writer thus characterizes the general habits of this plant:

Weak, with nice sense, the chaste Mimosa stands,
From each rude touch withdraws her timid hands:
Oft as light clouds pass o'er the summer's glade,
Alarm'd she trembles at the moving shade,
And feels, alive through all her tender form,
The whisper'd murmurs of the gathering storm;
Shuts her sweet eyelids to approaching night,
And hails with freshen'd charms the rosy light.

Her susceptibility, however, even in the highest degree of excitement, never instigates her to injure the indiscreet hand which touches her, but only to draw back from it. The Sensitive Plant strives neither to punish nor to revenge herself. Like those modest females who never think of arming themselves with severity, she uses not her thorny bristles; she merely shrinks from the approach of the intruder. The violet is the emblem of that retiring modesty which proceeds from reflection; but the Sensitive Plant is a perfect image of innocence and virgin modesty. She suspects no harm, because she knows none, and shows herself without mistrust: but as soon as

she is gazed at too closely, she withdraws herself as much as possible from the inquisitive eye. This modesty appears to be in her an instinct, a sense, and not the result of reflection.

AUTUMN.

Attemper'd suns arise,

Sweet-beam'd and shedding oft through lucid clouds
A pleasing calm; while, broad and brown below,
Extensive harvests hang the heavy head.
Rich, silent, deep, they stand; for not a gale
Rolls its light billows o'er the bending plain:
A calm of plenty!

THOMSON.

Who loves not Autumn's joyous round,
When corn, and wine, and oil abound?
Yet who would choose, however gay,
A year of unrenewed decay?

MONTGOMERY.

No spring or summer's beauty hath such grace
As I have seen in one Autumnal face.

Autumn tinges every fertile branch

Donne.

With blooming gold, and blushes like the morn.

AKENSIDE.

Go to the silent Autumn woods!

There has gone forth a spirit stern;
Its wing has waved in triumph here,
The spring's green tender leaf is sere,
And withering hangs the summer fern.

MARY HOWITT.

In our favoured country, Spring is clothed in a green robe enamelled with flowers, which owes all its ornaments to Nature. Summer crowned with blue-bottles and wild poppies, proud of her golden harvests, receives from the hand of man part of her decorations ; whilst Autumn appears laden with fruit brought to perfection by his industry. Here the juicy peach is tinged with the colours of the rose; the fine flavoured apricot borrows the gold that glows in the bosom of the ranunculus; the grape decks itself with the purple of the violet; and the apple with the varied hues of the gaudy tulip. All these fruits are so like flowers, that one would suppose them to have been made only to delight the eye: but yet they come to increase the abundance of our stores, and Autumn, which pours them upon our tables, seems to proclaim that they are the last gifts which Nature means to lavish upon us.

But a new Flora suddenly makes her appear

ance, the offspring of commerce and industry. She was unknown to Greece in her best days, and to our simple forefathers. Roving about incessantly over the earth, she enriches us with the productions of every country. She comes, and our dull and forsaken gardens acquire fresh splendour. The China aster is intermingled with the beauteous pink of India; the mignionette from the banks of the Nile grows at the foot of the eastern tuberose; the heliotrope, the nasturtium, and the nightshade of Peru, blossom beneath the beautiful acacia of Constantinople; the Persian jasmine unites with that of Carolina to cover our arbours and to embellish our bowers; the holly hock and the Passion flower, also denominated the Jerusalem cross, which reminds us of the Crusades, raise their splendid heads beside the persicaria of the East; and Autumn, which could formerly find nothing but ears of corn and vine. leaves to compose a garland for her brows, is now astonished to find herself erowned with such rich adornments, and to be enabled to mingle with them the ever-flowering rose of the plains of Bengal.

Dearly do I love to observe these beautiful strangers, which have retained amongst us their