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LONDON:

THOMAS HARRILD, PRINTER, SILVER STREET,

FALCON SQUARE.

PREFACE.

OUR design in writing the following pages was to supply entertaining and instructive accounts of such plants, indigenous to Britain, as are most generally known and admired; whose names are familiar as household words with thousands who seldom, if ever, had seen them in their native wilds, and who scarcely knew them when seen. Many a one doomed to toil for daily bread within close pent cities, reading the name of some fair floweret of the vale, and seeing how it is associated in the mind of his author with pleasant thoughts and sweet recollections, has loved the flower. To such we purposed to bring a more intimate acquaintance with these bright and cheerful favourites of still merry England.

In hedgerows and in fields our favourites grow;
And morn, and noon, and dewy eve, they throw
Their fragrance on light vapours floating by
Where Nature bids her choicest beauties lie.

And from such places have we culled pictured representations of our subjects, and so faithful we conceive them to be, that they who have become acquainted with their features through our volume may recognize the originals as they roam through meadow, grove, or woodland, and knowing, look on them as on old friends, aye, and old friends, too, who never change the manner of their greeting. Fragrant flowers shed their sweetness alike for rich and poor, and the richness of their coloured petals varies as the feelings of those who look on them. How fine, how delicate, the sympathy thus silently expressed; how soothing to the troubled spirit the calm and gentle influence of true Nature!

To render more familiar these scattered treasures; to portray their characters; to point out at what seasons we may look for them in their prime, and in what localities we may find them; to furnish sure tokens whereby we may really know them when found, was the object of our volume. Poetry derived from the writings of those well known to fame, when it could be found, was inwoven with the text; and this plan, once adopted, rendered it necessary, where none

existed, that some should be written. The necessity of the case compelled the Editor very reluctantly to insert compositions of his own, being painfully conscious of their unworthiness to appear in the same pages with those he had selected.

It is, however, gratifying to know, from the oral and written testimony of many of the subscribers, that the volume has not failed to please; and that the determination to abide by the limit originally fixed for the extent of the work will be regretted by not a few of them.

We rejoice that our efforts have been so far successful, and that we have reason to believe that our readers perceive new beauties, and have acquired new associations which make their meeting with our favourite field flowers more interesting and more joyous; and that they delight in their rural walks more than heretofore, through our humble labours.

We cannot close these few observations without expressing our acknowledgements for the kind assistance rendered by our friend, and companion in many a rural ramble, James Goodday, Esq., of Queens' College, Cambridge, whose previous

knowledge of the localities in which we discovered most of our favourites, was of the greatest

service.

March, 1848.

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