very particular manner, that it was his favourite flower. There is a very interesting passage to this effect in his Legend of Good Women; where he says, that nothing but the daisied fields in spring could take him from his books.

And as for me, though that I can* but lite*
On bookès for to read I me delight,
And to hem give I faith and full credence,
And in my heart have hem in reverence,
So heartily, that there is game none,
That from my bookès maketh me to gone,
But it be seldom, on the holy day;
Save certainly, when that the month of May
Is comen, and that I hear the foulès sing,
And that the flowers ginnen for to spring,
Farewell my booke, and my devotion.
Now have I then eke this condition,
That, of all the flowers in the mead,

Then love I most those flowers white and red,
Such that men callen daisies in our town.
To hem I have so great affection,

As I said erst, when comen is the May,
That in the bed there dawetht me no day,
That I nam up and walking in the mead,
To seen this flower agenst the sunnè spread,
When it upriseth early by the morrow,
That blissful sight softeneth all my sorrow.
So glad am I, when that I have presence
Of it, to done it all reverence,

As she that is of all flowers the flower.

He says that he finds it ever new, and that he shall love it till his "heart dies:" and afterwards, with a natural picture of his resting on

the grass,

Adown full softèly I gan to sink,

And leaning on my elbow and my side,
The long day I shopet me for to abide
For nothing else, and I shall not lie,
But for to look upon the daisie,

That well by reason men it call may

The daisie, or else the eye of day.

This etymology, which we have no doubt is the real one, is repeated by Ben Jonson, who takes occasion to spell the word days-eyes; adding, with his usual tendency to overdo a matter of learning,

Days-eyes, and the lippes of cows;

videlicet, cowslips: which is a disentanglement of compounds, in the style of our pleasant parodists :

-Puddings of the plum,

And fingers of the lady.

Mr. Wordsworth introduces his homage to the daisy with a passage from George Wither; which as it is an old favourite of ours, and extremely applicable both to this article and our whole work, we cannot deny ourselves the pleasure of repeating. It is the more interesting,

* Know but little.

+ Dawneth.

Shaped,

2

inasmuch as it was written in prison, where the freedom of his opinions had thrown him*. He is speaking of his Muse, or Imagination.

Her divine skill taught me this;
That from every thing I saw
I could some instruction draw,
And raise pleasure to the height
From the meanest object's sight.
By the murmur of a spring,
Or the least bough's rustelling;
By a daisy, whose leaves spread
Shut, when Titan goes to bed;
Or a shady bush or tree;
She could more infuse in 'me,
Than all Nature's beauties can

In some other wiser man.

Mr. Wordsworth undertakes to patronize the Celandine, because nobody else will notice it; which is a good reason. But though he tells us, in a startling piece of information, that

Poets, vain men in their mood!

Travel with the multitude,

yet he falls in with his old brethren of England and Normandy, and becomes loyal to the daisy.

* It is not generally known, that Chaucer was four years in prison, in his old age, on the same account. He was a Wickliffite,-one of the precursors of the Reformation. His prison, doubtless, was no diminisher of his love of the daisy.

Yet like a star, with glittering crest,
Self-poised in air, thou seem'st to rest ;-
May peace come never to his nest,
Who shall reprove thee.

Sweet flower! for by that name at last,
When all my reveries are past.

I call thee, and to that cleave fast;
Sweet silent creature;

That breath'st with me in sun and air,
Do thou, as thou art wont, repair
My heart with gladness, and a share
Of thy meek nature.

66

Mr. Wordsworth calls the daisy "an unassuming common-place of Nature," which it is; and he praises it very becomingly for discharging it's duties so chearfully, in that universal character. But we cannot agree with him in thinking that it has a homely face." Not that we should care, if it really had; for homeliness does not make ugliness; but we appeal to every body, whether it is proper to say this of la belle Marguerite. In the first place, it's shape is very pretty and slender, but not too much so. Then it has a boss of gold, set round and irradiated with silver points. It's yellow and fair white are in so high a taste of contrast, that Spenser has chosen the same colours for a picture of Leda reposing:

Oh wondrous skill and sweet wit of the man!
That her in daffodillies sleeping laid,

From scorching heat her dainty limbs to shade.

It is for the same reason, that the daisy, being chiefly white, makes such a beautiful shew in company with the butter cup. But this is not all; for look at the back, and you find it's fair petals blushing with a most delightful red. And how compactly and delicately is the neck set in green! Belle et douce Marguerite, aimable sœur du roi Kingcup, we would tilt for thee with a hundred pens, against the stoutest, poet that did not find perfection in thy cheek.

But here somebody may remind us of the spring showers, and what drawbacks they are upon going into the fields.-Not at all so, when the spring is really confirmed, and the showers but April-like and at intervals. Let us turn our imaginations to the bright side of spring, and we shall forget the showers. You see they have been forgotten just this moment. Besides, we are not likely to stray too far into the fields; and if we should, are there not hats, bonnets, barns, cottages, elm-trees, and good wills? We may make these things zests, if we please, instead of drawbacks. There is a pleasant, off-hand, picturesque little poem, full of sprightly simplicity, written by Franco Sacchetti, the earliest follower of Boccaccio; which will shew us, that the Italians are not prevented from gathering flowers by the fear of rain, nor even of snakes. Eccolo. *

*With respect to giving the originals of what we translate, we are guided by this principle:-if they are easily referred to, we shall always content ourselves with short extracts, unless hurried away by the enthusiasm of the moment, or for some other special reason; if they are not so readily to be found, it will add a value

O me, che'l prun mi punge,
Quell' altra, me v' aggiunge.
U', u, o, ch'è quel che salta?
Un grillo, un grillo.
Venite qua, correte,
Ramponzoli cogliete:

E' non son' essi.
Si, son: colei o colei

Vien qua,

vien qua per funghi, un micolino,

Più colà, piu colà, per sermollino.

Noi starem troppo, che 'l tempo si turba;
Ve' che balena e tuona,

Em' indovino che vespero suona.
Paurosa! non è egli ancor nona;
E vedi ed odi l' usignuol che canta,
Piu bel ve', piu bel ve'.

Io sento e non so che;
E dov'è, e dov'è?
In quel cespuglio.

Ognuna qui picchia, tocca, e ritocca:
Mentre lo busso cresce,

Una gran serpe n' esce.

O me trista! o me lassa! o me! o me!
Gridan fuggendo di paura piene,
Ed ecco che una folta pioggia viene.
Timidetta quell' una e l'altra urtando,
Stridendo, la divanza, via fuggendo,
E gridando, qual sdrucciola, qual cade.
Per caso l'una appone lo ginocchio
Lå ve seggea lo frettoloso piede,

E la mano e le veste :

Quella di fango lorda ne diviene,
Quella di più calpeste:

to our little work to lay them before the reader. A volume of the Indicator will thus contain some of the best morsels of literature. In the Parnaso Italiano, it is doubted whether the present poem is to be assigned to Franco Sacchetti, or to Ugolin Ubaldini, who according to the editor is the same as the Ubaldin de la Pila mentioned among the gluttons in the 24th Book of Dante's Purgatory. If so, he was not so likely to forget himself among the fields, as Sacchetti; but whether he be the same person or not, the poem answers so well to the latter's character, that it was most probably his production. He is another instance,. to be added to some of the most illustrious names, of the triumph of a genial imagination, and a rich indifference to riches, over a life of business, politics, and even honours. Franco Sacchetti, a Florentine, says Mr. Dunlop, (History of Fiction, Vol. 2. p. 305.) “ was born in 1935, and died about the year 1410. He was a poet in his youth, and travelled to Sclavonia and other countries, to attend to some mercantile concerns. As he advanced in years, he was raised to a distinguished rank in the Magistracy of Florence; he became podestà of Faenza and other places, and at length governor of a Florentine province in the Romagna. Notwithstanding his honours he lived and died poor, but is said to have been a good-humoured facetious man. He left an immense collection of sonnets and canzone, some of which have been lost, and others are still in M.S." We should be exceedingly gratified by the sight of any of his poems that may happen to be in print.

Cio ch' an colto ir si lassa,

Ne pui s' apprezza, e per bosco si spande.
De' fiori a terra vanno le ghirlande,
Nè si sdimette pure unquanto il corso.
In cotal fuga a repetute note
Tiensi beata, chi più correr puote.

Sì fiso stetti il dì ch' io le mirai,
Ch' io non m' avvidi, e tutto mi bagnai.

Walking and musing in a wood, I saw

Some ladies gathering flowers, now this, now t'otler,
And crying in delight to one another,

"Look here, look here: what's this? a fleur-de-lis.
Oh-get some violets there:

No, no, some roses farther onward there:

How beautiful they are!

O me! these thorns do prick so-only see:

Not that; the other; reach it me.

Hallo, hallo! What is it leaping so?

A grasshopper, a grasshopper.

Come here, come here now, quickly,
The rampions grow so thickly:

No; they're not rampions.

Yes, they are:-Anna, Beatrice, or Lisa,

Come here, come here for mushrooms just a bit

There, there's the betony-you're treading it.

We shall be caught, the weather's going to change:

See, see; it lightens-hush-and there's the thunder.
Was that the bell for vespers too, I wonder?

Why, you faint-hearted thing, it isn't noon

It was the nightingale-I know his tune-
There's something stirring there!

Where, where ?

There, in the bushes."

Here every lady pokes, and peeps, and pushes s
When suddenly, in middle of the rout,

A great large snake comes out.

"Olord! O lord! Good heavens! O me! O me!"
And off they go, scampering with all their power,
While from above, down comes a pelting shower.

Frightened, and scrambling, jolting one another,
They shriek, they run, they slide: the foot of one
Catches her gown, and where the foot should be
Down goes the knee,

And hands, and clothes, and all; some stumble on,
Brushing the hard earth off, and some the mud.

What they plucked, so glad and heaping,

Now becomes not worth their keeping.

Off it squirrs, leaf, root, and flower;

Yet not the less for that they scream and scower,

In such a passage, happiest she

Who plies her notes most rapidly.

So fixed I stood, gazing at that fair set,

That I forgot the shower, and dripped with wet.

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