Botanic Garden at Manchester,
and similar establishments in other large towns of Britain. What can
be a more delightful relaxation to a Lancashire Mechanic than an hour
or two in a _Garden_: what an escape from the pestiferous politics of
the times. At Birmingham too, there is a Public Garden, similar to
that at Manchester, where we hope the Artisan may enjoy a sight at
least of nature's gladdening beauties.

In the suburbs of our great metropolis, matters are not so well
managed; though Mr. Loudon, we think, proposes to unite a Botanic with
the Zoological Gardens. Folks in London must study botany on their
window-sills. The wealthy do not encourage it. Their love of the
country is confined to the forced luxuries of kitchen-gardens,
conveyed to them in wicker-baskets; and a few hundred exotics hired
from a florist, to furnish a mimic conservatory for an evening rout.
They shun her gardens and fields; but, as Allan Cunningham pleasantly
remarks in his Life of Bonington: "Her loveliness and varieties are
not to be learned elsewhere than in her lap. He will know little of
birds who studies them stuffed in the museum, and less of the rose and
the lily who never saw anything but artificial nose-gays."[3]

[3] Family Library, No. XXVII.

* * * * *

TO A SNOWDROP.

_A Translation._

(_For the Mirror_.)

First and fairest of flowery visiter--through the dark winter I
have dreamed of thy paleness and thy purity--youngest sister of the
lily--likelier, thou art to be loved for thine own sake. Can so
delicate a thing spring from an Earthly bed? or art thou, indeed,
fallen from the heavens as a Snowdrop? Thus I pluck thee from thy
clayey abode, in which, like some of us mortals, thou wouldst find an
early grave. I place thee in my bosom, (oh! that it were half so pure
as thou), and there shalt thou die. Thou comest like a pure spirit,
rising from thy earthly home unsullied and unknown. No longer a child
of the dust, thou steppest forth almost too delicately attired at
such a season as this. Ye winds of heaven: "breathe on it gently."
Ye showers descend on my Snowdrop with the tenderness of dew. Little
flower, I love thy look of unpretending innocence: thou art the child
of simplicity. Thou art a _flower_, even though colourless. Wert thou
never gay as others? Where are the hues thou once didst wear? Hast
thou lent them to the rainbow, or to gay and gaudy flowers, or why
so pale? Dost