THE GREEN LINNET.

BENEATH these fruit-tree boughs, that shed
Their snow-white blossoms on my head,
With brightest sunshine round me spread
Of Spring's unclouded weather;

In this sequester'd nook how sweet
To sit upon my orchard-seat!

And birds and flowers once more to greet,
My last year's friends together.

One have I mark'd, the happiest guest
In all this covert of the bless'd:

Hail to thee, far above the rest

In joy of voice and pinion,
Thou, Linnet in thy green array,
Presiding spirit here to-day,

Dost lead the revels of the May,
And this is thy dominion.

While birds, and butterflies, and flowers
Make all one band of paramours,
Thou, ranging up and down the bowers,
Art sole in thy employment;

A life, a presence like the air,
Scattering thy gladness without care,
Too bless'd with any one to pair,

Thyself thy own enjoyment;

Upon yon tuft of hazel trees,
That twinkle to the gusty breeze,

Behold him perch'd in ecstacies,
Yet seeming still to hover;

There where the flutter of his wings
Upon his back and body flings
Shadows and sunny glimmerings,
That cover him all over.

My sight he dazzles, half deceives,
A bird so like the dancing leaves;
Then flits, and from the cottage-eaves
Pours forth his song in gushes;

As if by that exulting strain,

He mock'd and treated with disdain

The voiceless form he chose to feign,

While fluttering in the bushes.

WORDSWORTH.

INSTRUCTION FROM ANIMATED NATURE.

FAR as Creation's ample range extends,
The scale of sensual, mental powers ascends:
Mark how it mounts, to man's imperial race,
From the green myriads in the peopled grass;
What modes of sight betwixt each wide extreme,
The mole's dim curtain, and the lynx's beam :
Of smell, the headlong lioness between,
And hound sagacious on the tainted green :
Of hearing, from the life that fills the flood,
To that which warbles through the vernal wood.
The spider's touch, how exquisitely fine!
Feels at each thread, and lives along the line :
In the nice bee, what sense so subtly true,
From poisonous herbs extracts the healing dew?
How instinct varies in the grovelling swine,
Compar'd half-reasoning elephant with thine!
'Twixt that, and Reason, what a nice barrier?
For ever separate, yet for ever near!

Who taught the nations of the field and wood,

To shun their poison, and to chuse their food!

Prescient, the tides or tempests to withstand,
Build on the wave, or arch beneath the sand?
Who made the spider parallels design,
Sure as Demoivre, without rule or line?
Who bid the stork, Columbus-like, explore
Heavens not his own, and worlds unknown before?
Who calls the councils, states the certain day,
Who forms the phalanx, and who points the
GOD, in the nature of each being, founds
Its proper bliss, and sets its proper bounds:
But as He fram'd a whole, the whole to bless,
On mutual wants built mutual happiness ;
So from the first, eternal Order ran,

And creature link'd to creature, man to man.

way

Thus then to Man the voice of Nature spake—

Go, from the creatures thy instructions take :

?*

*Drayton, in the following lines, entertains similar ideas to these expressed by Pope, in his Essay on Man :—

The Hern, by soaring shows tempestuous showers,
The princely Cock distinguisheth the hours:
The Kite, his train him guiding in the air,
Prescribes the helm, instructing how to steer:
The Crane to labour, fearing some rough flaw,
With sand and gravel burthening his craw;
Noted by man, which by the same did find
To ballast ships for steadiness in wind;
And by the form and order in his flight,
To march in war, and how to watch by night:
The first of house that ere did groundselt lay,
Which then was homely, of rude lome and clay,
Learn'd of the Martin: Philomel in Spring,
Teaching by art her little one to sing;

By whose clear voice sweet musick first was found,
Before Amphion ever knew a sound:

Covering with moss the dead's unclosed eye,

The little Robinet teacheth charity.

The old Poem, The Owl, published in 1593, from which these lines are taken, is written after the plan of Homer's Battle of the Frogs and Mice, or Virgil's Gnat;- probably from these models Mr. Roscoe and Miss Fanshaw took the idea of composing those amusing pieces, entitled the Butterfly's Ball, and the Peacock at Home.

+ The timber, next the ground.

Learn from the birds what food the thickets yield;
Learn from the beasts the physic of the field;
Thy arts of building from the bee receive;
Learn of the mole to plough, the worm to weave;
Learn of the little nautilus to sail,

Spread the thin oar, and catch the driving gale.
Here too all forms of social union find,
And hence let reason, late, instruct mankind:
Here subterranean works and cities see:
There towns aërial on the waving tree.
Learn each small people's genius, policies,
The ant's republic, and the realm of bees;
How those in common all their wealth bestow;
And anarchy without confusion know;
And these, for ever, though a monarch reign,
Their separate cells and properties maintain.

POPE.

It has been supposed that man derived the first hints of mechanical contrivance from the lower animals. Although such an opinion is very doubtful, since, in the first ages of the world, his necessities must have required and impelled him to inventions of this kind, before he could observe with sufficiently close attention the habits of other creatures; it is certain that in later times, Science has been indebted to the works of Nature for many valuable suggestions. In support of this opinion, we may state, that the eminent engineer, Mr. Brunel, is said to have taken the idea of his new plan of tunneling, (viz. by the frame-work or shield, as used under the Thames,) from the operation of the Teredo, a testaceous worm, which is covered with a cylindrical shell, and which bores through the hardest timber. Hence, Linnæus called it calamitas navium. The accidental sight of the trunk of an old Oak, which had been sawn across, suggested to Mr. Smeaton the idea of dove-tailing each course of masonry in the Eddystone Light-house. The same happy observation of the wisdom displayed in the works of Nature, led Mr. Watt to deduce the construction of the flexible water-main, from the mechanism of the Lobster's tail. From a close consideration of the curious structure of the Eye, Mr. Dollond contrived his achromatic telescope; and from a minute inspection of the Horse's Hoof, Mr. B. Clarke constructed an expanding shoe, by which the elasticity of the foot is preserved, and lameness prevented. Many other instances might be mentioned, where mechanical contrivances have been suggested from the consideration of Animated Nature.

INSECTS.

OBSERVE the Insect race, ordain'd to keep
The lazy sabbath of a half-year's sleep;
Entomb'd beneath the filmy web they lie,
And wait the influence of a kinder sky;
When vernal sunbeams pierce their dark retreat,
The heaving tomb distends with vital heat:
The full-form'd brood, impatient of their cell,
Start from their trance, and burst their silken shell;
Trembling awhile they stand, and scarcely dare
To launch at once upon the untried air ;

At length assur'd, they catch the favouring gale,
And leave their sordid spoils, and high in ether sail :
Lo! the bright train their radiant wings unfold,
With silver fring'd and freckled o'er with gold;
On the
gay bosom of some fragrant flower,
They idly fluttering, live their little hour!
Their life all pleasure, and their task all play,
All Spring their age, and Sunshine all their day.
What atom-forms of insect-life appear!
And who can follow Nature's pencil there?
Their wings with azure, green, and purple gloss'd,
Studded with coloured eyes, with gems emboss'd,
Inlaid with pearl, and mark'd with various stains
Of lively crimson through their dusky veins.

MRS. BARBAuld.

The number of Insects distributed over the surface of the globe, Mr. Kirby estimates to be 400,000 species; and Mr. M'Leay says, that 100,000 are to be found in our cabinets. In the Systematic Catalogue of Mr. Stephens, (1827,) 10,000 British insects are enumerated, and of these upwards of 4,000 belong to the Class, Lepidoptera.-It has also been calculated, that the number of plants, supposed to exist, is about 44,000 species, of which 38,000 have been described. Mr. Loudon, in his valuable Encyclopædia of Plants, has published a description of 16,712 indigenous, cultivated, or exotic plants, which are now found, or have been introduced, into this country. The native plants of Great Britain, (ex