[THE BOTANIC GARDEN. PART II. THE LOVES OF THE PLANTS.]
THE LOVES OF THE PLANTS.
CANTO I.
Vegetable Loves. l. 10. Linneus, the celebrated Swedish naturalist, has demonstrated, that all flowers contain families of males or females, or both; and on their marriages has constructed his invaluable system of Botany.
Canna. l. 39. Cane, or Indian Reed. One male and one female inhabit each flower. It is brought from between the tropics to our hot-houses, and bears a beautiful crimson flower; the seeds are used as shot by the Indians, and are strung for prayer-beads in some catholic countries.
Callitriche. l. 45. Fine-Hair, Stargrass. One male and two females inhabit each flower The upper leaves grow in form of a star, whence it is called Stellaria Aquatica by Ray and others; its stems and leaves flo•t far on the water, and are often so matted together, as to bear a person walking on them. The male sometimes lives in a separate flower.
Collinsonia. l. 51. Two males one female. I have lately observed a very singular cir cumstance in this flower; the two males stand widely diverging from each other, and the female bends herself into contact first with one of them, and after some time leaves this, and applies herself to the other. It is probable one of the anthers may be mature before the other? See note on Gloriosa, and Genista. The females in Nigella, devil in the bush, are very tall compared to the males; and bending over in a circle to them, give the flower some resemblance to a regal crown. The female of the epilobium angustifolium, rose bay willow herb, bends down amongst the males for several days, and becomes up right again when impregnated.
Genista. l. 57. Dyer's broom. Ten males and one female inhabit this flower. The males are generally united at the bottom in two sets, whence Linneus has named the class "two brotherhoods." In the Genista, however, they are united in but one set. The flowers of this class are called papilionaccous, from their resemblance to a butterfly, as the pea-blossom. In the Spartium Scoparium, or common broom, I have lately observed a curious circumstance, the males or stamens are in two sets, one set rising a quarter of an inch above the other; the upper set does not arrive at their maturity so soon as the lower, and the stigma, or head of the female, is produced amongst the upper or immature set; but as soon as the pistil grows tall enough to burst open the keel-leaf, or hood of the flower, it bends itself round in an instant, like a French horn, and inserts its head, or stigma, amongst the lower or mature set of males. The pistil, or female, continues to grow in length; and in a few days the stigma arrives again amongst the upper set, by the time they become mature. This wonderful contrivance is readily seen by opening the keel-leaf of the flowers of broom before they burst spontaneously. See note on Collinsonia, Gloriosa, Draba.
Melissa l. 60. Balm. In each flower there are four males and one female; two of the males stand higher than the other two; whence the name of the class "two powers." I have observed in the Ballota, and others of this class, that the two lower stamens, or makes become mature before the two higher. After they have shed their dust, they turn themselves away outwards; and the pistil, or female, continuing to grow a little taller, is applied to the upper stamens. See Glorista, and Genista.
All the plants of this class, which have naked seeds, are aromatic. The Marum, and Nepeta are particularly delightful to cats; no other brute animals seem pleased with any odours but those of their food or prey.
Meadia. l. 61. Dodecatheon, American Cowslip. Five males and one female. The males, or anthers, touch each other. The uncommon beauty of this flower occasioned Linneus to give it a name signifying the twelve heathen gods; and Dr. Mead to affix his own name to it. The pistil is much longer than the stamens, hence the flower-stalks have their elegant bend, that the stigma may hang downwards to receive the fecundating dust of the anthers. And the petals are so beautifully turned back to prevent the rain or dew drops from sliding down and washing off this dust prematurely; and at the same time exposing it to the light and air. As soon as the seeds are sormed, it erects all the flower - stalks to prevent them from salling out; and thus loses the beauty of its figure. Is this a mechanical effect, or does it indicate a vegetable storgé to preserve its offspring? See note on Ilex, and Gloriosa.
In the Meadia, the Borago, Cyclamen, Solanum, and many others, the filaments are very short compared with the style. Hence it became necessary, 1st, to furnish the stamens with long anthers. 2d. I'o lengthen and bend the peduncle or flower-stalk, that the flower might hang downwards. 3d. To reflect the petals. 4th. To erect these pe duncles when the germ was fecundated. We may reason upon this by observing, that all this apparatus might have been spared, if the filaments alone had grown longer; and that thence in these flowers that the filaments are the most unchangeable parts; and that thence their comparative length, in respect to the style, would afford a most permanent mark of their generic character.
Curcuma. l. 65. Turmeric. One male and one female inhabit this flower; but there are besides four imperfect males, or filaments without anthers upon them, called by Lin neus eunuchs. The flax of our country has ten filaments, and but five of them are ter minated with anthers; the Portugal flax has ten perfect males, or females; the Verbena of our country has four males; that of Sweden has but two; the genus Albuca, the Bignonia Catalpa, Gratiola, and hemlock-leaved Geranium have only half their filaments crowned with anthers. In like manner the florets, which form the rays of the flowers of the order frustraneous polygamy of the class syngenesia, or confederate males, as the sun flower, are furnished with a style only, and no stigma: and are thence barren. There is also a style without a stigma in the whole order dioecia gynandria; the male flowers of which are thence barren. The Opulus is another plant, which contains some unpro lific flowers. In like manner some tribes of insects have males, females, and neuters among them: as bees, wasps, ants.
There is a curious circumstance belonging to the class of insects which have two wings, or diptera, analogous to the rudiments of stamens above described; viz. two little knobs are found placed each on a stalk or peduncle, generally under a little arched scale; which appear to be rudiments of hinder wings; and are called by Linneus, halteres, or poisers, a term of his introduction. A. T. Bladh. Amaen. Acad. V. 7. Other animals have marks of having in a long process of time undergone changes in some parts of their bodies, which may have been effected to accommodate them to new ways of procuring their food. The existence of teats on the breasts of male animals, and which are gene rally rep'ete with a thin kind of milk at their nativity, is a wonderful instance of this kind. Perhaps all the productions of nature are in their progress to greater perfection? an idea countenanced by the modern discoveries and deductions concerning the progres sive formation of the solid parts of the terraqueous globe, and consonant to the dignity of the Creator of all things.
Alcea. l. 69. Flore pleno. Double hollyhock. The double flowers, so much ad mired by the florists, are termed by the botanist vegetable monsters; in some of these the petals are multiplied three or four times, but without excluding the stamens, hence they produce some seeds, as Campanula and Stramoneum; but in others the petals become so numerous as totally to exclude the stamens, or males; as Caltha, Peonia, and Alcea; these produce no seeds, and are termed eunuchs. Philos. Botan. No. 150.
These vegetable monsters are formed in many ways. 1st. By the multiplication of the petals and the exclusion of the nectaries, as in larkspur. 2d. By the multiplication of the nectaries and exclusion of the petals; as in columbine. 3d. In some flowers grow ing in cymes, the wheel-shape flowers in the margin are multiplied to the exclusion of the bell-shape flowers in the centre; as in gelder-rose. 4th. By the elongation of the florets in the centre. Instances of both these are found in daily feverfew; for other kinds of vegetable monsters, see Plantago.
The per•anth is not changed in double flowers, hence the genus or family may be often disovered by the calyx, as in Hepatica, Ranunculus, Alcea. In those flowers, which have many petals, the lowest series of the petals remains unchanged in respect to num ber; hence the natural number of the petals is easily discovered. As in poppies, roses, and Nigella, or devil in a bush. Phil. Bot. p. 128.
Iris. 1. 71. Flower de Luce. Three males, one female. Some of the species have a beautifully freckled flower; the large stigma or head of the female covers the three males, counterfeiting a petal with its divisions.
Cupressus. l. 73. Cypress. One Hosse. The males live in separate flowers, but on the same plant. The males of some of these plants, which are in separate flowers from the females, have an elastic membrane; which disperses their dust to a considerable dis tance, when the anthers burst open. This dust, on a fine day, may often be seen like a cloud hanging round the common nettle. The males and females of all the cone bearing plants are in separate flowers, either on the same or on different plants; they produce resins, and many of them are supposed to supply the most durable timber: what is called Venice-turpentine is obtained from the larch by wounding the bark about two feet from the ground, and catching it as it exsudes; Sanda•ach is procured from com mon juniper; and lncense from a juniper with yellow fruit. The unperishable chests, which contain the Egyptian mummies, were of Cypress; and the Cedar, with which black lead pencils are covered, is not liable to be eaten by worms. See Miln's Bot. Dict. art. coniferae. The gates of St. Peter's church at Rome, which had lasted from the time of Constantine to that of Pope Eugene the fourth, that is to say eleven hun dred years, were of Cypress, and had in that time suffered no decay. According to Thucydides, the Athenians buried the bodies of their heroes in coffins of Cypress, as being not subject to decay. A similar durability has also been ascribed to Cedar. Thus Horace,
Osyris. l. 75. Two houses. The males and females are on different plants. There are many instances on record, where female plants have been impregnated at very great distance from their male; the dust discharged from the anthers is very light, small, and copious, so that it may spread very wide in the atmosphere, and be carried to the distant pistils, without the supposition of any particular attraction; these plants resemble some insects, as the ants, and cochineal insect, of which the males have wings, but not the female.
Plantago. l. 77. Rosea. Rose-Plantain. In this vegetable monster the bractes, or di visions of the spike, become wonderfully enlarged; and are converted into leaves. The chassy scales of the calyx in Xeranthemum, and in a species of Dianthus, and the glume in some alpine grasses, and the scales of the ament in the salix rosea willow, grow into leaves; and produce other kinds of monsters. The double flowers become monsters by the multiplication of their petals or nectaries. See note on Alcea.
Anthoxanthum. l. 83. Vernal grass. Two males, two females. The other grasses have three males and two females. The flowers of this grass give the fragrant scent to hay. I am informed it is frequently viviparous, that is, that it bears sometimes roots or bulbs inst ad of seeds, which after a time drop off and strike root into the ground. This circumstance is said to obtain in many of the alpine grasses, whose seeds are perpetually devoured by small birds. The Festuca Dumetorum, sescue grass of the bushes, produces bulbs from the sheaths of its straw. The Allium Magicum, or magical onion, produces onions on its head, instead of seeds. The Polygonum Viviparum, viviparous bistort, rises about a foot high, with a beautiful spike of flowers, which are succeeded by buds or bulbs, which fall off and take root. There is a bush frequently seen on birch-trees, like a bird's nest, which seems to be a similar attempt of nature, to produce another tree; which falling off might take root in spongy ground.
There is an instance of this double mode of production in the animal kingdom, which is equally extraordinary: the same species of Aphis is viviparous in summer, and ovi parous in autumn. A. T. Bladh. Amoen. Acad. V. 7.
Osmunda. l. 93. This plant grows on moist rocks; the parts of its flower or its seeds are scarce discernible; whence Linneus has given the name of clandestine marriage to this class. The younger plants are of a beautiful vivid green.
Chondrilla. l. 97. Of the class Confederate Males. The numerous florets, which constitu•e the disk of the flowers in this class, contain in each five males surrounding one female, which are connected at top, whence the name of the class. An Italian writer, in a discourse on the irritability of flowers, asserts, that if the top the floret be touched, all the filaments which support the cylindrical anther will contract themselves, and that by thus raising or depressing the anther the whole of the prolific dust is collected on the stigma. He adds, that if one filament be touched after it is separated from the floret, that it will contract like the muscular fibres of animal bodies, his experiments were tried on the Centauréa Calcitiapoides, and on artichokes, and globe-thistles. Dis course on irritability of plants. Dodsley.
Lychnis. l. 108. Ten males and five females. The flowers which contain the five females, and those which contain the ten males, are found on different plants; and often at a great distance from each other. Five of the ten males arrive at their maturity some days before the other five, as may be seen by opening the corol before it naturally expands itself. When the females arrive at their maturity, they rise above the petals, as if looking abroad for their distant husbands; the scarlet ones contribute much to the beauty of our meadows in May and June.
Gloriosa. l. 119. Superba. Six males, one female. The petals of this beautiful flower with three of the stamens, which are first mature, stand up in apparent disorder; and the pistil bends at nearly a right angle to insert its stigma amongst them. In a few days, as these decline, the other three stamens bend over, and approach the pistil. In the Fritillaria Persica, the six stamens are of equal lengths, and the anthers lie at a distance from the pistil, and three alternate ones approach first; and, when these decline, the other three approach; in the Lithrum Salicaria, (which has twelve males and one female) a beautiful red flower, which grows on the banks of rivers, six of the males arrive at ma turity, and surround the female some time before the other six; when these decline, the other six rise up, and supply their places. Several other flowers have in similar manner two sets of stamens of different ages, as Adoxa, Lychnis, Saxifraga. See Genista. Per haps a difference in the time of their maturity obtains in all these flowers, which have numerous stamens. In the Kalmia the ten stamens lie round the pistil like the radii of a wheel; and each anther is concealed in a nich of the corol to protect it from cold and moisture; these anthers rise separately from their niches, and approach the pistil for a time, and then recede to their former situations.
Silene. l. 139. Catchfly. Three females and ten males inhabit each flower; the viscous material, which surrounds the stalks under the flowers of this plant, and of the Cucubulus Otites, is a curious contrivance to prevent various insects from plundering the honey, or devouring the seed. In the Dionaea Muscipula there is a still more won derful contrivance to prevent the depredations of insects: The leaves are armed with long teeth, like the antennae of insects, and lie spread upon the ground round the stem; and are so irritable, that when an insect creeps upon them, they fold up, and crush or pierce it to death. The last professor Linneus, in his Supplementum Plantarum, gives the fol lowing account of the Arum Muscivorum. The flower has the smell of carrion; by which the flies are invited to lay their eggs in the chamber of the flower, but in vain en deavour to escape, being prevented by the hairs pointing inwards; and thus perish in the flower, whence its name of fly-eater. P. 411. in the Dypsacus is another contrivance for this purpose, a bason of water is placed round each joint of the stem. In the Drosera is another kind of fly-trap. See Dypsacus and Drosera; the flowers of Siléne and Cucú balus are closed all day, but are open and give an agreeable odour in the night. See Cerea. See additional notes at the end of the poem.
Amaryllis. l. 152. Formosissima. Most beautiful Amaryllis. Six males, one female. Some of the bell-flowers close their apertures at night, or in rainy or cold weather, as the convolvulus, and thus protect their included stamens and pistils. Other bell-flowers hang their apertures downwards, as many of the lilies; in those the pistil, when at maturity, is longer than the stamens; and by this pendant attitude of the bell, when the anthers burst, their dust falls on the stigma; and these are at the same time sheltered as with an umbrella from rain and dews. But, as a free exposure to the air is necessary for their fecundation, the style and filaments in many of these flowers continue to grow longer after the bell is open, and hang down below its rim. In others, as in the mar tagon, the bell is deeply divided, and the divisions are reflected upwards, that they may not prevent the access of air, and at the same time afford some shelter from perpendicular rain or dew. Other bell-flowers, as the hemerocallis and amaryllis, have their bells nodding only, as it were, or hanging obliquely toward the horizon; which, as their stems are slender, turn like a weathercock from the wind; and thus very effectually preserve their inclosed stamens and anthers from the rain and cold. Many of these flowers, both before and after their season of fecundation, erect their heads perpen dicular to the horizon, like the Meadia, which cannot be explained from meer mechanism.
The Amaryllis formosissima is a flower of the last mentioned kind, and affords an agreeable example of art in the vegetable economy. 1. The pistil is of great length compared with the stamens; and this I suppose to have been the most unchangeable part of the flower, as in Meadia, which see. 2. To counteract this circumstance, the pistil and stamens are made to decline downwards, that the prolific dust might fall from the anthers on the stigma. 3. To produce this effect, and to secure it when produced, the corol is lacerated, contrary to what occurs in other flowers of this genus, and the lowest division with the two next lowest ones are wrapped closely over the style and filaments, binding them forceibly down lower toward the horizon than the usual inclination of the bell in this genus, and thus constitutes a most elegant flower. There is another con trivance for this purpose in the Hemeroca•lis flava; the long pistil often is bent some what like the capital letter N, with design to shorten it, and thus to bring the stigma amongst the anthers.
Ilex. l. 161. Holly. Four males, four females. Many plants, like many animals, are furnished with arms for their protection; these are either aculei, prickles, as in rose and barberry, which are formed from the outer bark of the plant; or spinae, thorns, as in hawthorn, which are an elongation of the wood, and hence more difficult to be torn off than the former; or stimuli, stings, as in the nettles, which are armed with a venom ous fluid for the annoyance of naked animals. The shrubs and trees, which have prickles or thorns, are grateful food to many animals, as goosberry, and gorse; and would be quickly devoured, if not thus armed; the stings seem a protection against some kinds of insects, as well as the naked mouths of quadrupeds. Many plants lose their thorns by cultivation, as wild animals lose their ferocity; and some of them their horns. A curi ous circumstance attends the large hollies in Needwood-forest, they are armed with thorny leaves about eight feet high, and have smooth leaves above; as if they were con scious that horses and cattle could not reach their upper branches. See note on Meadia, and on Mancinella. The numerous clumps of hollies in Needwood-forest serve as land marks to direct the travellers across it in various directions; and as a shelter to the deer and cattle in winter; and in scarce seasons supply them with much food. For when the upper branches, which are without prickles, are cut down, the deer crop the leaves and peel off the bark. The bird-lime made from the bark of hollies seems to be a very similar material to the elastic gum, or Indian rubber, as it is called. There is a fossile elastic bitumen found at Matlock in Derbyshire, which much resembles these substances in its elasticity and inflammability. The thorns of the mimosa cornigere resemble cow's horns in appearance as well as in use. System of Vegetables, p. 782.
Hurls his red lavas. l. 176. Alluding to the grand paintings of the eruptions of Vesuvius, and of the destruction of the Spanish vessels before Gibraltar; and to the beautiful landscapes and moonlight scenes, by Mr. Wright of Derby.
Kleinhovia. l. 183. In this class the males in each flower are supported by the female. The name of the class may be translated "Viragoes," or "Feminine Males."
The largest tree perhaps in the world is of the same natural order as Kleinhovia, it is the Adansonia, or Ethiopian Sour-gourd, or African Calabash tree. Mr. Adanson says the diameter of the trunk frequently exceeds 25 feet, and the horizontal branches are from 45 to 55 feet long, and so large that each branch is equal to the largest trees of Europe. The breadth of the top is from 120 to 150 feet. And one of the roots bared only in part by the washing away of the earth by the river, near which it grew, mea sured 110 feet long; and yet these stupendous trees never exceed 70 feet in height. Voyage to Senegal.
Tulipa. l. 205. Tulip. What is in common language called a bulbous root, is by Linneus termed the Hybernacle, or Winter-lodge of the young plant. As these bulbs in every respect resemble buds, except in their being produced under ground, and in clude the leaves and flower in miniature, which are to be expanded in the ensuing spring. By cautiously cutting in the early spring through the concentric coats of a tulip-root, longitudinally from the top to the base, and taking them off successively, the whole flower of the next summer's tulip is beautifully seen by the naked eye, with its petals, pistil, and stamens; the flowers exist in other bulbs, in the same manner, as in Hya cinths, but the individual flowers of these being less, they are not so easily dissected, or so conspicuous to the naked eye.
In the seeds of the Nymphaea Nelumto, the leaves of the plant are seen so distinctly, that Mr. Ferber sound out by them to what plant the seeds belonged. Amoen. Acad. V. vi. No. 120. He says that Mariotte first observed the future flower and foliage in the bulb of a Tulip; and adds, that it is pleasant to see in the buds of the Hepatica, and Pedicularis hirsuta, yet lying in the earth; and in the gems of Daphne Mezoreon; and at the base of Osmunda Lunaria, a perfect plant of the future year compleat in all its parts. Ibid.
Colchicum autumnale. l. 214. Autumnal Meadow-sassion. Six males, three females. The germ is buried within the root, which thus seems to constitute a part of the flower. Families of Plants. p. 242. These singular flowers appear in the autumn without any leaves, whence in some countries they are called Naked Ladies: in the March following the green leaves spring up, and in April the feed-vessel rises from the ground; the seeds ripen in May, contrary to the usual habits of vegetables, which flower in the spring, and ripen their seeds in the autumn. Miller's Dict. The juice of the root of this plant is so acrid as to produce violent effects on the human constitution, which also prevents it from being eaten by subterranean infects, and thus guards the seed-vessel during the winter. The desoliation of deciduous trees is announced by the flowering of the Colchicum; of these the ash is the last that puts forth its leaves, and the first that loses them. Phil. Bot. p. 275.
The Hamamelis, Witch Hazle, is another plant which flowers in autumn; when the leaves fall off, the flowers come out in clusters from the joints of the branches, and in Virginia ripen their seed in the ensuing spring; but in this country their seeds seldom ripen. Lin. Spec. Plant. Miller's Dict.
Helianthus. l. 223. Sun flower. The numerous florets, which constitute the disk of this flower, contain in each five males surrounding one female, the five stamens have their anthers connected at top, whence the name of the class "confederate male;" see note on Chondrilla. The sun-flower follows the course of the sun by nutation, not by twisting its stem. (Hales veg. stat.) Other plants, when they are confined in a room, turn the shining surface of their leaves, and bend their whole branches to the light. See Mimosa.
A plumed Lady leads. l. 226. The seeds of many plants of this class are furnished with a plume, by which admirable mechanism they are disseminated by the winds far from their parent stem, and look like a shuttlecock, as they fly. Other seeds are disseminated by animals; of these some attach themselves to their hair or feathers by a gluten, as misleto; others by hooks, as cleavers, burdock, hounds-tongue; and others are swallowed whole for the sake of the fruit, and voided uninjured, as the hawthorn, juniper, and some grasses. Other seeds again disperse themselves by means of an elastic seed-vessel, as Oats, Geranium, and Impatiens; and the seeds of aquatic plants, and of those which grow on the banks of rivers, are carried many miles by the currents, into which they fall. See Impatiens. Zostera. Cassia. Carlina.
Drosera. l. 231. Sun-dew. Five males, five females. The leaves of this marsh plant are purple, and have a fringe very unlike other vegetable productions. And, which is curious, at the point of every thread of this erect fringe stands a pellucid drop of mu cilage, resembling a ducal coronet. This mucus is a secretion from certain glands, and like the viscous material round the flower-stalks of Silene (catchfly) prevents small in sects from infesting the leaves. As the ear-wax in animals seems to be in part designed to prevent fleas and other infects from getting into their ears. See Silene. Mr. Wheatly, an eminent surgeon in Cateaton-street, London, observed these leaves to bend upwards, when an insect settled on them, like the leaves of the muscipula veneris, and pointing all their globules of mucus to the centre, that they compleatly intangled and destroyed it. M. Broussonet, in the Mem. de l'Acad. des Sciences for the year 1784. p. 615. after having described the motion of the Dionaea, adds, that a similar appearance has been observed in the leaves of two species of Drosera.
Lonicera. l. 243. Caprifolium. Honeysuckle. Five males, one female. Nature has in many flowers used a wonderful apparatus to guard the nectary, or honey-gland, from infects. In the honey-suckle the petal terminates in a long tube like a cornucopiae, or horn of plenty; and the honey is produced at the bottom of it. In Aconitum, monks hood, the nectaries stand upright like two horns covered with a hood, which abounds with such acrid matter that no infects penetrate it. In Helleborus, hellebore, the many nectaries are placed in a circle, like little pitchers, and add much to the beauty of the flower. In the Columbine, Aquilegia, the nectary is imagined to be like the neck and body of a bird, and the two petals standing upon each side to represent wings; whence its name of columbine, as if resembling a nest of young pigeons fluttering whilst their parent feeds them. The importance of the nectary in the economy of vegetation is ex plained at large in the note on part the first.
Many infects are provided with a long and pliant proboscis for the purpose of acquiring this grateful food, as a variety of bees, moths, and butterflies: but the Sphinx Con volvuli, or unicorn moth, is furnished with the most remarkable proboscis in this climate. It carries it rolled up in concentric circles under its chin, and occasionally extends it to above three inches in length. This trunk consists of joints and muscles, and seems to have more versatile movements than the trunk of the elephant; and near its termination is split into two capillary tubes. The excellence of this contrivance for robbing the flowers of their honey, keeps this beautiful insect fat and bulky; though it flies only in the evening, when the flowers have closed their petals, and are thence more difficult of access; at the same time the brilliant colours of the moth contribute to its safety, by making it mistaken by the late sleeping birds for the flower it rests on.
Besides these there is a curious contrivance attending the Ophrys, commonly called the Bee-orchis, and the Fly-orchis, with some kinds of the Delphinium, called Bee larkspurs, to preserve their honey; in these the nectary and petals resemble in form and colour the insects, which plunder them: and thus it may be supposed, they often escape these hourly robbers, by having the appearance of being pre-occupied. See note on Rubia, and Conferva polymorpha.
Draba. l. 252. Alpina. Alpine Whitlow-grass. One female and six males. Four of these males stand above the other two; whence the name of the class "four powers." I have observed in several plants of this class, that the two lower males arise, in a few days after the opening of the flower, to the same height as the other four, not being mature as soon as the higher ones. See note on Gloriosa. All the plants of this class possess similar virtues; they are termed acrid and anti corbutic in their raw state, as mustard, watercress; when cultivated and boiled, they become a mild wholesome food, as cabbage, turnep.
There was formerly a Volcano on the Peake of Tenerif, which became extinct about the year 1684. Philos. Trans. In many excavations of the mountain, much below the summit, there is now found abundance of ice at all seasons. Tench's Expedition to Botany Bay, p. 12. Are these congelations in consequence of the daily solution of the hoar-frost which is produced on the summit during the night?
Viscum. l. 260. Misletoe. Two houses. This plant never grows upon the ground; the foliage is yellow, and the berries milk-white; the berries are so viscous, as to serve for bird-lime; and when they fall, adhere to the branches of the tree, on which the plant grows, and strike root into its bark; or are carried to distant trees by birds. The Til landsia, or wild pine, grows on other trees, like the Misletoe, but takes little or no nourishment from them, having large buckets in its leaves to collect and retain the rain water. See note on Dypsacus. The mosses, which grow on the bark of trees, take much nourishment from them; hence it is observed that trees, which are annually cleared from moss by a brush, grow nearly twice as fast. (Phil. Transact.) In the cyder coun tries the peasants brush their apple-trees annually.
Zostera. l. 266. Grass-wrack. Class, Feminine Males. Order, Many Males. It grows at the bottom of the sea, and rising to the surface, when in flower, covers many leagues; and is driven at length to the shore. During its time of floating on the sea, numberless animals live on the under surface of it, and being specifically lighter than the sea water, or being repelled by it, have legs placed as it were on their backs for the purpose of walking under it. As the Scylloea. See Barbut's Genera Vermium. It seems necessary that the marriages of plants should be celebrated in the open air, either because the powder of the anther, or the mucilage on the stigma, or the reservoir of honey might receive injury from the water. Mr. Needham observed, that in the ripe dust of every flower, examined by the microscope some vesicles are perceived, from which a fluid had escaped; and that those, which st••retain it, explode if they be wetted, like an eolopile suddenly exposed to a strong he••. These observations have been verified by Spallanzani and others. Hence rainy seasons make a scarcity of grain, or hinder its fecundity, by bursting the pollen before it arrives at the moist stigma of the flower. Spallanzani's Dissertations, v. II. p. 321. Thus the flowers of the male Val lisneria are produced under water, and when ripe detach themselves from the plant, and rising to the surface are wafted by the air to the female flowers. See Vallisneria.
Barometz. l. 284. Polypodium Barometz. Tartarian Lamb. Clandestine Marriage. This species of Fern is a native of China, with a decumbent root, thick, and every where covered with the most soft and dense wool, intensely yellow. Lin. Spec. Plant.
This curious stem is sometimes pushed out of the ground in its horizontal situation by some of the inferior branches of the root, so as to give it some resemblance to a Lamb standing on four legs; and has been said to destroy all other plants in its vicinity. Sir Hans Sloane describes it under the name of Tartarian Lamb, and has given a print of it. Philos. Trans. abridged, v. 11. p. 646. but thinks some art had been used to give it an animal appearance. Dr. Hunter, in his edition of the Terra of Evelyn, has given a more curious print of it, much resembling a sheep. The down is used in India exter nally for stopping hemorrhages, and is called golden moss.
The thick downy clothing of some vegetables seems designed to protect them from the injuries of cold, like the wool of animals. Those bodies, which are bad conductors of electricity, are also bad conductors of heat, as glass, wax, air. Hence either of the two former of these may be melted by the flame of a blow-pipe very near the fingers which hold it without burning them; and the last, by being confined on the surface of animal bodies, in the interstices of their fur or wool, prevents the escape of their natural warmth; to which should be added, that the hairs themselves are imperfect conductors. The fat or oil of whales, and other northern animals, seems designed for the same pur pose of preventing the too sudden escape of the heat of the body in cold climates. Snow protects vegetables which are covered by it from cold, both because it is a bad conductor of heat itself, and contains much air in its pores. If a piece of camphor be immersed in a snow-ball, except one extremity of it, on setting fire to this, as the snow melts, the water becomes absorbed into the surrounding snow by capillary, attraction; on this c count, when living animals are buried in snow, they are not most ned by it; but the cavity enlarges as the snow dissolves, affording them both a dry and warm habitation.
Mimosa. l. 321. The sensitive plant. Of the class Polygamy, one house. Naturalists have not explained the immediate cause of the collapsing of the sensitive plant; the leaves meet and close in the night during the sleep of the plant, or when exposed to much cold in the day-time, in the same manner as when they are affected by external violence, fold ing their upper surfaces together, and in part over each other like seales or tiles; so as to expose as little of the upper surface as may be to the air; but do not indeed collapse quite so far, since I have found, when touched in the night during their sleep, they fall still further; especially when touched on the foot-stalks between the stems and the leaflets, which seems to be their most sensitive or irritable part. Now as their situation after being exposed to external violence resembles their sleep, but with a greater degree of col lapse, may it not be owing to a numbness or paralysis consequent to too violent irri tation, like the saintings of animals from pain or fatigue? I kept a sensitive plant in a dark room till some hour after day-break; its leaves and leas-stalks were collapsed as in its most prosound sleep, and on exposing it to the light, above twenty minutes passed before the plant was thoroughly awake and had quite expanded itself. During the night the upper or smoother surfaces of the leaves are appressed together; this would seem to shew that the office of this surface of the leaf was to expose the fluids of the plant to the light as well as to the air. See note on Helianthus. Many flowers close up their petals during the night. See note on vegetable respiration in Part I.
Anemone. l. 318. Many males, many females. Pliny says this flower never opens its petals but when the wind blows; whence its name: it has properly no calix, but two or three sets of petals, three in each set, which are folded over the stamens and pistil in a singular and beautiful manner, and differs also from ranunculus in not having a melli ferous pore on the claw of each petal.
The Swallow. l. 322. There is a wonderful conformity between the vegetation of some plants, and the arrival of certain birds of passage. Linneus observes that the wood anemone blows in Sweden on the arrival of the swallow; and the marsh mary-gold, Caltha, when the cuckoo sings. Near the same coincidence was observed in England by Stillingfleet. The word Coccux in Greek signifies both a young fig and a cuckoo, which is supposed to have arisen from the coincidence of their appearance in Greece. Perhaps a similar coincidence of appearance in some parts of Asia gave occasion to the story of the loves of the rose and nightingale, so much celebrated by the eastern poets. See Dianthus. The times however of the appearance of vegetables in the spring seem occasionally to be influenced by their acquired habits, as well as by their sensibility to heat: for the roots of potatoes, onions, &c. will germinate with much less heat in the spring than in the autumn; as is easily observable where these roots are stored for use; and hence malt is best made in the spring. 2d. The grains and roots brought from more southern latitudes germinate here sooner than those which are brought from more northern ones, owing to their acquired habits. Fordyce on Agriculture. 3d. It was observed by one of the scholars of Linneus, that the apple-trees sent from hence to New England blossomed for a few years too early for that climate, and bore no fruit; but afterwards learnt to accommodate themselves to their new situation. (Kalm's Travels. ) 4th. The parts of animals become more sensible to heat after having been previously exposed to cold, as our hands glow on coming into the house after having held snow in them; this seems to happen to vegetables; for vines in grape-houses, which have been exposed to the winter's cold, will become forwarder and more vigorous than those which have been kept during the winter in the house. (Kenedy on Gardening.) This accounts for the very rapid vegetation in the northern latitudes after the solution of the snows.
The increase of the irritability of plants in respect to heat, after having been previ ously exposed to cold, is further illustrated by an experiment of Dr. Walker's. He cut apertures into a birch-tree at different heights; and on the 26th of March some of these apertures bled, or oozed with the sap-juice, when the thermometer was at 39; which same apertures did not bleed on the 13th of March, when the thermometer was at 44. The reason of this I apprehend was, because on the night of the 25th the thermometer was as low as 34; whereas on the night of the 12th it was at 41; though the ingenious author ascribes it to another cause. Trans. of Royal Soc. of Edinburgh, V. I. P. 19.
Lichen. l 349. Calcareum. Liver-wort. Clandestine Marriage. This plant is the first that vegetates on naked rocks, covering them with a kind of tapestry, and draws its nourishment perhaps chiefly from the air; after it perishes, earth enough is left for other mosses to root themselves; and after some ages a soil is produced sufficient for the growth of more succulent and large vegetables. In this manner perhaps the whole earth has been gradually covered with vegetation, after it was raised out of the primeval ocean by subterraneous fires.
Dypsacus. l. 367. Teasel. One female, and four males. There is a cup around every joint of the stem of this plant, which contains from a spoonful to half a pint of water; and serves both for the nutriment of the plant in dry seasons, and to prevent in sects from creeping up to devour its seed. See Silene. The Tillandsia, or wild pine, of the West Indies has every leaf terminated near the stalk with a hollow bucket, which contains from half a pint to a quart of water. Dampier's Voyage to Campeachy. Dr. Sloane mentions one kind of aloe furnished with leaves, which, like the wild pine and Banana, hold water; and thence afford necessary refreshment to travellers in hot coun tries. Nepenthes had a bucket for the same purpose at the end of every leaf. Burm. Zeyl. 42. 17.
Rubia. l. 375. Madder. Four males and one female. This plant is cultivated in very large quantities for dying red. If mixed with the food of young pigs or chickens, it colours their bones red. If they are fed alternate fortnights with a mixture of madder, and with their usual food alone, their bones will consist of concentric circles of white and red. Belchier, Phil. Trans. 1736. Animals fed with madder for the purpose of these experiments were found upon dissection to have thinner gall. Comment. de rebus. Lipsiae. This circumstance is worth further attention. The colouring materials of vege tables, like those which serve the purpose of tanning, varnishing, and the various medi cal purposes, do not seem essential to the life of the plant; but seem given it as a defence against the depredations of insects or other animals, to whom these materials are nauseous or deleterious. To insects and many smaller animals their colours contribute to conceal them from the larger ones which prey upon them. Caterpillars which feed on leaves are generally green; and earth-worms the colour of the earth which they inhabit; Butter flies, which frequent flowers, are coloured like them; small birds which frequent hedges have greenish backs like the leaves, and light coloured bellies like the sky, and are hence less visible to the hawk, who passes under them or over them. Those birds which are much amongst flowers, as the gold-finch (Fringilla carduelis), are furnished with vivid colours. The lark, partridge, hare, are the colour of the dry vegetables or earth on which they rest. And frogs vary their colour with the mud of the streams which they frequent; and those which live on trees are green. Fish, which are generally suspended in water, and swallows, which are generally suspended in air, have their backs the co lour of the distant ground, and their bellies of the sky. In the colder climates many of these become white during the existence of the snows. Hence there is apparent design in the colours of animals, whilst those of vegetables seem consequent to the other pro perties of the materials which possess them.
Pleased on the boiling wave. l. 387. The story of Aeson becoming young, from the medicated bath of Medea, seems to have been intended to teach the efficacy of warm bathing in retarding the progress of old age. The words relaxation and bracing, which are generally thought expressive of the effects of warm and cold bathing, are mechanical terms, properly applied to drums or strings; but are only metaphors when applied to the effects of cold or warm bathing on animal bodies. The immediate cause of old age seems to reside in the inirritability of the finer vessels or parts of our system; hence these cease to act, and collapse or become horny or bony. The warm bath is peculiarly adapted to prevent these circumstances by its increasing our irritability, and by moisten ing and softening the skin, and the extremities of the finer vessels, which terminate in it. To those who are past the meridian of life, and have dry skins, and begin to be emaciated, the warm bath, for half an hour twice a week, I believe to be eminently ferviceable in retarding the advances of age.
Vallisneria. l. 395. This extraordinary plant is of the class Two Houses. It is found in the East Indies, in Norway, and various parts of Italy. Lin. Spec. Plant. They have their roots at the bottom of the Rhone, the flowers of the female plant float on the sur face of the water, and are furnished with an elastic spiral stalk, which extends or contracts as the water rises and falls; this rise or fall, from the rapid descent of the river, and the mountain torrents which flow into it, often amounts to many feet in a few hours. The flowers of the male plant are produced under water, and as soon as their farina, or dust, is mature; they detach themselves from the plant, and rise to the surface, continue to flourish, and are wafted by the air, or borne by the currents to the female flowers. In this resembling those tribes of insects, where the males at certain seasons acquire wings, but not the females, as ants, Cocchus, Lampyris, Phalaena, Brumata, Lichanella. These male flowers are in such numbers, though very minute, as frequently to cover the surface of the river to considerable extent. See Families of Plants translated from Linnéus, P. 677.
Ulva. l. 407. Clandestine marriage. This kind of sea-weed is buoyed up by bladders of air, which are formed in the duplicatures of its leaves; and forms immense float ing fields of vegetation; the young ones, branching out from the larger ones, and borne on similar little air-vessels. It is also found in the warm baths of Patavia; where the leaves are formed into curious cells or labyrinths for the purpose of floating on the water. See ulva labyrinthi-formis Lin. Spec. Plant. The air contained in these cells was found by Dr. Priestley to be sometimes purer than common air, and sometimes less pure; the air-bladders of fish seem to be similar organs, and serve to render them buoyant in the water. In some of these, as in the Cod and Haddock, a red membrane, consisting of a great number of leaves or duplicatures, is sound within the air-bag, which probably secretes this air from the blood of the animal. (Monro. Physiol. of Fish. p. 28.) To determine whether this air, when first separated from the blood of the animal or plant, be dephlogisticated air, is worthy inquiry. The bladder-sena (Colutea), and bladder-nut (Staphylaea), have their seed-vessels distended with air; the Ketmia has the upper joint of the stem immediately under the receptacle of the flower much distended with air; these seem to be analogous to the air-vessel at the broad end of the egg, and may probably become less pure as the seed ripens: some, which I tried, had the purity of the surround ing atmosphere. The air at the broad end of the egg is probably an organ serving the purpose-of respiration to the young chick, some of whose vessels are spread upon it like a placenta, or permeate it. Many are of opinion that even the placenta of the human setus, and cotyledons of quadropeds, are respiratory organs rather than nutritious ones.
The air in the hollow stems of grasses, and of some umbelliserous plants, bears analogy to the air in the quills, and in some of the bones of birds; supplying the place of the pith, which shrivels up after it has performed its office of protruding the young stem or feather. Some of these cavities of the bones are said to communicate with the lungs in birds. Phil. Trans.
The air-bladders of fish are nicely adapted to their intended purpose; for though they render them buoyant near the surface without the labour of using their fins, yet, when they rest at greater depths, they are no inconvenience, as the increased pressure of the water condenses the air which they contain into less space. Thus, if a cork or bladder of air was immersed a very great depth in the ocean, it would be so much compressed, as to become specially as heavy as the water, and would remain there. It is probable the unfortunate Mr. Day, who was drowned in a diving-ship of his own construction, milcarried from not attending to this circumstance; it is probable the quantity of air he took down with him, if he descended much lower than he expected, was condensed into so small a space as not to render the ship buoyant when he endeavoured to ascend.
Tremella. l. 427. Clandestine marriage. I have frequently observed fungusses of this Genus on old rails and on the ground to become a transparent jelly, after they had been frozen in autumnal mornings; which is a curious property, and distinguishes them from some other vegetable mucilage; for I have observed that the paste, made by boiling wheat-flour in water, ceases to be adhesive after having been frozen. I suspected that the Tremella Nostoc, or star-jelly, also had been thus produced; but have since been well informed, that the Tremella Nostoc is a mucilage voided by Herons after they have eaten frogs; hence it has the appearance of having been pressed through a hole; and limbs of frogs are said sometimes to be found amongst it; it is always seen upon plains or by the sides of water, places which Herons generally frequent.
Some of the Fungusses are so acrid, that a drop of their juice blisters the tongue; others intoxicate those who eat them. The Ostiacks in Siberia use them for the latter purpose; one Fungus of the species, Agaricus muscarum, eaten raw; or the decoction of three of them, produces intoxication for 12 or 16 hours. History of Russia. V. I. Nichols. 1780. As all acrid plants become less so, if exposed to a boiling heat, it is probable the common mushroom may sometimes disagree from being not sufficiently stewed. The Ostiacks blister their skin by a fungus found on Birch-trees; and use the Agaricus officin. for Soap. ib.
There was a dispute whether the fungusses should be classed in the animal or vegetable department. Their animal taste in cookery, and their animal smell when burnt, toge ther with their tendency to putrefaction, insomuch that the Phallus impudicus has gained the name of stink-horn; and lastly, their growing and continuing healthy without light, as the Licoperdon tuber or truffle, and the fungus vinosus or mucor in dark cellars, and the esculent mushrooms on beds covered thick with straw, would seem to shew that they approach towards the animals, or make a kind of isthmus connecting the two mighty kingdoms of animal and of vegetable nature.
INTERLUDE.
YOUR verses, Mr. Botanist, consist of pure de scription, I hope there is sense in the notes.
I am only a flower-painter, or occasionally attempt a land skip; and leave the human figure with the subjects of history to abler artists.
It is well to know what subjects are within the limits of your pencil; many have failed of success from the want of this self knowledge. But pray tell me, what is the essential difference be tween Poetry and Prose? is it solely the melody or measure of the language?
I think not solely; for some prose has its melody, and even measure. And good verses, well spoken in a language unknown to the hearer, are not easily to be distinguished from good prose.
Is it the sublimity, beauty, or novelty of the sentiments?
Not so; for sublime sentiments are often better expressed in prose. Thus when Warwick in one of the plays of Shakespear, is left wounded on the field after the loss of the battle, and his friend says to him, "Oh, could you but fly!" what can be more sublime than his answer, "Why then, I would not fly." No measure of verse, I imagine, could add dignity to this sentiment. And it would be easy to select examples of the beautiful or new from prose writers, which I suppose no measure of verse could improve.
In what then consists the essential difference between Poetry and Prose?
Next to the measure of the language, the principal distinction appears to me to consist in this: that Poetry admits of but few words expressive of very abstracted ideas, whereas Prose abounds with them. And as our ideas derived from visible objects are more dis tinct than those derived from the objects of our other sense, the words expressive of these ideas belonging to vision make up the principal part of poetic language. That is, the Poet writes princi pally[Page 50] to the eye, the Prose-writer uses more abstracted terms. Mr. Pope has written a bad verse in the Windsor Forest:And Kennet swift for silver Eels renown'd. The word renown'd does not present the idea of a visible object to the mind, and is thence prosaic. But change this line thus,And Kennet swift, where silver Graylings play. and it becomes poetry, because the scenery is then brought before the eye.
This may be done in prose.
And when it is done in a single word, it animates the prose; so it is more agreeable to read in Mr. Gibbon's History,Germany was at this time over-shadowed with extensive forests;than Germany was at this time full of extensive forests. But where this mode of expression occurs too frequently, the prose approaches to poetry: and in graver works, where we expect to be instructed ra ther than amused, it becomes tedious and impertinent. Some parts of Mr. Burke's eloquent orations become intricate and enervated by superfluity of poetic ornament; which quantity of ornament would have been agreeable in a poem, where much ornament is ex pected.
Is then the office of Poetry only to amuse?
The Muses are young ladies, we expect to see them dressed; though not like some modern beauties with so much gauze and fea ther, that "the Lady herself is the least part of her." There are however didactic pieces of poetry, which are much admired, as the Georgics of Virgil, Mason's English Garden, Hayley's Epistles; nevertheless Science is best delivered in Prose, as its mode of reason ing is from stricter analogies than metaphors or similies.
Do not Personifications and Allegories distinguish poetry?
These are other arts of bringing objects before the eye; or of expressing sentiments in the language of vision; and are indeed better suited to the pen than the pencil.
That is strange, when you have just said they are used to bring their objects before the eye.
In poetry the personification or allegoric figure is generally indistinct, and therefore does not strike us so forcibly as to make us attend to its improbability; but in painting, the figures being all[Page 52] much more distinct, their improbability becomes apparent, and seizes our attention to it. Thus the person of Concealment is very indis tinct, and therefore does not compel us to attend to its improbability, in the following beautiful lines of Shakespear:
But in these lines below the person of Reason obtrudes itself into our company, and becomes disagreeable by its distinctness, and cones quent improbability.
Allegoric figures are on this account in general less manageable in painting and in statuary than in poetry: and can seldom be intro duced in the two former arts in company with natural figures, as is evident from the ridiculous effect of many of the paintings of Rubens in the Luxemburgh gallery; and for this reason, because their im probability becomes more striking, when there are the figures of real persons by their side to compare them with.
[Page 53]Mrs. Angelica Kauffman, well apprised of this circumstance, has introduced no mortal figures amongst her Cupids and her Graces. And the great Roubiliac, in his unrivalled monument of Time and Fame struggling for the trophy of General Fleming, has only hung up a medallion of the head of the hero of the piece. There are however some allegoric figures, which we have so often heard described or seen delineated, that we almost forget that they do not exist in common life; and hence view them without astonishment; as the figures of the heathen mythology, of angels, devils, death and time; and almost believe them to be realities, even when they are mixed with representations of the natural forms of man. Whence I con clude, that a certain degree of probability is necessary to prevent us from revolting with distaste from unnatural images; unless we are otherwise so much interested in the contemplation of them as not to perceive their improbability.
Is this reasoning about degrees of probability just? — When Sir Joshua Reynolds, who is unequalled both in the theory and practice of his art, and who is a great master of the pen as well as the pencil, has asserted in a discourse delivered to the Royal Academy, December 11, 1786, thatthe higher styles of painting, like the higher kinds of the Drama, do not aim at any thing like deception; or have any expectation, that the spectators should think the events there represented are really passing before them.And he then accuses Mr. Fielding of bad judgment, when he attempts to compliment Mr. Garrick in one of his novels, by introducing an ignorant man, mistaking the representation of a scene in Hamlet for a reality; and[Page 54] thinks, because he was an ignorant man, he was less liable to make such a mistake.
It is a metaphysical question, and requires more attention than Sir Joshua has bestowed upon it. — You will allow, that we are per fectly deceived in our dreams; and that even in our waking reveries, we are often so much absorbed in the contemplation of what passes in our imaginations, that for a while we do not attend to the lapse of time or to our own locality; and thus suffer a similar kind of de ception as in our dreams. That is, we believe things present before our eyes, which are not so.
There are two circumstances, which contribute to this compleat deception in our dreams. First, because in sleep the organs of sense are closed or inert, and hence the trains of ideas associated in our imaginations are never interrupted or disserered by the irritations of external objects, and can not therefore be contrasted with our sen sations. On this account, though we are affected with a variety of passions in our dreams, as anger, love, joy; yet we never experience surprize. — For surprize is only produced when any external irrita tions suddenly obtrude themselves, and dissever our passing trains of ideas.
Secondly, because in sleep there is a total suspension of our volun tary power, both over the muscles of our bodies, and the ideas of our minds; for we neither walk about, nor reason in compleat sleep. Hence, as the trains of ideas are passing in our imaginations in dreams, we cannot compare them with our previous knowledge of things, as we do in our waking hours; for this is a voluntary exertion; and thus we cannot perceive their incongruity.
[Page 55]Thus we are deprived in sleep of the only two means by which we can distinguish the trains of ideas passing in our imaginations, from those excited by our sensations; and are led by their vivacity to be lieve them to belong to the latter. For the vivacity of these trains of ideas, passing in the imagination, is greatly increased by the causes above-mentioned; that is, by their not being disturbed or dissevered either by the appulses of external bodies, as in surprize; or by our voluntary exertions in comparing them with our previous knowledge of things, as in reasoning upon them.
Now to apply.
When by the art of the Painter or Poet a train of ideas is sug gested to our imaginations, which interests us so much by the pain or pleasure it affords, that we cease to attend to the irritations of common external objects, and cease also to use any voluntary efforts to compare these interesting trains of ideas with our previous know ledge of things, a compleat reverie is produced: during which time, however short, if it be but for a moment, the objects themselves appear to exist before us. This, I think, has been called by an in genious critic "the ideal presence" of such objects. (Elements of Criticism by Lord Kaimes). And in respect to the compliment in tended by Mr. Fielding to Mr. Garrick, it would seem that an ig norant Rustic at the play of Hamlet, who has some previous belief in the appearance of Ghosts, would sooner be liable to fall into re verie, and continue in it longer, than one who possessed more know ledge[Page 56] of the real nature of things, and had a greater facility of ex ercising his reason.
It must require great art in the Painter or Poet to produce this kind of deception?
The matter must be interesting from its sublimity, beauty, or novelty; this is the scientific part; and the art consists in bringing these distinctly before the eye, so as to produce (as above-mentioned) the ideal presence of the object, in which the great Shakespear par ticularly excells.
Then it is not of any consequence whether the representations correspond with nature?
Not if they so much interest the reader or spectator as to in duce the reverie above described. Nature may be seen in the market place, or at the card-table; but we expect something more than this in the play-house or picture-room. The further the artists recedes from nature, the greater novelty he is likely to produce; if he rises above nature, he produces the sublime; and beauty is probably a selection and new combination of her most agreeable parts. Your self will be sensible of the truth of this doctrine by recollecting over[Page 57] in your mind the works of three of our celebrated artists. Sir Joshua Reynolds has introduced sublimity even into its protraits; we admire the representation of persons, whose reality we should have passed by unnoticed. Mrs. Angelica Kauffman attracts our eyes with beauty, which I suppose no where exists; certainly few Grecian faces are seen in this country. And the daring pencil of Fuseli transports us beyond the boundaries of nature, and ravishes us with the charm of the most interesting novelty. And Shakespear, who excells in all these together, so far captivates the spectator, as to make him un mindful of every kind of violation of Time, Place, or Existence. As at the first appearance of the Ghost of Hamlet,his ear must be dull as the fat weed, which roots itself on Lethe's brink,who can attend to the improbality of the exhibition. So in many scenes of the Tempest we perpetually believe the action passing before our eyes, and relapse with somewhat of distaste into common life at the intervals of the representation.
I suppose a poet of less ability would find such great machi nery difficult and cumbersome to manage?
Just so, we should be shocked at the apparent improbabilities. As in the gardens of a Scicilian nobleman, described in Mr. Brydone's and in Mr. Swinburn's travels, there are said to be fix hundred statues of imaginary monsters, which so disgust the spectators, that the state had once a serious design of destroying them; and yet the very[Page 58] improbable monsters in Ovid's Metamorphoses have entertained the world for many centuries.
The monsters in your Botanic Garden, I hope, are of the latter kind?
The candid reader must determine.
THE LOVES OF THE PLANTS.
CANTO II.
Carlina. l. 7. Carline Thistle. Of the class Confederate Males. The feeds of this and of many other plants of the same class are furnished with a plume, by which ad mirable mechanism they perform long aërial journeys, crossing lakes and deserts, and are thus disseminated far from the original plant, and have much the appearance of a Shut tlecock as they fly. The wings are of different construction, some being like a diver gent tuft of hairs, others are branched like feathers, some are elevated from the crown of the feed by a slender foot-stalk, which gives them a very elegant appearance, others sit immediately on the crown of the seed.
Nature has many other curious vegetable contrivances for the dispersion of seeds: see note on Helianthus. But perhaps none of them has more the appearance of design than the admirable apparatus of Tillandsia for this purpose. This plant grows on the branches of trees, like the misleto, and never on the ground; the seeds are furnished with many long threads on their crowns; which, as they are driven forwards by the winds, wrap round the arms of trees, and thus hold them last till they vegetate. This is very analogous to the migration of Spiders on the gossamer, who are said to attach themselves to the end of a long thread, and rise thus to the tops of trees or buildings, as the accidental breezes carry them.
For thee the Bear. l. 60. Tibi jam brachia contrahit ardens Scorpius. Virg. Georg. l. 1. 34. A new star appeared in Cassiope's chair in 1572. Herschel's Construction of the Heavens. Phil. Trans. V. 75. p. 266.
Linum. l. 67. Flax Five males and five females. It was first found on the banks of the Nile. The Linum Lusitanicum, or portigal flax, has ten males: see the note on Curcuma. Isis was said to invent spinning and weaving: mankind before that time were clothed with the skins of animals. The fable of Arachne was to compliment this new art of spinning and weaving, supposed to surpass in fineness the web of the Spider.
Gossypia. l. 87. Gossypium. The cotton plant. On the river Derwent near Matlock in Derbyshire, Sir RICHARD ARKWRIGHT has erected his curious and magnificent machinery for spinning cotton; which had been in vain attempted by many ingenious artists before him. The cotton-wool is first picked from the pods and seeds by women. It is then c•rded by cylindrical cards which move against each other, with different ve locities. It is taken from these by an iron-hand or comb, which has a motion similar to that of scratching, and takes the wool off the cards longitudinally in respect to the fibres or staple, producing a continued line loosely cohering, called the Rove or Roving. This Rove, yet very loosely twisted, is then received or drawn into a whirling canister, and is rolled by the centrifugal force in spiral lines within it; being yet too tender for the spindle. It is then passed between two pairs of rollers; the second pair moving faster than the first elongate the thread with greater equality than can be done by the hand; and is then twisted on spoles or bobbins.
The great fertility of the Cotton-plant in these fine flexile threads, whilst these from Flax, Hemp, and Nettles, or from the bark of the Mulberry-tree, require a previous pu trefection of the parenchymatous substance, and much mechanical labour, and afterwards bleaching, renders this plant of great importance to the world. And since Sir Richard Arkwright's ingenious machine has not only greatly abbreviated and simplesied the labour and art of carding and spinning the Cotton-wool, but performs both these cir cumstances better than can be done by hand, it is probable, that the clothing of this snall seed will become the principal clothing of mankind; though animal wool and silk may be preferable in colder climates, as they are more imperfect conductors of heat, and are thence a warmer clothing.
Cyperus. Papyrus. l. 105. Three males, one female. The leaf of this plant was first used for paper, whence the word paper; and leaf, or folium, for a fold of a book. Af terwards the bark of a species of mulberry was used; whence liber signifies a book, and the bark of a tree. Before the invention of letters mankind may be said to have been perpatually in their infancy, as the arts of one age or country generally died with their inventors. Whence arose the policy, which still continues in Indostan, of obliging the son to practise the profession of his father. After the discovery of letters, the facts of Astronomy and Chemistry became recorded in written language, though the antient hieroglyphic characters for the planets and metals continue in use at this day. The an tiquity of the invention of music, of astronomical observations, and the manufacture of Gold and Iron, are recorded in Scripture.
About twenty letters, ten cyphers, and seven crotches, represent by their numerous combinations all our ideas and sensations! the musical characters are probably arrived at their perfection, unless emphasis, and tone, and swell could be exprssed, as well as note and time. Charles the Twelfth of Sweden had a design to have introduced a numeration by squares, instead of by decimation, which might have served the purposes of philosphy better than the present mode, which is said to be of Arabic invention. The alphabet is yet in a very imperfect state; perhaps seventeen letters could express all the simple sounds in the European languages. In China they have not yet learned to divide their words into syllables, and are thence necssitated to employ many thousand characters; it is said above eighty thousand. It is to be wished, in this ingenious age, that the European na tions would accord to reform our alphabet.
So now Delany. l. 155. Mrs. Delany has finished nine hundred and seventy accurate and elegant representations of different vegetables with the parts of their flowers, fructifi cation, &c. according with the classfication of Linneus, in what she terms paper-mosaic. She began this work at the age of 74, when her sight would no longer serve her to paint, in which she much excelled; between her age of 74 and 82, at which time her eyes quite failed her, she executed the curious Hortus siccus above-mentioned, which 1 suppose contains a greater number of plants than were ever before drawn from the life by any one person. Her method consisted in placing the leaves of each plant with the petals, and all the other parts of the flowers, on coloured paper, and cutting them with scissars accurately to the natural size and form, and then pasting them on a dark ground; the effect of which is wonderful, and their accuracy less liable to sallacy than drawings. She is at this time (1788) in her 89th year, with all the powers of a fine under standing still unimpaired. I am informed another very ingenious lady, Mrs. North, is constructing a similar Hortus siccus, or Paper-garden; which she executes on a ground of vellum with such elegant taste and scientific accuracy, that it cannot fail to become a work of inestimable value.
Lapsana, Nymphaea alba, Calendula. l. 165. And many other flowers close and open their petals at certain hours of the day; and thus constitute what Linneus calls the Horologe, or Watch of Flora. He enumerates 46 flowers, which possess this kind of sensibility. I shall mention a few of them with their respective hours of rising and setting, as Linneus terms them. He divides them first into meteoric flowers, which less accurate ly observe the hour of unfolding, but are expanded sooner or later, according to the cloudiness, moisture, or pressure of the atmosphere. 2d. Tropical flowers open in the morning and close before evening every day; but the hour of the expanding becomes earlier or later, as the length of the day increases or decreases. 3dly. Aequinoctial flow ers, which open at a certain and exact hour of the day, and for the most part close at another determinate hour.
Hence the Horologe or Watch of Flora is formed from numerous plants, of which the following are those most common in this country. Leontodon taraxacum, Dandelion, opens at 5 — 6, closes at 8 — 9. Hieracium pilosella, mouse-ear hawkweed, opens at 8, closes at 2. Sonchus laevis, smooth Sow-thistle, at 5 and at 11 — 12. Lactuca sativa, cultivated Lettice, at 7 and 10. Tragopogon luteum, yellow Goatsbeard, at 3 — 5 and at 9 — 10. Lapsana, nipplewort, at 5 — 6 and at 10 — 1. Nymphaea alba, white water lily, at 7 and 5. Papaver nudicaule, naked poppy, at 5 and at 7. Hemerocallis fulva, tawny Day-lily, at 5 and at 7 — 8. Convolvulus, at 5 — 6. Malva, Mallow, at 9 — 10, and at 1. Arenarea purpurea, purple Sandwort, at 9 — 10, and at 2 — 3. Anagallis, pimpernel, at 7 — 8. Portulaca hortensis, garden Purslain, at 9 — 10, and at 11 — 12. Dianthus prolifer, proliferous Pink, at 8 and at 1. Cichoreum. Succory, at 4 — 5. Hypochaeris, at 6 — 7, and at 4 — 5. Crepis at 4 — 5, and at 10 — 11. Pi•ris, at 4 — 5, and at 12. Calendula field, at 9, and at 3. Calendula African, at 7, and at 3 — 4.
As these observations were probably made in the botanic gardens at Upsal, they must require further attention to suit them to our climate. See Stillingfleet's Calendar of Flora.
Helleborus. l. 201. Many males, many females. The Helleborus niger, or Christ mas rose, has a large beautiful white flower, adorned with a circle of tubular two-lipp'd nectaries. After impregnation the flower undergoes a remarkable change, the nectaries, drop off, but the white corol remains, and gradually becomes quite green. This curious metamorph se of the corol, when the nectaries fall off, seems to shew that the white juices of the corol were before carried to the nectaries, for the purpose of producing honey: because when these nectaries fall off, no more of the white juice is secreted in the corol, but it becomes green, and degenerates into a calyx. See note on Lonicera. The nectary of the Tropaeolum, garden nasturtien, is a coloured horn grewing from the calyx.
Two Sister-Nymphs. l. 229. Menispernum. Cocculus. Indian berry. Two houses, twelve males. In the female flower there are two styles and eight silaments without anthers on their summits; which are called by Linncus eunuchs. See the note on Cur cuma. The berry intoxicates fish. Saint Anthony of Padua, when the people refused to hear him, preached to the fish, and converted them. Addison's travels in Italy.
Papaver. l. 270. Poppy. Many males, many females. The plants of this class are almost all of them poisonous; the finesl opium is procured by wounding the heads of large poppies with a three-edged knise, and tying muscle-shells to them to catch the drops. In small quantities it exhilarates the mind, raises the passions, and invigorates the body: in large ones it is succceded by intoxication, languor, stupor and death. It is customary in India for a messenger to travel above a hundred miles without rest or food, except an appropriated bit of opium for himself, and a larger one for his horse at certain stages. The emaciated and decrepid appearance, with the ridiculous and idiotic gestures, of the opium-eaters in Constantinople is well described in the Memoirs of Baron de Tott.
So with her waving pencil. l. 295. Alluding to the many beautiful paintings by Miss EMMA CREWE; to whom the author is indebted for the very elegrant Frontispiece, where Flora, at play with Cupid, is loading him with garden-tools.
Cistus labdaniferus. l. 304. Many males, one female. The petals of this beautiful and fragrant shrub, as well as of the Oenothera, tree primrose, and others, continue ex panded but a few hours, salling off about noon, or soon after, in hot weather. The most beautiful flowers of the Cactus grandiflorus (see Cerea) are of equally short dura tion, but have their existence in the night. And the flowers of the Hibiscus trionum are said to continue but a single hour. The courtship between the males and females in these flowers might be easily watched; the males are said to approach and recede from the females alternately. The flowers of the Hibiscus sinensis, mutable rose, live in the West Indies, their native climate, but one day; but have this remarkable property, they are white at the first expansion, then change to deep red, and become purple as they decay.
The gum or resin of this fragrant vegetable is collected from extensive underwoods of it in the East by a singular contrivance. Long leathern thongs are tied to poles and cords, and drawn over the tops of these shrubs about noon; which thus collect the dust of the anthers, which adheres to the leather, and is occasionally scraped off. Thus in some degree is the manner imitated, in which the bee collects on his thighs and legs the same material for the construction of his combs.
Sevenfold reed. l. 328. The sevenfold reed, with which Pan is frequently described, seems to indicate, that he was the inventor of the musical gamut.
Cinchona. l. 349. Peruvian bark-tree. Five males, and one female. Several of these trees were felled for other purposes into a lake, when an epidemic sever of a very mortal kind prevailed at Loxa in Peru, and the woodmen, accidentally drinking the water, were cured; and thus were discovered the virtues of this famous drug.
Digitalis. 1. 425. Of the class Two Powers. Four males, one female, Foxglove. The effect of this plant in that kind of Dropsy, which is termed anasarca, where the legs and thighs are much swelled, attended with great difficulty of breathing, is truly astonishing. In the ascites accompanied with anasarca of people past the meridian of life it will also sometimes succeed. The method of administering it requires some cau tion, as it is liable, in greater doses, to induce very violent and debilitating sickness, which continues one or two days, during which time the dropsical collection however disappears. One large spoonful, or half an ounce, of the following decoction, given twice a day, will generally succeed in a few days. But in more robust people, one large spoonful every two hours, till four spoonfuls are taken, or till sickness occurs, will eva cuate the dropsical swellings with greater certainty, but is liable to operate more vio lently. Boil four ounces of the fresh leaves of purple Foxglove (which leaves may be had at all seasons of the year) from two pints of water to twelve ounces; add to the strained liquor, while yet warm, three ounces of rectified spirit of wine. A theory of the effects of this medicine, with many successful cases, may be seen in a pamphlet, called, "Experiments on Mucilaginous and Purulent Matter," published by Dr. Dar win in 1780. Sold by Cadell, London.
Marseille's good Bishop. l. 435. In the year 1720 and 1722 the Plague made dread ful havock at Marseilles; at which time the Bishop was indefatigable in the execution of his pastoral office, visiting, relieving, encouraging, and absolving the sick with extream tenderness; and though perpetually exposed to the infection, like Sir John Lawrence mentioned below, they both are said to have escaped the disease.
London's generous Mayor. l. 435. During the great Plague at London in the year 1665, Sir John Lawrence, the then Lord Mayor, continued the whole time in the city; heard complaints, and redressed them; enforced the wisest regulations then known, and saw them executed. The day after the disease was known with certainty to be the Plague, above 40,000 servants were dismissed, and turned into the streets to perish, for no one would receive them into their houses; and the villages near London drove them away with pitch-forks and fire-arms. Sir John Lawrence supported them all, as well as the needy who were sick, at first by expending his own fortune, till subscriptions could be solicited and received from all parts of the nation. Journal of the Plague-year. Printed for E. Nutt, &c. at the R. Exchange. 1722.
INTERLUDE II.
THE monsters of your Botanic Garden are as sur prising as the bulls with brazen feet, and the fire-breathing dragons, which guarded the Hesperian fruit; yet are they not disgusting, nor mischievous: and in the manner you have chained them together in your exhibition, they succeed each other amusingly enough, like prints of the London Cries, wrapped upon rollers, with a glass before them. In this at least they resemble the monsters in Ovid's Metamorphoses; but your similies, I suppose, are Homeric?
The great Bard well understood how to make use of this kind of ornament in Epic Poetry. He brings his valiant heroes into the field with much parade, and sets them a fighting with great fury; and then, after a few thrusts and parries, he introduces a long string of similies. During this the battle is supposed to continue; and thus the time necessary for the action is gained in our imagina tions;[Page 93] and a degree of probability produced, which contributes to the temporary deception or reverie of the reader.
But the similies of Homer have another agreeable characteristic; they do not quadrate, or go upon all fours (as it is called), like the more formal similies of some modern writers; any one resembling feature seems to be with him a sufficient excuse for the introduction of this kind of digression; he then proceeds to deliver some agree able poetry on this new subject, and thus converts every simile into a kind of short episode.
Then a simile should not very accurately resemble the subject?
No; it would then become a philosophical analogy, it would be ratiocination instead of poetry: it need only so far resemble the subject, as poetry itself ought to resemble nature. It should have so much sublimity, beauty, or novelty, as to interest the reader; and should be expressed in picturesque language, so as to bring the scenery before his eye; and should lastly bear so much veri-simili tude as not to awaken him by the violence of improbability or in congruity.
May not the reverie of the reader be dissipated or disturbed by disagreeable images being presented to his imagination, as well as by improbable or incongruous ones?
Certainly; he will endeavour to rouse himself from a disagree able reverie, as from the night-mare. And from this may be dis covered the line of boundary between the Tragic and the Horrid: which line, however, will veer a little this way or that, according to the prevailing manners of the age or country, and the peculiar asso ciations of ideas, or idiosyncracy of mind, of individuals. For in stance, if an artist should represent the death of an officer in battle, by shewing a little blood on the bosom of his shirt, as if a bullet had there penetrated, the dying figure would affect the beholder with pity; and if fortitude was at the same time expressed in his countenance, admiration would be added to our pity. On the con trary, if the artist should chuse to represent his thigh as shot away by a cannon ball, and should exhibit the bleeding flesh and shattered bone of the stump, the picture would introduce into our minds ideas from a butcher's shop, or a surgeon's operation-room, and we should turn from it with disgust. So if characters were brought upon the stage with their limbs disjointed by torturing instruments, and the floor covered with clotted blood and scattered brains, our theatric reverie would be destroyed by disgust, and we should leave the play house with detestation.
The Painters have been more guilty in this respect than the Poets; the cruelty of Apollo in flaying Marcias alive is a favourite subject with the antient artists: and the tortures of expiring mar tyrs have disgraced the modern ones. It requires little genius to exhibit the muscles in convulsive action either by the pencil or the chiffel, because the interstices are deep, and the lines strongly defined: but those tender gradations of muscular action, which constitute the graceful attitudes of the body, are difficult to con ceive or to execute, except by a master of nice discernment and cultivated taste.
By what definition would you distinguish the Horrid from the Tragic?
I suppose the latter consists of Distress attended with Pity, which is said to be allied to Love, the most agreeable of all our pas sions; and the former in Distress, accompanied with Disgust, which is allied to Hate, and is one of our most disagreeable sensations. Hence, when horrid scenes of cruelty are represented in pictures, we wish to disbelieve their existence, and voluntarily exert ourselves to escape from the deception: whereas the bitter cup of true Tragedy is mingled with some sweet consolatory drops, which endear our tears, and we continue to contemplate the interesting delusion with a delight which it is not easy to explain.
Has not this been explained by Lucretius, where he describes a shipwreck; and says, the Spectators receive pleasure from feeling themselves safe on land? and by Akenside, in his beautiful poem on the Pleasures of Imagination, who ascribes it to our finding objects for the due exertion of our passions?
We must not confound our sensations at the contemplation of real misery with those which we experience at the scenical repre sentations of tragedy. The spectators of a shipwreck may be at tracted by the dignity and novelty of the object; and from these may be said to receive pleasure; but not from the distress of the suf ferers. An ingenious writer, who has criticised this dialogue in the English Review for August, 1789, adds, that one great source of our pleasure from scenical distress arises from our, at the same time, generally contemplating one of the noblest objects of nature, that[Page 96] of Virtue triumphant over every difficulty and oppression, or support ing its votary under every suffering: or, where this does not occur, that our minds are relieved by the justice of some signal punishment awaiting the delinquent. But, besides this, at the exhibition of a good tragedy, we are not only amused by the dignity, and novelty, and beauty, of the objects before us; but, if any distressful circumstances occur too forcible for our sensibility, we can voluntarily exert our selves, and recollect, that the scenery is not real: and thus not only the pain, which we had received from the apparent distress, is lessened, but a new source of pleasure is opened to us, similar to that which we frequently have felt on awaking from a distressful dream; we are glad that it is not true. We are at the same time unwilling to relinquish the pleasure which we receive from the other interesting circumstances of the drama; and on that account quickly permit ourselves to relapse into the delusion; and thus alternately believe and disbelieve, almost every moment, the existence of the objects represented before us.
Have those two sovereigns of poetic land, HOMER and SHAKESPEAR, kept their works entirely free from the Horrid? — or even yourself in your third Canto?
The descriptions of the mangled carcasses of the companions of Ulysses, in the cave of Polypheme, is in this respect certainly ob jectionable, as is well observed by Scaliger. And in the play of Titus Andronicus, if that was written by Shakespear (which from its in ternal evidence I think very improbable), there are many horrid and disgustful circumstances. The following Canto is submitted to the candour of the critical reader, to whose opinion I shall submit in silence.
THE LOVES OF THE PLANTS.
CANTO III.
Circaea. l. 7. Enchanter's Nightshade. Two males, one female. It was much cele brated in the mysteries of witchcraft, and for the purpose of raising the devil, as its name imports. It grows amid the mouldering bones and decayed coffins in the ruinous vaults of Sleaford-church in Lincolnshire. The superstitious ceremonies or hisories belonging to some vegetables have been truly ridiculous; thus the Druids are said to have cropped the Misletoe with a golden axe or sickle; and the Bryony, or Mandrake, was said to utter a scream when its root was drawn from the ground; and that the ani mal which drew it up became diseased and soon died: on which account, when it was wanted for the purposes of medicine, it was usual to loosen and remove the earth about the root, and then to tie it by means of a cord to a dog's tail, who was whipped to pull it up, and was then supposed to suffer for the impiety of the action. And even at this day bits of dried root of Peony are rubbed smooth, and strung, and sold under the name of Anodyne necklaces, and tied round the necks of children, to facilitate the growth of their teeth! add to this, that in Price's History of Cornwall, a book published about ten years ago, the Virga Divinatoria, or Divining Rod, has a degree of credit given to it. This rod is of hazle, or other light wood, and held horizontally in the hand, and is said to bow towards the ore whenver the Conjurer walks over a mine. A very few years ago, in France, and even in England, another kind of divining rod has been used to dis cover springs of water in a similar manner, and gained some credit. And in the very last year, there were many in France, and some in England, who underwent an enchant ment without any divining rod at all, and believed themselves to be affected by an invi sible agent, which the Enchanter called Animal Magnetism!
Laura. 1. 40. Prunus. Lauro-cerasus. Twenty males, one female. The Pythian priestess is supposed to have been made drunk with infusion of laurel-leaves when she delivered her oracles. The intoxication or inspiration is finely described by Virgil. Aen. L. vi. The distilled water from laurel-leaves is, perhaps, the most sudden poison we are acquainted with in this country. I have seen about two spoonfuls of it destroy a large pointer dog in less than ten minutes. In a smaller dose it is said to produce in toxication; on this account there is reason to believe it acts in the same manner as opium and vinous spirit; but that the dose is not so well ascertained. See note on Tremella. It is used in the Ratafie of the distillers, by which some dram-drinkers have been suddenly killed. One pint of water, distilled from fourteen pounds of black cherry stones bruised, has the same deleterious effect, destroying as suddenly as laurel-water. It is probable Apricot-kernels, Peach-leaves, Walnut-leaves, and whatever possesses the kernel-flavour, may have similar qualities.
The Will presides not. l. 74. Sleep consists in the abolition of all voluntary power, both over our muscular motions and our ideas; for we neither walk nor reason in sleep. But, at the same time, many of our muscular motions, and many of our ideas, continue to be excited into action in consequence of internal irritations and of internal sensa tions; for the heart and arteries continue to beat, and we experience variety of passions, and even hunger and thirst in our dreams. Hence I conclude, that our nerves of sense are not torpid or inert during sleep; but that they are only precluded from the perception of external objects, by their external organs being rendered unfit to transmit to them the appu••es of external bodies, during the suspension of the power of volition; thus the eye-lids are closed in sleep, and I suppose the tympanum of the ear is not stretched, because they are deprived of the voluntary exertions of the muscles appropriated to these pur poses; and it is probable something similar happens to the external apparatus of our other organs of sense, which may render them unfit for their office of perception during sleep: for milk put into the mouths of sleeping babes occasions them to swallow and suck; and, if the eye-lid is a little opened in the day-light by the exertions of disturbed sleep, the person dreams of being much dazzled. See first Interlude.
When there arises in sleep a painful desire to exert the voluntary motions, it is called the Nightmare or Incubus. When the sleep becomes so imperfect that some muscular motions obey this exertion of desire, people have walked about, and even performed some domestic offices in sleep; one of these sleep-walkers I have frequently seen: once she smelt of a tube-rose, and sung, and drank a dish of tea in this state; her awaking was always attended with prodigious surprize, and even fear; this disease had daily periods, and seemed to be of the epileptic kind.
Ficus indica. 1. 80. Indian Fig-tree. Of the glass Polygamy. This large tree rises with opposite branches on all sides, with long egged leaves; each branch emits a slender flexile depending appendage from its summit like a cord, which roots into the earth and rises again. Sloan. Hist. of Jamaica. Lin. Spec. Plant. See Capri-ficus.
Gigantic Thor. 1. 90. Near the village of Wetton, a mile or two above Dove-Dale, near Ashburn in Derbyshire, there is a spacious cavern about the middle of the ascent of the mountain, which still retains the Name of Thor's house; below is an extensive and romantic common, where the rivers Hamps and Manifold sink into the earth, and rise again in Ilam gardens, the seat of John Port, Esq. about three mile below. Where these rivers rise again there are impressions resembling Fish, which appear to be of Jasper bedded in Limestone. Calcareous Spars, Shells converted into a kind of Agate, corallines in Marble, ores of Lead, Copper, and Zinc, and many strata of Flint, or Chert, and of Toadstone, or Lava, abound in thi part of the country. The Druids are said to have offered human sacrifices inclosed in wicker idols to Thor. Thursday had its name from this Deity.
The broken appearance of the surface of many parts of this country; with the Swal lows, as they are called, or basons on some of the mountains, like volcanic Craters, where the rain-water sinks into the earth; and the numerous large stones, which seem to have been thrown over the land by volcanic explosions; as w•ll as the great masses of Toadstone or Lava; evince the existence of violent earthquakes at some early period of the world. At this time the channels of these subterianeous rivers seem to have been formed, when a long tract of rocks were raised by the sea flowing in upon the central files, and thus producing an irresi••able explosion of steam; and when these rocks again subsided, their parts did not exactly correspond, but left a•ong cavity arched over in this operation of nature. The cavities at Castleton and Buxton in Derbyshire seem to have had a similar origin, as well as this cavern termed Thor's house. See Mr. Whitehurst's and Dr. Hutton's Theories of the Earth.
Impatiens. 1. 131. Touch me not. The seed vessel consists of one cell with five divi sions; each of these, when the seed is ripe, on being touched, suddenly folds itself into a spiral form, leaps from the stalk, and disp•rses the seeds to a great distance by it's elasticity. The capsule of the geranium and the beard of wild oats are twisted for a si•ilar purpose, and dislodge their seeds on wet days, when the ground is best fitted to recive them. Hence one of these, with its adhering capsule or beard fixed on a stand, serves the purpose of an hygrometer, twisting itself more or less according to the moisture of the air.
The awn of barley is furnished with stiff points, which, like the teeth of a saw, are all turned towards the point of it; as this long awn lies upon the ground, it extends it self in the moist air of night, and pushes forwards th•barley corn, which it adheres to; in the day it shortens as it dries; and as these points prevent it from receding, it draws up its pointed end; and thus, creeping like a worm, will travel many feet from the parent stem. That very ing•nious Mechan•c Philosopher, Mr. Edgeworth, once made on this principle a wooden automaton; its back consisted of soft Fir-wood, about an inch square, and four feet long, made of pieces cut the cross-way in respect to the fibres of the wood, and glu•d together; it had two feet before, and two behind, which sup ported the back horizontally; but were placed with their extremities, which were armed with sharp points of iron, bending backwards. Hence, in most weather, the back lengthened, and the two foremost feet were pushed forwards; in dry weather the hinder feet were drawn after, as the obliquity of the points of the feet prevented it from re ceding. And thus, in a month or two, it walked across the room which it inhabited. Might not this machine be applied as an Hygrometer to some meteorological purpose?
Dictamnus. l. 184. Fraxinella. In the still evenings of dry seasons this plant emits an inflammable air or gas, and flashes on the approach of a candle. There are instances of human creatures who have taken fire spontaneously, and been totally consumed. Phil. Trans.
The odours of many flowers, so delightful to our sense of smell, as well as the dis greeable scents of others, are owing to the exhalation of their essential oils. These essential oils have greater or less volatility, and are all inflammable; many of them are poisons to us, as these of Laurel and Tobacco; others possess a narcotic quality, as is evinced by the oil of cloves instantly relieving slight tooth-achs; from oil of cinnamon relieving the h•ccup; and balsam of peru relieving the pain of some ulcers. They are all deleterious to certain insects, and hence their use in the vegetable economy being produced in flowers or leaves to protect them from the depredations of their voracious enemies. One of the essential oils, that of turpentine, is recommended, by M. de Thoffe, for the purpose of destroying insects which infect both vegetables and animals. Having observed that the trees were attacked by multitudes of small insects of different colours (pucins ou purrons), which injured their young branches, he destroyed them all intinaely in the following manner: he put into a bowl a few handfuls of earth, on which he poured a small quantity of oil of turpentine; he then beat the whole toge ther with a spatula, p•uring on it water till it became of the consistence of soup; with this mixture he moistened the ends of the branches, and both the insects and their eggs were destroyed, and other insects kept aloof by the scent of the turpentine. He adds, that he destroyed the fleas of his puppies by once bathing them in warm water impreg nated with oil of turpentine. Mem. d'Agriculture, An. 1787, Trimest. Printemp. p. 109. I sprinkled some oil of turpentine, by means of a brush, on some branches of a nectarine-tree, which was covered with the aphis; but it killed both the insect and the branches: a solution of arsenic much diluted did the same. The shops of medicine are supplied with resins, balsams, and essential oils; and the tar and pitch, for mechanical purposes, are produced from these vegetable secretions.
Mancinella. l. 188. Hyppomane. With the milky juice of this tree the Indians poison their arrows; the dew-drops, which fall from it, are so caustic as to blister the skin, and produce dangerous ulcers; whence many have found their death by sleeping under its shade. Variety of noxious plants abound in all countries; in our own the deadly night-shade, henbane, hounds-tongue, and many others, are seen in almost every high road un touched by animals. Some have asked, what is the use of such abundance of poisons? The nauseous or pungent juices of some vegetables, like the thorns of others, are given them for their defence from the depredations of animals; hence the thorny plants are in general wholesome and agreeable food to graminivorous animals. See note on Ilex. The flowers or petals of plants are perhaps in general more acrid than their leaves; hence they are much seldomer eaten by insects. This seems to have been the use of the essential oil in the vegetable economy, as observed above in the notes on Dictamnus and on Ilex. The fragrance of plants is thus a part of their defence. These pungent or nauseous juices of vegetables have supplied the science of medicine with its principal materials, such as purge, vomit, intoxicate, &c.
Urtica. 1. 191. Nettle. The sting has a bag at its base, and a perforation near its point, exactly like the stings of wasps and the teeth of adders; Hook, Microgr. p. 142. Is the fluid contained in this bag, and pressed through the perforation into the wound, made by the point, a caustic essential oil, or a concentrated vegetable acid? The vege table poisons, like the animal ones, produce more sudden and dangerous effects, when instilled into a wound, than when taken into the stomach; whence the families of Marsi and Psilli, in antient Rome, sucked the poison without injury out of wounds made by vipers, and were supposed to be indued with supernatural powers for this purpose. By the experiments related by Beccaria, it appears that four or five times the quantity, taken by the mouth, had about equal effects with that infused into a wound. The male flowers of the nettle are separate from the female, and the anthers are seen in fair weather to burst with force, and to discharge a dust, which hovers about the plant like a cloud.
Lobelia. l. 193. Longiflora. 'Grows in the West Indies, and spreads such deleterious exhalations around it, that an oppression of the breast is selt on approaching it at many feet distance when placed in the corner of a room or hot-house. Ingenhouz, Exper. on Air, p. 146. Jacquini hort. botanic. Vindeb. The exhalations from ripe fruit, or withering leaves, are proved much to injure the air in which they are consined; and, it is probable, all those vegetables which emit a strong scent may do this in a greater or less degree, from the Rose to the Lobelia; whence the unwholesomeness in living per petually in such an atmosphere of perfume as some people wear about their hair, or carry in their handkerchiefs. Either Boerhaave or Dr. Mead have affirmed they were acquainted with a poisonous fluid whose vapour would presently destroy the person who sat near it. And it is well known, that the gas from fermenting liquors, or obtained from lime-stone, will destroy animals immersed in it, as well as the vapour of the Grotto del Cani near Naples.
So, where Palmira. l. 197. Among the ruins of Palmira, which are dispersed not only over the plains but even in the deserts, there is one single colonade above 2600 yards long, the bases of the Corinthian columns of which exceed the height of a man: and yet this row is only a small part of the remains of that one edifice! Volney's Travels.
Upas. l. 238. There is a poison-tree in the istand of Java, which is said by its effluvia to have depopulated the country for 12 or 14 miles round the place of its growth. It is called, in the Malayan language, Bohon-Upas; with the juice of it the most poisonous arrows are prepared; and, to gain this, the condemned criminals are sent to the tree with proper direction both to get the juice and to secure themselves from the malignant exhalations of the tree; and are pardoned if they bring back a certain quantity of the poison. But by the registers there kept, not one in four are said to return. Not only animals of all kinds, both quadrupeds, fish, and birds, but all kinds of vegetables also are destroyed by the effluvia of the noxious tree; so that, in a district of 12 or 14 miles round it, the face of the earth is quite barren and rocky, intermixed only with the ske letons of men and animals; affording a scene of melancholy beyond what poets have de scribed or painters delineated. Two younger trees of its own species are said to grow near it. See London Magazine for 1784, or 1783. Translated from a description of the poison-tree of the island of Java, written in Dutch by N. P. Foereh. For a further account of it, see a note at the end of the work.
Orchis. l. 259. The Orchis morio in the circumstance of the parent-root shrivelling up and dying, as the young one increases, is not only analogous to other tuberous or knobby roots, but also to some bulbous roots, as the tulip. The manner of the pro duction of herbaceous plants from their various perennial roots, seems to want further investigation, as their analogy is not yet clearly established. The caudex, or true root, in the orchis lies above the knob; and from this part the fibrous roots and the new knob are produced. In the tulip the caudex lies below the bulb; from whence proceed the fibrous roots and the new bulbs; and I suspect the tulip-root, after it has flowered, dies like the orchis-root; for the stem of the last year's tulip lies on the outside, and not in the center of the new bulb; which I am informed does not happen in the three or four first years when raised from feed, when it only produces a stem, and slender leaves without flowering. In the tulip-root, dissected in the early spring, just before it begins to shoot, a perfect flower is seen in its center; and between the first and second coat the large next year's bulb is, I believe, produced; between the second and third coat, and between this and the fourth coat, and perhaps further, other less and less bulls are visible, all adjoining to the caudex at the bottom of the mother-bulb; and which, I am told, require as many years before they will flower, as the number of the coats with which they are covered. This annual reproduction of the tulip-root induces some florists to believe that tulip-roots never die naturally, as they lose so few of them; whereas the hyacinth-roots, I am informed, will not last above five or seven years after they have flowered.
The hyacinth-root differs from the tulip-root, as the stem of the last year's flower is always found in the center of the root, and the new off-sets arise from the caudex below the bulb, but not beneath any of the concentric coats of the root, except the external one: hence Mr. Eaton, an ingenious florist of Derby, to whom I am indebted for most of the observations in this note, concludes, that the hyacinth-root does not perish an nually after it has flowered like the tulip. Mr. Eaton gave me a tulip root which had been set too deep in the earth, and the caudex had elongated itself near an inch, and the new bulb was formed above the old one, and detached from it, instead of adher ing to its side.
The caudex of the ranunculus, cultivated by the florists, lies above the claw-like root; in this the old root or claws die annually, like the tulip and orchis, and the new claws, which are seen above the old ones, draw down the caudex lower into the earth. The same is said to happen to Scabiosa, or Devil's bit, and some other plants, as vale rian and greater plantain; the new fibrous roots rising round the caudex above the old ones, the inferior end of the root becomes stumped, as if cut off, after the old fibrous are decayed, and the caudex is drawn down into the earth by these new roots. See Arum and Tulipa.
Cuscuta. l. 327. Dodder. Four males, two females. This parasite plant (the seed splitting without cotyledons), protruces a spiral body, and not endeavouring to root itself in the earth ascends the vegetables in its vicinity, spirally W. S. E. or contrary to the movement of the sun; and absorbs its nourishment by vessels apparently inserted into its supporters. It bears no leaves, except here and there a scale, very small, mem branous, and close under the branch. Lin. Spec. Plant. edit. a Reichard. Vol. I. p. 352. The Rev. T. Martyn, in his elegant letters on botany, adds, that, not content with support, where it lays hold, there it draws its nourishment; and at length, in gratitude for all this, strangles its entertainer. Let. xv. A contest for air and light obtains throughout the whole vegetable world; shrubs rise above herbs; and, by precluding the air and light from them, injure or destroy them; trees suffocate or incommode shrubs; the parasite climbing plants, as Ivy, Clematis, incommode the taller trees; and other parasites, which exist without having roots on the ground, as Misletoe, Tillan•sia, Epidendrum, and the mosses and sunguses, incommode them all.
Some of the plants with voluble stems ascend other plants spirally east-south-west, as Humulus, Hop, Lonicera, Honey-suckle, Tamus, black Bryony, Helxine. Others turn their spiral stems west-south-east, as convolvulus, Corn-bind, Phaseolus, Kidney bean, Basella, Cynanche, Euphorbia, Eupatorium. The proximate or final causes of this difference have not been investigated. Other plants are furnished with tendrils for the purpose of climbing: if the tendril meets with nothing to lay hold of in its first revolution, it makes another revolution; and so on till it wraps itself quite up like a cork-crew; hence, to a careless observer, it appears to move gradually backwards and forwards, being seen sometimes pointing eastward and sometimes westward. One of the Indian grasses, Panicum arborescens, whose stem is no thicker than a goose-quill, rises as high as the tallest trees in this contest for light and air. Spec. Plant a Reichard, Vol. I. p. 161. The tops of many climbing plants are tender from their quick growth; and, when deprived of their acrimony by boiling, are an agreeable article of food. The Hop tops are in common use. I have eaten the tops of white Bryony, Bryonia alba, and found them nearly as grateful as Asparagus, and think this plant might be profitably cultivated as an early garden-vegetable. The Tamus (called black Bryony), was less agreeable to the taste when boiled. See Galanthus.
Vitis. l. 355. Vine. Five males, one female. The juice of the ripe grape is a nutri tive and agreeable food, consisting chiefly of sugar and mucilage. The chemical process of fermentation converts this sugar into spirit, converts food into poison! And it has thus become the curse of the Christian world, producing more than half of our chronical diseases; which Mahomet observed, and forbade the use of it to his disciples. The Ara bians invented distillation; and thus, by obtaining the spirit of fermented liquors in a less diluted state, added to its destructive quality. A Theory of the Diabaetes and Dropsy, produced by drinking fermented or spirituous liquors, is explained in a Treatise on the inverted motions of the lymphatic system, published by Dr. Darwin. Cadell.
Prometheus. l. 369. The antient story of Prometheus, who concealed in his bosom the fire he had stolen, and afterwards had a vulture perpetually gnawing his liver, affords so apt an allegory for the effects of drinking spirituous liquors, that one should be induced to think the art of distillation, as well as some other chemical processes (such as calcining gold), had been known in times of great antiquity, and lost again. The swallowing drams cannot be better represented in hieroglyphic language than by taking fire into one's bosom; and certain it is, that the general effect of drinking fermented on spirituous liquors is an inflamed, schirrous, or paralytic liver, with its varioas critical or consequential diseases, as leprous eruptions on the face, gout, dropsy, epilepsy, in sanity. It is remarkable, that all the diseases from drinking spirituous or fermented liquors are liable to become hereditary, even to the third generation; gradually increas ing, if the cause be continued, till the family becomes extinct.
Cyclamer. l. 379. Shew-bread, or Sow-bread. When the seeds are ripe, the stalk of the flower gradually twists itself spirally downwards, till it touches the ground, and for cibly penetrating the earth lodges its seeds; which are thought to receive nourishment from the parent root, as they are said not to be made to grow in any other situation.
The Trifolium subterraneum, subterraneous trefoil, is another plant, which buries its seed, the globular head of the seed penetrating the earth; which, however, in this plant may be only an attempt to conceal its seeds from the ravages of birds; for there is an other trefoil, the trifolium globosum, or globular woolly-headed trefoil, which has a curious manner of concealing its seeds; the lower florets only have corols and are fer tile; the upper ones wither into a kind of wool, and, forming a head, compleatly con ceal the fertile calyxes. Lin. Spec. Plant. a Reichard.
Where Chartreuse. l. 406. During the plague in London, 1665 ▪ one pit to receive the dead was dug in the Charter-house, 40 feet long, 16 feet wide, and about 20 feet deep; and in two weeks received 1114 bodies. During this dreadful calamity there were instances of mothers carrying their own children to those public graves, and of peo ple delirious, or in despair from the loss of their friends, who threw themselves alive into these pits. Journal of the Plague-year in 1665. printed for E. Nutt, Royal-Exchange.
Rolls his brineless tide. l. 411. Some philosophers have believed that the continent of America was not raised out of the great ocean at so early a period of time as the other continents. One reason for this opinion was, because the great lakes, perhaps nearly as large as the Mediterranean Sea, consist of fresh water. And as the sea-salt seems to have its origin from the destruction of vegetable and animal bodies, washed down by rains, and carried by rivers into lakes or seas; it would seem that this source of sea-salt had not so long existed in that country. There is, however, a more satisfactory way of explaining this circumstance; which is, that the American lakes lie above the level of the ocean, and are hence perpetually desalited by the rivers which run through them; which is not the case with the Mediterranean, into which a current from the main ocean perpetually passes.
Cassia. l. 413. Ten males, one female. The seeds are black, the stamens gold-co lour. This is one of the American fruits, which are annually thrown on the coasts of Norway; and are frequently in so recent a state as to vegetate, when properly taken care of, the fruit of the anacardium, cashew-nut; of cucurbita lagenaria, bottlegourd; of the mimosa seandens, cocoons; of the piscidia crythrina, logwood-tree; and cocoa-nuts are enumerated by Dr. Tonning. (Amaen. Acad. 149.) amongst these emigrant seeds. The fact is truly wonderful, and cannot be accounted for but by the existence of under currents in the depths of the ocean; or from vortexes of water passing from one country to another through caverns of the earth.
Sir Hans Sloane has given an account of four kinds of seeds, which are frequently thrown by the sea upon the coasts of the islands of the northern parts of Scotland. Phil. Trans. abridged, Vol. III. p. 540. which seeds are natives of the West Indies, and seem to be brought thither by the gulf-stream deserbed below. One of these is called, by Sir H. Sloane, Phaseolus maximus perennis, which is often also thrown on the coast of Kerry in Ireland; another is called, in Jamaica, Horse-eye-bean; and a third is called Niker in Jamaica. He adds, that the Lenticula marina, or Sargosso, grows on the rocks about Jamaica, is carried by the winds and current towards the coast of Florida, and thence into the North-American ocean, where it lies very thick on the surface of the sea.
Thus a rapid current passes from the gulf of Florida to the N. E. along the coast of North-America, known to seamen by the name of the GULF-STREAM. A chart of this was published by Dr. Francklin in 1768, from the information principally of Capt. Folger. This was confirmed by the ingenious experiments of Dr. Blagden, published in 1781, who found that the water of the Gulf-stream was from six to eleven degrees warmer than the water of the sea through which it ran; which must have been occa sioned by its being brought from a hotter climate. He ascribes the origin of this current to the power of the trade-winds, which, blowing always in the same direction, carry the waters of the Atlantic ocean to the westward, till they are stopped by the opposing con tinent on the west of the Gulf of Mexico, and are thus accumulated there, and run down the Gulf of Florida. Philos. Trans. V. 71, p. 335. Governor Pownal has given an elegant map of this Gulf-stream, tracing it from the Gulf of Florida north ward as sar as Cape Sable in Nova Scotia, and then across the Atlantic ocean to the coast of Africa between the Canary-islands and Senegal, increasing in breadth ▪ as it runs, till it occupies five or six degrees of latitude. The Governer likewise ascribes this current to the force of the trade-winds protruding the waters westward, till they are opposed by the continent, and accumulated in the Gulf of Mexico. He very ingeni ously observes, that a great eddy must be produced in the Atlantic ocean between this Gulf-stream and the westerly current protruded by the tropical winds, and in this eddy are found the immense fields of floating vegetables, called Saragosa weeds, and Gulf weeds, and some light woods, which circulate in these vast eddies, or are occasionally driven out of them by the winds. Hydraulic and Nautical Observations by Governor Pownal, 1787. Other currents are mentioned by the Governor in this ingeniou work, as those in the Indian Sea, northward of the line, which are ascribed to the influence of the Monsoons. It is probable, that in process of time the narrow tract of land on the west of the Gulf of Mexico may be worn away by this elevation of water dashing against it, by which this immense current would cease to exist, and a wonderful change take place in the Gulf of Mexico and West Indian islands, by the subsiding of the sea, which might probably lay all those islands into one, or join them to the continent.
INTERLUDE III.
POETRY has been called a sister-art both to Painting and to Music; I wish to know, what are the particulars of their relationship?
It has been already observed, that the principal part of the language of poetry consists of those words, which are expressive of the ideas, which we originally receive by the organ of sight; and in this it nearly indeed resembles painting; which can express itself in no other way, but by exciting the ideas or sensations belonging to the sense of vision. But besides this essential similitude in the language of the poetic pen and pencil, these two sisters resemble each other, if I may so say, in many of their habits and manners. The painter, to produce a strong effect, makes a few parts of his picture large, distinct, and luminous, and keeps the remainder in shadow, or even beneath its natural size and colour, to give emi nence to the principal figure. This is similar to the common[Page 134] manner of poetic composition, where the subordinate characters are kept down, to elevate and give consequence to the hero or heroine of the piece.
In the south aile of the cathedral church at Lichfield, there is an antient monument of a recumbent figure; the head and neck of which lie on a roll of matting in a kind of niche or cavern in the wall; and about five feet distant horizontally in another opening or cavern in the wall are seen the feet and ankles, with some folds of garment, lying also on a matt; and though the intermediate space is a solid stone-wall, yet the imagination supplies the deficiency, and the whole figure seems to exist before our eyes. Does not this re semble one of the arts both of the painter and the poet? The former often shows a mulcular arm amidst a group of figures, or an im passioned face; and, hiding the remainder of the body behind other objects, leaves the imagination to compleat it. The latter, describing a single feature or attitude in picturesque words, produces before the mind an image of the whole.
I remember seeing a print, in which was represented a shrivelled hand stretched through an iron grate, in the stone floor of a prison yard, to reach at a mess of porrage, which affected me with more horrid ideas of the distress of the prisoner in the dungeon below, than could have been perhaps produced by an exhibition of the whole person. And in the following beautiful scenery from the Midsummer-night's dream, (in which I have taken the liberty to alter the place of a comma), the description of the swimming step and prominent belly bring the whole figure before our eyes with the distinctness of reality.
There is a third sister-feature, which belongs both to the pictorial and poetic art; and that is the making sentiments and passions visible, as it were, to the spectator; this is done in both arts by describing or portraying the effects or changes which those sentiments or passions produce upon the body. At the end of the unaltered play of Lear, there is a beautiful example of poetic painting; the old King is introduced as dying from grief for the loss of Cordelia; at this crisis, Shakespear, conceiving the robe of the king to be held together by a clasp, represents him as only saying to an attendant courtier in a faint voice, "Pray, Sir, undo this button, — thank you, Sir," and dies. Thus by the art of the poet, the oppression at the bosom of the dying King is made visible, not described in words.
What are the features, in which these Sister-arts do not re semble each other?
The ingenious Bishop Berkeley, in his Treatise on Vision, a work of great ability, has evinced, that the colours, which we see, are only a language suggesting to our minds the ideas of solidity and extension, which we had before received by the sense of touch. Thus when we view the trunk of a tree, our eye can only acquaint us with the colours or shades; and from the previous experience of the sense of touch, these suggest to us the cylindrical form, with the prominent or depressed wrinkles on it. From hence it appears, that[Page 136] there is the strictest analogy between colours and sounds; as they are both but languages, which do not represent their correspondent ideas, but only suggest them to the mind from the habits or associ ations of previous experience. It is therefore reasonable to conclude, that the more artificial arrangements of these two languages by the poet and the painter bear a similar analogy.
But in one circumstance the Pen and the Pencil differ widely from each other, and that is the quantity of Time which they can in clude in their respective representations. The former can unravel a long series of events, which may constitute the history of days or years; while the latter can exhibit only the actions of a moment. The Poet is happier in describing successive scenes; the Painter in representing stationary ones: both have their advantages.
Where the passions are introduced, as the Poet, on one hand, has the power gradually to prepare the mind of his reader by previous climacteric circumstances; the Painter, on the other hand, can throw stronger illumination and distinctness on the principal moment or catastrophe of the action; besides the advantage he has in using an universal language, which can be read in an instant of time. Thus where a great number of figures are all seen together, supporting or contrasting each other, and contributing to explain or aggrandize the principal effect, we view a picture with agreeable surprize, and contemplate it with unceasing admiration. In the representation of the sacrifice of Jephtha's Daughter, a print done from a painting of Ant. Coypel, at one glance of the eye we read all the interesting passages of the last act of a well-written tragedy; so much poetry is there condensed into a moment of time.
Will you now oblige me with an account of the relationship between Poetry, and her other sister, Music?
In the poetry of our language I don't think we are to look for any thing analogous to the notes of the gamut; for, except perhaps in a few exclamations or interrogations, we are at liberty to raise or sink our voice an octave or two at pleasure, without altering the sense of the words. Hence, if either poetry or prose be read in me lodious tones of voice, as is done in recitativo, or in chaunting, it must depend on the speaker, not on the writer: for though words may be selected which are less harsh than others, that is, which have fewer sudden stops or abrupt consonants amongst the vowels, or with fewer sibilant letters, yet this does not constitute melody, which consists of agreeable successions of notes referrable to the gamut; or harmony, which consists of agreeable combinations of them. If the Chinese language has many words of similar articula tion, which yet signify different ideas, when spoken in a higher or lower musical note, as some travellers affirm, it must be capable of much finer effect, in respect to the audible part of poetry, than any language we are acquainted with.
There is however another affinity, in which poetry and music more nearly resemble each other than has generally been understood, and that is in their measure or time. There are but two kinds of time acknowledged in modern music, which are called triple time, and common time. The former of these is divided by bars, each bar containing three crotchets, or a proportional number of their subdivisions into quavers and semiquavers. This kind of time is analogous to the measure of our heroic or iambic verse. Thus the two following couplets are each of them divided into five bars of triple time, each bar consisting of two crotchets and two quavers; nor can they be divided into bars analogous to common time without the bars interfering with some of the crotchets, so as to divide them.
[Page 138]In these lines there is a quaver and a crochet alternately in every bar, except in the last, in which the in make two semiquavers; the e is supposed by Grammarians to be cut off, which any one's ear will readily determine not to be true.
In these lines there is a quaver and a crotchet alternately in the sirst bar; a quaver, two crotchets, and a quaver, make the second bar. In the third bar there is a quaver, a crotchet, and a rest after the crotchet, that is, after the word poles, and two quavers begin the next line. The fourth bar consists of quavers and crotchets alter nately. In the last bar there is a quaver, and a rest after it, viz. after the word kindles; and then two quavers and a crotchet. You will clearly perceive the truth of this, if you prick the musical cha racters above mentioned under the verses.
The common time of musicians is divided into bars, each of which contains four crotchets, or a proportional number of their subdivision into quavers and semiquavers. This kind of musical time is analo gous to the dactyle verses of our language, the most popular instances of which are in Mr. Anstie's Bath-Guide. In this kind of verse the bar does not begin till after the first or second syllable; and where the verse is quite complete, and written by a good ear, these first syl lables added to the last complete the bar, exactly in this also corre sponding with many pieces of music;
In these lines each bar consists of a crotchet, two quavers, another crotchet, and two more quavers: which are equal to four crotchets, and, like many bars of common time in music, may be subdivided into two in beating time without disturbing the measure.
The following verses from Shenstone belong likewise to common time:
The first and second bars consist each of a crotchet, a quaver, a crotchet, a quaver, a crotchet. The third bar consists of a quaver, two crotchets, a quaver, a crotchet. The last bar is not complete without adding the letter A, which begins the first line, and then it consists of a quaver, a crotchet, a quaver, a crotchet, two quavers.
It must be observed, that the crotchets in triple time are in general played by musicians slower than those of common time, and hence minuets are generally pricked in triple time, and country dances ge nerally in common time. So the verses above related, which are analogous to triple time, are generally read slower than those analo gous to common time; and are thence generally used for graver com positions. I suppose all the different kinds of verses to be found in our odes, which have any measure at all, might be arranged〈◊〉one or other of these two musical times; allowing a note or〈◊〉sometimes to precede the commencement of the bar, and occasional rests, as in musical compositions: if this was attended to by those who set poetry to music, it is probable the sound and sense would oftener coincide. Whether these musical times can be applied to the lyric and heroic verses of the Greek and Latin poets, I do not pre tend to determine; certain it is, that the dactyle verse of our lan guage, when it is ended with a double rhime, much resembles the measure of Homer and Virgil, except in the length of the lines.
Then there is no relationship between the other two of these sister-ladies, Painting and Music?
There is at least a mathematical relationship, or perhaps I ought rather to have said a metaphysical relationship between them. Sir Isaac Newton has observed, that the breadths of the seven primary colours in the Sun's image refracted by a prism are proportional to the seven musical notes of the gamut, or to the intervals of the eight sounds contained in an octave, that is, proportional to the following numbers:
Sol. | La. | Fa. | Sol. | La. | Mi. | Fa. | Sol. |
Red. | Orange. | Yellow. | Green. | Blue. | Indigo. | Violet. | |
1 / 9 | 1 / 16 | 1 / 10 | 1 / 9 | 1 / 16 | 1 / 16 | 1 / 9 |
Newton's Optics, Book I, part 2. prop. 3 and 6. Dr. Smith, in his Harmonics, has an explanatory note upon this happy discovery, as he terms it, of Newton. Sect. 4. Art. 7.
From this curious coincidence, it has been proposed to produce a luminous music, consisting of successions or combinations of colours, analogous to a tune in respect to the proportions above mentioned. This might be performed by a strong light, made by means of Mr. Argand's lamps, passing through coloured glasses, and falling on a defined part of a wall, with moveable blinds before them, which might communicate with the keys of a harpsichord; and thus pro duce at the same time visible and audible music in unison with each other.
The execution of this idea is said by Mr. Guyot to have been at tempted by Father Caffel without much success.
[Page 141]If this should be again attempted, there is another curious coinci dence between sounds and colours, discovered by Dr. Darwin of Shrewsbury, and explained in a paper on what he calls Ocular Spectra, in the Philosophical Transactions, Vol. LXXVI. which might much facilitate the execution of it. In this treatise the Doctor has demon strated, that we see certain colours, not only with greater ease and distinctness, but with relief and pleasure, after having for some time contemplated other certain colours; as green after red, or red after green; orange after blue, or blue after orange; yellow after violet, or violet after yellow. This he shews arises from the ocular spectrum of the colour last viewed coinciding with the irritation of the colour now under contemplation. Now as the pleasure we receive from the sensation of melodious notes, independent of the previous asso ciations of agreeable ideas with them, must arise from our hearing some proportions of sounds after others more easily, distinctly, or agreeably; and as there is a coincidence between the proportions of the primary colours, and the primary sounds, if they may be so called; he argues, that the same laws must govern the sensations of both. In this circumstance, therefore, consists the sisterhood of Music and Painting; and hence they claim a right to borrow metaphors from each other; musicians to speak of the brilliancy of sounds, and the light and shade of a concerto; and painters of the harmony of colours, and the tone of a picture. Thus it was not quite so ab surd, as was imagined, when the blind man asked if the colour scarlet was like the sound of a trumpet. As the coincidence or op position of these ocular spectra, (or colours which remain in the eye after having for some time contemplated a luminous object) are more easily and more accurately ascertained, now their laws have been investigated by Dr. Darwin, than the relicts of evanescent sounds upon the ear; it is to be wished that some ingenious musician would further cultivate this curious field of science: for if visible music can be agreeably produced, it would be more easy to add sentiment to it by the representations of groves and Cupids, and sleeping[Page 142] nymphs amid the changing colours, than is commonly done by the words of audible music.
You mentioned the greater length of the verses of Homer and Virgil. Had not these poets great advantage in the superiority of their languages compared to our own?
It is probable, that the introduction of philosophy into a country must gradually affect the language of it; as philosophy con verses in more appropriated and abstracted terms; and thus by de grees eradicates the abundance of metaphor, which is used in the more early ages of society. Otherwise, though the Greek compound words have more vowels in proportion to their consonants than the English ones, yet the modes of compounding them are less general; as may be seen by variety of instances given in the preface of the Translators, prefixed to the SYSTEM OF VEGETABLES by the Lich field Society; which happy property of our own language rendered that translation of Linneus as expressive and as concise, perhaps more so than the original.
And in one respect, I believe, the Engish language serves the pur pose of poetry better than the antient ones, I mean in the greater ease of producing personifications; for as our nouns have in general no genders affixed to them in prose-compositions, and in the habits of conversation, they become easily personified only by the addition of a masculine or feminine pronoun, as,
And secondly, as most of our nouns have the article a or the prefixed to them in prose-writing and in conversation, they in general become personisied even by the omission of these articles; as in the bold figure of Shipwreck in Miss Seward's Elegy on Capt. Cook:
Add to this, that if the verses in our heroic poetry be shorter than those of the ancients, our words likewise are shorter; and in respect to their measure or time, which has erroneously been called melody and harmony, I doubt, from what has been said above, whether we are so much inferior as is generally believed; since many passages, which have been stolen from antient poets, have been translated into our language without losing any thing of the beauty of the ver sification.
I am glad to hear you acknowledge the thefts of the modern poets from the antient ones, whose works I suppose have been reckoned lawful plunder in all ages. But have not you borrowed epithets, phrases, and even half a line occasionally from modern poems?
It may be difficult to mark the exact boundary of what should be termed plagiarism: where the sentiment and expression are both borrowed without due acknowledgement, there can be no doubt; — single words, on the contrary, taken from other authors, cannot con vict a writer of plagiarism; they are lawful game, wild by nature, the property of all who can capture them; — and perhaps a few common flowers of speech may be gathered, as we pass over our[Page 144] neighbour's inclosure, without stigmatizing us with the title of thieves; but we must not therefore plunder his cultivated fruit.
The four lines at the end of the plant Upas are imitated from Dr. Young's Night Thoughts. The line in the episode adjoined to Cassia, "The salt tear mingling with the milk he sips," is from an interest ing and humane passage in Langhorne's Justice of Peace. There are probably many others, which, if I could recollect them, should here be acknowledged. As it is, like exotic plants, their mixture with the natives ones, I hope, adds beauty to my Botanic Garden: — and such as it is, Mr. Bookseller, I now leave it to you to desire the Ladies and Gentlemen to walk in; but please to apprize them, that, like the spectators at an unskilful exhibition in some village-barn, I hope they will make Good-humour one of their party; and thus their selves supply the defects of the representation.
THE LOVES OF THE PLANTS.
CANTO IV.
Pleas'd Lichfield. l. 11. The scenery described at the beginning of the first part, or economy of vegetation, is taken from a botanic garden about a mile from Lichfield.
Cerea. l. 15. Cactus grandislorus, or Cercus. Twenty males, one female. This flower is a native of Jamaica and Veracrux. It expands a most exquisitely beautiful corol, and emits a most fragrant odour for a few hours in the night, and then closes to open no more. The flower is nearly a foot in diameter; the inside of the calyx of a splendid yellow, and the numerous petals of a pure white: it begins to open about seven or eight o'clock in the evening, and clsoses before sun-rise in the morning. Martyn's Letters, p. 294. The Cistus labdiniferus, and many other flowers, lose their petals after having been a few hours expanded in the day-time; for in these plants the stigma is soon impregnated by the numerous anthers: in many flowers of the Cistus lubdiniferus I ob served two or three of the stamens were perpetually bent into contact with the pistil.
The Nyctanthes, called Arabian Jasmine, is another flower, which expands a beau tiful corol, and gives out a most delicate perfume during the night, and not in the day, in its native country, whence its name; botanical philosophers have not yet explained this wonderful property; perhaps the plant sleeps during the day as some animals do; and its odoriferous glands only emit their fragrance during the expansion of the petals; that is, during its waking hours: the Geranium trisle has the same property of giving up its fragrance only in the night. The flowers of the Cucurbita lagenaria are said to close when the sun shines upon them. In our climate many flowers, as tragopogon, and hibiscus, close their flowers before the hottest part of the day comes on; and the flowers of some species of cucubalus, and Silene, viscous campion, are closed all day; but when the sun leaves them they expand, and emit a very agreeable scent; whence such plants are termed noctiflora.
Where Mundy. l. 35. Alluding to an unpublished poem by F. N. Mundy, Esq. on his leaving Needwood-Forest.
Tropaeolum. l. 45. Majus. Garden Nasturtion, or greater Indian cress. Eight males, one female. Miss E. C. Linneus first observed the Tropaeolum Majus to emit sparks or slashes in the mornings before sun-rise, during the months of June or July, and also during the twilight in the evening, but not after total darkness came on; these singular scintillations were shewn to her father and other philosophers; and Mr. Wilcke, a cele brated electrician, believed them to be electric. Lin. Spec. Plantar. p. 490. Swedish Acts for the year 1762. Pulteney's View of Linncus, p. 220. Nor is this more won derful than that the electric eel and torpedo should give voluntary shocks of electricity; and in this plant perhaps, as in those animals, it may be a mode of defence, by which it harrasses or destroys the night-flying insects which infest it; and probably it may emit the same sparks during the day, which must be then invisible. This curious subject deserves further investigation. See Dictamnus. The ceasing to shine of this plant after twilight might induce one to conceive, that it absorbed and emitted light, like the Bolognian Phosphorus, or calcined oyster-shells, so well explained by Mr. B. Wilson, and by T. B. Beccari. Exper. on Phosphori, by B. Wilson. Dodsley. The light of the evening, at the same distance from noon, is much greater, as I have repeatedly ob served, than the light of the morning: this is owing, I suppose, to the phosphorescent quality of almost all bodies, in a greater or less degree, which thus absorb light during the sun-shine, and continue to emit it again for some time afterwards, though not in such quantity as to produce apparent scintillations. The nectary of this plant grows from what is supposed to be the calyx; but this supposed calyx is coloured; and per haps, from this circumstance of its bearing the nectary, should rather be esteemed a part of the coral. See an additional note at the end of the poem.
So shin's the glow-fly. l. 52. In Jamaica, in some seasons of the year, the firc-flies are seen in the evenings in great abundance. When they settle on the ground, the bull frog greedily devours them; which seems to have given origin to a curious, though cruel, method of destroying these animals: if red hot pieces of charcoal be thrown to wards them in the dusk of the evening, they leap at them, and, hastily swallowing them, are burnt to death.
Ovena. l. 73. Oat. The numerous families of grasses have all three males, and two females, except Anthoxanthum, which gives the grateful smell to hay, and has but two males. The herbs of this order of vegetables support the countless tribes of gramini vorous animals. The seeds of the smaller kinds of grasses, as of aira, poa, briza, stipa, &c. are the sustenance of many sorts of birds. The seeds of the large grasses, as of wheat, barley, rye, oats, supply food to the human species.
It seems to have required more ingenuity to think of seeding nations of mankind with so small a seed, than with the potatoe of Mexico, or the bread-fruit of the southern islands; hence Ceres in Egypt, which was the birth-place of our European arts, was deservedly celebrated amongst their divinities, as well as Osyris, who invented the Plough.
Mr. Wahlborn observes, that as wheat, rye, and many of the grasses, and plantain, lift up their anthers on long filments, and thus expose the enclosed fecundating dust to be washed away by the rains, a scarcity of corn is produced by wet summers; hence the necessity of a careful choice of seed-wheat, as that, which had not received the dust of the anthers, will not grow, though it may appear well to the eye. The straw of the oat seems to have been the first musical instrument, invented during the pastoral ages of the world, before the discovery of metals. See note on Cistus.
Cannabis. l. III. Chinese Hemp. Two houses. Five males. A new species of hemp, of which an account is given by K. Fitzg rald, Esq. in a letter to Sir Joseph Banks, and which is believed to be much superior to the hemp of other countries. A few seeds of this plant were sown in England on the 4th of June, and grew to four teen feet seven inches in height by the middle of October; they were nearly seven inches in circumference, and bore many lateral branches, and produced very white and tough fibres. At some parts of the time these plants grew nearly eleven inches in a week. Philos. Trans. Vol. LXXII. p. 46.
Paphian curves. l. 114. In his ingenious work, entitled, The Analysis of Beauty, Mr. Hogarth believes that the triangular glass, which was dedicated to Venus in her temple at Paphos, contained in it a line bending spirally round a cone with a certain degree of curviture; and that this pyramidal outline and serpentine curve con stitute the principles of Grace and Beauty.
Galanthus. l. 133. Nivalis. Snowdrop. Six males, one female. The first flower that appears after the winter solstice. See Stillingfleet's Calendar of Flora.
Some snowdrop-roots taken up in winter, and boiled, had the insipid mucilaginous taste of the Orchis, and, if cured in the same manner, would probably make as good salep. The roots of the Hyacinth, I am informed, are equally insipid, and might be used as an article of food. Gmelin, in his History of Siberia, says the Martigon Lily makes a part of the food of that country, which is of the same natural order as the snowdrop. Some roots of Crocus, which I boiled, had a disagreeable flavour.
The difficulty of raising the Orchis from seed has, perhaps, been a principal reason of its not being cultivated in this country as an article of food. It is affirmed, by one of the Linnean school, in the Amoenit. Academ. that the seeds of Orchis will ripen, if you destroy the new bulb; and that Lily of the Valley, Convallaria, will produce many more seeds, and ripen them, if the roots be crowded in a garden-pot, so as to prevent them from producing many bulbs. Vol. VI. p. 120. It is probable either of these me thods may succeed with these and other bulbous-rooted plants, as snowdrops, and might render their cultivation profitable in this climate. The root of the asphodelus ramosus, branchy asphodel, is used to feed swine in France; and starch is obtained from the al stromeria licta. Memoires d'Agricult.
Bellis prolifera l. 144. Hen and chicken Daisy; in this beautiful monster not only the impletion or doubling of the petals takes place, as described in the note on Alcea; but a numerous circlet of less flowers on peduncles, or footstalks, rise from the sides of the calyx, and surround the proliferous parent. The same occurs in Calendula, mari gold; in Heracium, hawk-weed; and in Scabiosa, Scabious. Phil. Botan. p. 82.
The fragrant Gale. l. 151. The buds of the Myrica Gale possess an agreeable aromatic fragrance, and might be worth attending to as an article of the Materia Medica. Mr. Sparman suspects, that the green wax-like substance, with which at certain times of the year the berries of the Myrica cerifera, or candle-berry Myrtle, are covered, are depo sited there by insects. It is used by the inhabitants for making candles, which he says burn rather better than those made of tallow. Voyage to the Cape, V. I. 345.
Deep in wide caves. l. 175. The arguments which tend to shew that the warm springs of this country are produced from steam raised by deep subterraneous fires, and after wards condensed between the strata of the mountains, appear to me much more con clusive, than the idea of their being warmed by chemical combinations near the surface of the earth: for, 1st, their heat has kept accurately the same perhaps for many centu ries, certainly as long as we have been possessed of good thermometers; which cannot be well explained, without supposing that they are first in a boiling state. For as the heat of boiling water is 212, and that of the internal parts of the earth 48, it is easy to understand, that the steam raised from boiling water, after being condensed in some mountain, and passing from thence through a certain space of the cold earth, must be cooled always to a given degree; and it is probable the distance from the exit of the spring, to the place where the steam is condensed, might be guessed by the degree of its warmth.
2. In the dry summer of 1780, when all other springs were either dry or much di minished, those of Buxton and Matlock (as I was well informed on the spot), had suf fered no diminution; which proves that the sources of these warm springs are at great depths below the surface of the earth.
3. There are numerous perpendicular fissures in the rocks of Derbyshire, in which the ores of lead and copper are found, and which pass to unknown depths; and might thence afford a passage to steam from great subterraneous fires.
4. If these waters were heated by the decomposition of pyrites, there would be some chalybeate taste or sulphureous smell in them. See note in part I. on the existence of central fires.
Fucus. l. 191. Clandestine marriage. A species of Fucus, or of Conserva, soon appears in all basons which contain water. Dr. Priestley found that great quantities of pure dephlogisticated air were given up in water at the points of this vegetable, particu larly in the sunshine, and that hence it contributed to preserve the water in reservoirs from becoming putrid. The minute divisions of the leaves of subaquatic plants, as men tioned in the note on Trapa, and of the gills of fish, seem to serve another purpose be sides that of increasing their surface, which has not, I believe, been attended to, and that is to facilitate the separation of the air, which is mechanically mixed or chemically dis solved in water by their points or edges; this appears on immersing a dry hairy leaf in water fresh from a pump; innumerable globules like quicksilver appear on almost every point; for the extremities of these points attract the particles of water less forcibly than those particles attract each other; hence the contained air, whose elasticity was but just balanced by the attractive power of the surrounding particles of water to each other, finds at the point of each fibre a place where the resistance to its expansion is less; and in consequence it there expands, and becomes a bubble of air. It is easy to foresee that the rays of the sunshine, by being refracted and in part reflected by the two surfaces of these minute air-bubbles, must impart to them much more heat than to the transparent water; and thus facilitate their ascent by further expanding them; that the points of vegetables attract the particles of water less than they attract each other, is seen by the spherical form of dew-drops on the points of grass. See note on Vegetable Respiration in Part I.
Trapa. l. 200. Four males, one female. The lower leaves of this plant grow under water, and are divided into minute capillary ramifications; while the upper leaves are broad and round, and have air-bladders in their footstalks to support them above the surface of the water. As the aërial leaves of vegetables do the office of lungs, by ex posing a large surface of vessels with their contained fluids to the influence of the air; so these aquatic leaves answer a similar purpose like the gills of fish; and perhaps gain from water or give to it a similar material. As the material thus necessary to life seems to abound more in air than in water, the subaquatic leaves of this plant, and of sisym brium, coenanthe, ranunculus aquatilis, water crowfoot, and some others, are cut into fine divisions to increase the surface; whilst those above water are undivided. So the plants on high mountains have their upper leaves more divided, as pimpinella, petrose linum, and others, because here the air is thinner, and thence a larger surface of contact is required. The stream of water also passes but once along the gills of fish, as it is sooner deprived of its virtue; whereas the air is both received and ejected by the action of the lungs of land-animals. The whale seems to be an exception to the above, as he receives water and spouts it out again from an organ, which I suppose to be a respiratory one. As spring-water is nearly of the same degree of heat in all climates, the aquatic plants, which grow in rills or fountains, are found equally in the torrid, temperate, and frigid zones, as water-cress, water-parsnip, ranunculus, and many others.
In warmer climates the watery grounds are usefully cultivated, as with rice; and the roots of some aquatic plants are said to have supplied food, as the antient Lotus in Egypt, which some have supposed to be the Nymphaea. — In Siberia the roots of the Butomus, or flowering rush, are eaten, which is well worth further enquiry, as they grow spontane ously in our ditches and rivers, which at present produce no esculent vegetables; and might thence become an article of useful cultivation. Herodotus affirms, that the Egyp tian Lotos grows in the Nile, and resembles a Lily. That the natives dry it in the sun, and take the pulp out of it, which grows like the head of a poppy, and bake it for bread. Enterpe. Many grit-stones and coals, which I have seen, seem to bear an impression of the roots of the Nymphaea, which are often three or four inches thick, especially the white-flowered one.
Ocymum salinum. l. 221. Saline Basil. Class Two Powers. The Abbè Molina, in his History of Chili, translated from the Italian by the Abbè Grewvel, mentions a spe cies of Basil, which he calls Ocymum salinum: he says it resembles the common basil, except that the stalk is round and jointed; and that though it grows 60 miles from the sea, yet every morning it is covered with saline globules, which are hard and splendid, appearing at a distance like dew; and that each plant furnishes about half an ounce of fine salt every day, which the peasants collect, and use as common salt, but esteem it superior in flavour.
As an article of diet, salt seems to act simply as a stimulus, not containing any nou rishment, and is the only fossil substance which the caprice of mankind has yet taken into their stomachs along with their food; and, like all other unnatural stimuli, is not necessary to people in health, and contributes to weaken our system; though it may be useful as a medicine. It seems to be the immediate cause of the sea scurvy, as those patients quickly recover by the use of fresh provisions; and is probably a remote cause of scrophula (which consists in the want of irritability in the absorbent vessels), and is therefore serviceable to these patients; as wine is necessary to those whose stomachs have been weakened by its use. The universality of the use of salt with our food, and in our cookery, has rendered it difficult to prove the truth of these observations. I sus pect that flesh-meat cut into thin slices, either raw or boiled, might be preserved in coarse sugar or treacle; and thus a very nourishing and salutary diet might be presented to our seamen. See note on Salt-rocks, in Vol. I. Canto II. If a person unaccustomed to much salt should eat a couple of red-herrings, his insensible perspiration will be so much increased by the stimulus of the salt, that he will find it necessary in about two hours to drink a quart of water: the effects of a continued use of salt in weakening the action of the lymphatic system may hence be deduced.
Ice-flower. l. 235. Mesembryanthemum crystallinum.
Arum. l. 281. Cuckow-pint, of the class Gynandria, or masculine ladies. The pistil, or female part of the flower, rises like a club, is covered above or clothed, as it were, by the anthers or males; and some of the species have a large scarlet blotch in the middle of every leaf.
The singular and wonderful structure of this flower has occasioned many disputes amongst botanists. See Tourniff. Malpig. Dillen. Rivin. &c. The receptacle is en larged into a naked club, with the germs at its base; the stamens are affixed to the re ceptacle amidst the germs (a natural prodigy), and thus do not need the assistance of elevating filaments: hence the flower may be said to be inverted. Families of Plants translated from Linneus, p. 618.
The spadix of this plant is frequently quite white, or coloured, and the leaves liable to be streaked with white, and to have black or scarlet blotches on them. As the plant has no corol or blossom, it is probable the coloured juices in these parts of the sheath or leaves may serve the same purpose as the coloured juices in the petals of other flowers; from which I suppose the honey to be prepared. See note on Helleborus. I am informed that those tulip-roots which have a red cuticle produce red flowers. See Rubia.
When the petals of the tulip become striped with many colours, the plant loses almost half of its height; and the method of making them thus break into colours is by tran splanting them into a meagre or sandy soil, after they have previously enjoyed a richer soil: hence it appears, that the plant is weakened when the flower becomes variegated. See note on Anemone. For the acquired habits of vegetables, see Tulipa, Orchis.
The roots of the Arum are scratched up and eaten by thrushes in severe snowy seasons. White's Hist. of Selbourn, p. 43.
Dianthus. l. 299. Superbus. Proud Pink. There is a kind of pink called Fairchild's mule, which is here supposed to be produced between a Dianthus superbus, and the Caryophyllus, Clove. The Dianthus superbus emits a most fragrant odour, particularly at night. Vegetable mules supply an irrefragable argument in favour of the sexual sys tem of botany. They are said to be numerous; and, like the mules of the animal kingdom, not always to continue their species by seed. There is an account of a curious mule from the Antirrhinum linaria, Toad-flax, in the Amoenit. Academ. V. I. No. 3. and many hybrid plants described in No. 32. The Urtica alienata is an evergreen plant, which appears to be a nettle from the male flowers, and a Pellitory (Parietaria) from the female ones and the fruit; and is hence between both. Murray, Syst. Veg. Amongst the English indigenous plants, the veronica hybrida mule Speedwel is supposed to have originated from the officinal one; and the spiked one, and the Sibthorpia Euro paea to have for its parents the golden saxifrage and marsh pennywort. Pulteney's View of Linneus, p. 250. Mr. Graberg, Mr. Schreber, and Mr. Ramstrom, seem of opinion, that the internal structure or parts of fructification in mule-plants resemble the female parent; but that the habit or external structure resembles the male parent. See treatises under the above names in V. VI. Amaenit. Academic. The mule produced from a horse and the ass resembles the horse externally with his ears, main, and tail; but with the nature or manners of an ass: but the Hinnus, or creature produced from a male ass, and a mare, resembles the father externally in stature, ash-colour, and the black cross, but with the nature or manners of a horse. The breed from Spanish rams and Swedish ewes resembled the Spanish sheep in wool, stature, and external form; but was as hardy as the Swedish sheep; and the contrary of those which were produced from Swedish rams and Spanish ewes. The offspring from the male goat of Angora and the Swedish female goat had long soft camel's hair; but that from the male Swedish goat, and the female one of Angora, had no improvement of their wool. An English ram without horns, and a Swedish horned ewe, produced sheep without horns. Amoen. Academ. V. VI. p. 13.
The dry Harmattan. l. 324. The Harmattan is a singular wind blowing from the in terior parts of Africa to the Atlantic ocean, sometimes for a few hours, sometimes for several days without regular periods. It is always attended with a fog or haze, so dense as to render those objects invisible which are at the distance of a quarter of a mile; the sun appears through it only about noon, and then of a dilute red, and very minute par ticles subside from the misty air so as to make the grass, and the skins of negroes appear whitish. The extreme dryness which attends this wind or fog, without dews, withers and quite dries the leaves of vegetables; and is said of Dr. Lind at some seasons to be fatal and malignant to mankind; probably after much preceding wet, when it may be come loaded with the exhalations from putrid marshes; at other seasons it is said to check epidemic diseases, to cure fluxes, and to heal ulcers and cutaneous eruptions; which is probably effected by its yielding no moisture to the mouths of the external absorbent vessels, by which the action of the other branches of the absorbent system is increased to supply the deficiency, Account of the Harmattan. Phil. Transact. V. LXXl.
The Rev. Mr. Sterling gives an account of a darkness for six or eight hours at Detroit in America, on the 19th of October, 1762, in which the sun appeared as red as blood, and thrice its usual size: some rain falling, covered white paper with dark drops, like sulphur or dirt, which burnt like wet gunpowder, and the air had a very sulphureous smell. He supposes this to have been emitted from some distant earthquake or volcano. Philos. Trans. V. LIII. p. 63.
In many circumstances this wind seems much to resemble the dry fog which covered most parts of Europe for many weeks in the summer of 1780, which has been supposed to have had a volcanic origin, as it succeeded the violent eruption of Mount Heela, and its neighbourhood. From the subsidence of a white powder, it seems probable that the Harmattan has a similar origin, from the unexplored mountains of Africa. Nor is it improbable, that the epidemic coughs, which occasionally traverse immense tracts of country, may be the products of volcanic eruptions; nor impossible, that at some future time contagious miasmata may be thus emitted from subterraneous furnaces, in such abundance as to contaminate the whole atmosphere, and depopulate the earth!
His sickening shoals. 330. Mr. Marsden relates, that in the island of Sumatra, during the November of 1775, the dry monsoons, or S. E. winds, continued so much longer than usual, that the large rivers became dry; and prodigious quantities of sea-fish, dead and dying, were seen floating for leagues on the sea, and driven on the beach by the tides. This was supposed to have been caused by the great evaporation, and the defi ciency of fresh water rivers having rendered the sea too salt for its inhabitants. The season then became so sickly as to destroy great numbers of people, both foreigners and natives. Phil. Trans. V. LXXI. p. 384.
Chunda. l. 331. Chundali Borrum is the name which the natives give to this plant; it is the Hedysarum gyrans, or moving plant; its class is two brotherhoods, ten males. Its leaves are continually in spontaneous motion; some rising and others falling; and others whirling circularly by twisting their stems; this spontaneous movement of the leaves, when the air is quite still and very warm, seems to be necessary to the plant, as perpetual respiration is to animal life. A more particular account, with a good print of the Hedysarum gyrans is given by M. Broussonet in a paper on vegetable motions in the Histoire de l'Academic des Sciences. Ann. 1784, p. 609.
There are many other instances of spontaneous movements of the parts of vegetables. In the Marchantia polymorpha some yellow wool proceeds from the flower-bearing an thers, which moves spontaneously in the anther, while it drops its dust like atoms. Murray, Syst. Veg. See note on Collinsonia for other instances of vegetable spon taneity. Add to this, that as the sleep of animals consists in a suspension of voluntary motion, and as vegetables are likewise subject to sleep, there is reason to conclude, that the various actions of opening and closing their petals and soliage may be justly ascribed to a voluntary power: for without the faculty of volition, sleep would not have been necessary to them.
Burst the thick ribs of ice. l. 348. The violent cracks of ice heard from the Glaciers seem to be caused by some of the snow being melted in the middle of the day; and the water thus produced running down into vallies of ice, and congealing again in a few hours, forces off by its expansion large precipices from the ice-mountains.
Muschus. l. 353. Corallinus, or lichen rangiferinus. Coral-moss. Clandestine-mar riage. This moss vegetates beneath the snow, where the degree of heat is always about 40; that is, in the middle between the freezing point; and the common heat of the earth; and is for many months of the winter the sole food of the rain-deer, who digs furrows in the snow to find it: and as the milk and flesh of this animal is almost the only sustenance which can be procured during the long winters of the higher latitudes, this moss may be said to support some millions of mankind.
The quick vegetation that occurs on the solution of the snows in high latitudes ap pears very astonishing; it seems to arise from two causes, 1. the long continuance of the approaching sun above the horizon; 2. the increased irritability of plants which have been long exposed to the cold. See note on Anemone,
All the water-fowl on the lakes of Siberia are said by Professor Gmelin to retreat southwards on the commencement of the frosts, except the Rail, which sleeps buried in the snow. Account of Siberia.
Aega l. 364. Conferva aegagropila. It is found loose in many lakes in a globular form, from the size of a walnut to that of a melon, much resembling the balls of hair found in the stomachs of cows; it adheres to nothing, but rolls from one part of the lake to another. The Conferva vagabunda dwells on the European seas, travelling along in the midst of the waves; (Spec. Plant.) These may not improperly be called itinerant vegetables. In a similar manner the Fucus natans (swimming) strikes no roots into the earth, but floats on the sea in very extensive masses, and may be said to be a plant of passage, as it is wafted by the winds from one shore to another.
Truffelia. l. 392. (Lycoperdon Tuber) Truffle. Clandestine marriage. This fungus never appears above ground, requiring little air, and perhaps no light. It is found by dogs or swine, who hunt it by the smell. Other plants, which have no buds or branches on their stems, as the grasses, shoot out numerous stoles or scions underground; and this the more, as their tops or herbs are eaten by cattle, and thus preserve themselves.
Caprificus. l. 408. Wild fig. The fruit of the fig is not a seed-vessel, but a recep tacle inclosing the flower within it. As these trees bear some male and others female flowers, immured on all sides by the fruit, the manner of their fecundation was very un intelligible, till Tournesort and Pontedera discovered, that a kind of gnat produced in the male figs carried the secundating dust on its wings, (Cynips Psenes Syst. Nat. 919.), and, penetrating the female fig, thus impregnated the flowers; for the evidence of this wonderful fact, see the word Caprification, in Milne's Botanical Dictionary. The figs of this country are all female, and their seeds not prolific; and therefore they can only be propagated by layers and suckers.
Monsieur de la Hire has shewn in the Memoir. de l'Academ. de Science, that the summer figs of Paris, in Provence, Italy, and Malta, have all perfect stamina, and ripen not only their fruits, but their seed; from which seed other fig-trees are raised; but that the stamina of the autumnal figs are abortive, perhaps owing to the want of due warmth. Mr. Milne, in his Botanical Dictionary (art. Caprification), says, that the cultivated fig-trees have a few male flowers placed above the female within the same co vering or receptacle; which in warmer climates perform their proper office, but in colder ones become abortive. And Linneus observes, that some figs have the navel of the receptacle open; which was one reason that induced him to remove this plant from the class Clandestine Marriage to the class Polygamy. Lin. Spec. Plant.
From all these circumstances I should conjecture, that those female fig-flowers, which are closed on all sides in the fruit or receptacle without any male ones, are monsters, which have been propagated for their fruit, like barberries, and grapes without seeds in them; and that the Caprification is either an antient process of imaginary use, and blindly followed in some countries, or that it may contribute to ripen the fig by de creasing its vigour, like cutting off a circle of the bark from the branch of a pear-tree. Tournefort seems inclined to this opinion; who says, that the figs in Provence and at Paris ripen sooner, if their buds be pricked with a straw dipped in olive-oil. Plumbs and pears punctured by some insects ripen sooner, and the part round the puncture is sweeter. Is not the honey-dew produced by the puncture of insects? will not wounding the branch of a pear-tree, which is too vigorous, prevent the blossoms from falling off; as from some fig-trees the fruit is said to fall off unless they are wounded by caprification? I had last spring six young trees of the Ischia fig with fruit on them in pots in a slove; on removing them into larger boxes, they protruded very vigorous shoots, and the fig all fell off; which I ascribed to the increased vigour of the plants.
The Proteus-lover. l. 446. Conserva polymorpha. This vegetable is put amongst the cryptogamia, or clandestine marriages, by Linneus; but, according to Mr. Ellis, the males and females are on different plants. Philos. Trans. Vol. LVII. It twice changes its colour, from red to brown, and then to black; and changes its form by losing its lower leaves, and elongating some of the upper ones, so as to be mistaken by the unskil ful for different plants. It grows on the shores of this country.
There is another plant, Medicago polymorpha, which may be said to assume a great variety of shapes; as the seed-vssels resemble sometimes snail-horns, at other times ca terpillars with or without long hair upon them; by which means it is probable they sometimes elude the depredations of those insects. The seeds of Calendula, Marygold, bend up like a hairy caterpillar, with their prickles brisfling outwards, and may thus deter some birds or insects from preying upon them. Salicornia also assumes an animal similitude. Phil. Bot. p. 87. See note on Iris in additional notes; and Cypripedia in Vol. I.
Adonis. l. 468. Many males and many females live together in the same flower. It may seem a solecism in language, to call a flower, which contains many of both sexes, an individual; and the more so to call a tree or shrub an individual, which consists of so many flowers. Every tree, indeed, ought to be considered as a family or swarm of its respective buds; but the buds themselves seem to be individual plants; because each has leaves or lungs appropriated to it; and the bark of the tree is only a congeries of the roots of all these individual buds. Thus hollow oak-trees and willows are often seen with the whole wood decayed and gone; and yet the few remaining branches flourish with vigour; but in respect to the male and female parts of a flower, they do not destroy its individuality any more than the number of paps of a sow, or the number of her coty ledons, each of which includes one of her young.
The society, called the Areoi, in the island of Otaheite, consists of about 100 males and 100 females, who form one promiscuous marriage.
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Contents
- THE LOVES OF THE PLANTS . (canto)
- THE LOVES OF THE PLANTS . (canto)
- THE LOVES OF THE PLANTS . (canto)
- THE LOVES OF THE PLANTS . (canto)
Source edition
Darwin, Erasmus, 1731-1802. The botanic garden: a poem, in two parts. Part I. Containing the economy of vegetation. Part II. The loves of the plants. With philosophical notes. London: printed for J. Johnson, 1791, pp. []-185. xii,212,[1],212-214,126,[2]p.,plates ; 4⁰. (ESTC T82160; OTA K067205.000)
Editorial principles
Secondary literature
- Connolly, Tristanne.
Flowery porn: form and desire in Erasmus Darwin's The Loves of the Plants.
Literature Compass 13(10) (2016): 604-616. Print.