f Wilson was characterized by much original
humor.]

[Footnote 20:

"Come to our _fete_, and show again
That pea-green coat, thou pink of men!
Which charmed all eyes, that last surveyed it;
When Brummel's self inquired, 'Who made it?'
When Cits came wondering from the East,
And thought thee Poet Pye at least."
_Two-Penny Post-Bag_, 1812.]

[Footnote 21: TENNYSON, _Maud_.]

WATER-LILIES.

The inconstant April mornings drop showers or sunbeams over the
glistening lake, while far beneath its surface a murky mass disengages
itself from the muddy bottom, and rises slowly through the waves. The
tasselled alder-branches droop above it; the last year's blackbird's
nest swings over it in the grapevine; the newly-opened Hepaticas and
Epigaeas on the neighboring bank peer down modestly to look for it;
the water-skater (Gerris) pauses on the surface near it, casting on
the shallow bottom the odd shadow of his feet, like three pairs of
boxing-gloves; the Notonecta, or water-boatman, rows round and round
it, sometimes on his breast, sometimes on his back; queer caddis-worms
trail their self-made homesteads of leaves or twigs beside it; the
Dytiscus, dorbug of the water, blunders clumsily against it; the
tadpole wriggles his stupid way to it, and rests upon it, meditating
of future frogdom; the passing wild-duck dives and nibbles at it; the
mink and musk-rat brush it with their soft fur; the spotted turtle
slides over it; the slow larvae of gauzy dragon-flies cling sleepily
to its sides and await their change: all these fair or uncouth
creatures feel, through the dim waves, the blessed longing of spring;
and yet not one of them dreams that within that murky mass there lies
a treasure too white and beautiful to be yet intrusted to the waves,
and that for many a day that bud must yearn toward the surface,
before, aspiring above it, as mortals to heaven, it meets the sunshine
with the answering beauty of the Water-Lily.

Days and weeks have passed away; the wild-duck has flown onward, to
dive for his luncheon in some remoter lake; the tadpoles have made
themselves legs, with which they have vanished; the caddis-worms have
sealed themselves up in their cylinders, and emerged again as winged
insects; the dragon-flies have crawled up the water-reeds, and,
clinging with heads upward, (not downward, as strangely described in a
late "North British Review,") have undergone the