Page:The Romance of Nature; or, The Flower-Seasons Illustrated.djvu/93

35 SPRING MEMORIES AND MUSINGS.

I have presented my graphic portraits of Spring's fair children to my readers, with little illustration save my own fanciful, and, it may be, feebly descriptive poems; but as several of the selected Flowers, and others (which, though not represented in the illustrative groups, are famed gems), have poetic fables connected with them, I shall now give a few brief memoirs of familiar favourites, illustrating and enlivening my dull prose with extracts from our great old Poets.

In suffering my own productions to take precedence of these jewels, drawn from the mines of poetic wealth bequeathed to us by our ancient Bards, I am not actuated by vanity, but by a very different feeling—that of policy; believing that my humble lays would be far more graciously received by my readers, before the memory of favourite passages on like subjects had been refreshed by my extract-gleanings; well knowing, how