open. This duft, on a fine day, may often be feen like a cloud hanging round the common nettle. The males and females of all the cone-bearing plants are in feparate flowers, either on the fame or on different plants; they produce refins; and many of them are fuppofed to fupply the most valuable timber; what is called Venice-turpentine is obtained from the larch, by wounding the bark about two feet. from the ground, and catching it as it exudes; fandarach is procured from common juniper; and incenfe from a juniper with yellow fruit. The unperishable chefts, which contain the Egyptian mummies, were of Cyprefs; and the cedar, with which blacklead pencils are covered, is not liable to be eaten by worms.

Ofyris, 1.75. Two houfes. The males and females are on different plants.

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wearied

wearied many an industrious botanift, is made interesting by a lively imagination:

'On Dove's green brink the fair Tremella stood,
And view'd her playful image in the flood;

To each rude rock, lone dell, and echoing grove,
Sung the sweet forrows of her fecret love.

Oh, ftay!-return!'-along the founding fhore
Cry'd the fad naiads-she return'd no more!-
Now girt with clouds the fullen evening frown'd,
And withering Eurus fwept along the ground;
The mifty moon withdrew her horny light,
And funk with Hefper in the skirt of night;
No dim electric streams (the northern dawn),
With meek effulgence quiver'd o'er the lawn;
No ftar benignant fhot one tranfient ray
To guide or light the wanderer on her way.
Round the dark craggs the murmuring whirlwinds blow,
Woods groan above, and waters roar below;

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As o'er the steeps with paufing foot the moves,

The pitying dryades fhriek amid their groves;

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She flies-fhe ftops-fhe pants-she looks behind,
And hears a demon howl in every wind.
As the bleak blaft unfurls her fluttering veft,
Cold beats the fnow upon her fhuddering breast;
Through her numb'd limbs the chill fenfations dart,
And the keen ice bolt trembles at her heart.

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I fink, I fall! Oh, help me, help!' fhe cries,
Her stiffening tongue the unfinish'd found denies ;
Tear after tear adown her cheek fucceeds,
And pearls of ice beftrew the glittering meads;
Congealing fnows her lingering feet furround,
Arreft her flight, and root her to the ground;
With fuppliant arms the pours the filent prayer,
Her fuppliant arms hang crystal in the air;
Pellucid films her fhivering neck o'erfpread,
Seal her mute lips, and filver o'er her head,
Veil her pale bofom, glaze her lifted hands,
And thrined in ice the beauteous ftatue ftands.
Dove's azure nymphs on each revolving year
For fair Tremella fhed the tender tear;
With rush-wove crowns in fad proceffion move,
And found the forrowing shell to hapless love.

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• Tremella, 1. 373. Clandeftine marriage. I have frequently obferved funguffes of this genus on old rails and on the ground to become a transparent jelly, after they had been frozen in autumnal mornings; which is a curious property, and diftinguishes them from fome other vegetable mucilage; for I have obferved that the paste, made by boiling wheat-flour in water, ceafes to be adhesive after having been frozen.'

Here

Here paused the mufe-across the darken'd pole
Sail the dim clouds, the echoing thunders roll;
The trembling wood-nymphs, as the tempeft lowers,
Lead the gay goddess to their inmost bowers;
Hang the mute lyre the laurel fhade beneath,
And round her temples bind the myrtle wreath.
Now the light swallow, with her airy brood,
Skims the green meadow, and the dimpled flood;
Loud fhrieks the lone thrush from his leaflefs thorn,
Th' alarmed beetle founds his bugle horn;
Each pendant spider winds with fingers fine
His ravell'd clue, and climbs along the line;
Gay gnomes in glittering circles ftand aloof
Beneath a spreading mushroom's fretted roof;
Swift bees returning feek their waxen cells,
And fylphs cling quivering in the lily's bells.
Through the ftill air defcend the genial fhowers,
And pearly rain-drops deck the laughing flowers.'

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This account of Tremella's transformation would have done honour to Ovid's Metamorphofes, and is quite in his style: the canto closes with the fame appofite allufions as we quoted from the beginning. The reader will obferve the words particularly defcriptive of the clafs and order of the plants are in Italics. At the end of each canto we are presented with what our author terms an interlude-a converfation between himself and his bookfeller. In the firft interlude the fubject is an inquiry concerning the true diftinctions between poetry and profe, which our author conceives to be, in a great measure, confined to the first admitting no expreffions but what immediately relate to the fenses; and the latter abounding with abftract ideas; and that, in proportion as either departs from thefe diftinctions, it invades the province of the other. This is followed by many ingenious, and, in fome refpects, new obfervations, or perfonifications, allegories, and the propriety of forming, under particular circumstances, ideal beings, and even a new creation, when we may suppose the poffibility of rendering the judgment and reason, for a time, wholly fubfervient to the fenfes.

The fecond canto opens with a description of Carlina, the plumage of whofe feeds gives the author another opportunity of indulging his poetical talents by the apotheoses of Mr. Montgolfier, quite in the ftyle of the ancients :

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

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Breathe