How he shivers! from his age

All his leaves have faded,
And his weary pilgrimage
Ends, at last, unaided

By his own sun, that dims its ray,
To leave him dark in his decay.

Hark! through the air the wild storm bears,
In hollow sounds, his doom;

While scarce a star its pale course steers
Athwart the sullen gloom;

And Nature leaves him to his fate,
To his grey hairs a cold ingrate.

She goes to hail the coming year,
Whose spring flowers soon shall rise-
Fool, thus to shun an old friend's bier,
Nor wisely moralize

On her own brow, where age is stealing,
Many a scar of time revealing:-

Quenched volcanoes, rifted mountains,
Oceans driven from land,

Isles submerged, and dried-up fountains,
Empires whelmed in sand,-

What, though her doom be yet untold,
Nature, like time, is waxing old!

New Monthly Magazine.

Towards the end of the month, woodcocks and snipes become the prey of the fowler. The jacksnipe (Scolopax gallinula), which visits us at this period, is a decided species, with marked and singular habits. See T.T. for 1824, p. 319.

The insect-swarms which delighted us with their ceaseless hum, their varied tints, and beautiful forms, during the summer and autumnal months, are retired to their winter quarters, and remain in a state of torpidity, till awakened by the enlivening warmth of spring. See T.T. for 1826, p. 321, 322, and our last volume, p. 390, on the dormant state of spiders and crickets.

The Green-House.

A green-house, which fifty years ago was a luxury not often to be met with, is now become an appendage to every villa, and to many town residences:-not, indeed, one of the first necessity, but one which is felt to be appropriate and highly desirable. Man is fond of living beings, and after assembling those plants around him which he found necessary for food, he would select such as were agreeable to the eye, or fragrant to the smell. A flower in the open parterre, though beautiful and gay, has yet something less endearing, and is less capable of receiving especial regard, than a plant in a pot, which thus acquires a sort of locomotion; and becomes, as it were, thoroughly domesticated. After choice things were planted in pots, rare ones would be planted in them; and from these to plants rare, foreign, and tender, the transition would be natural and easy. Tender, rare plants in pots would be taken into the house for shelter, and set near the window for light; and hence the origin of the green-house.

In what age of the world, and in what country a green-house first appeared, it is impossible to determine; it is sufficient to have shown that a taste for this appendage to a dwelling is natural to man; to experience that it adds to his enjoyments; and to feel that it bestows a certain claim to distinction on its possessor. A green-house is, in a peculiar degree, the care of the female part of a family, and forms an interesting scene of care and recreation to a mother and her daughters, at a season of the year when there is but little inducement to walk in the kitchen-garden, and nothing to do in the parterre or the shrubbery. The progress of vegetation, interesting in all scenes, and at all seasons, is more especially so in a green-house during winter. There the objects are of limited number, brought near the eye by their position, and rendered striking by their contrast with the

cold, naked, and dreary scenes which are shut out: then it is that the genial climate, the life and growth, the deep tone of verdure, and the prevailing stillness of repose within, cause this winter garden to be felt as a luxuriant consecration to man.

Unconscious of a less propitious clime,

There blooms exotic beauty, warm and snug,
While the winds whistle and the snows descend.
The spiry myrtle, with unwithering leaf,
Shines there, and flourishes. The golden boast
Of Portugal and western India there,
The ruddier orange, and the paler lime,
Peep through their polished foliage at the storm,
And seem to smile at what they need not fear.
The amomum there with intermingling flowers
And cherries hangs her twigs. Geranium boasts
Her crimson honours, and the spangled beau,
Ficoides, glitters bright the winter long.

All plants, of every leaf, that can endure

The winter's frown, if screened from his shrewd bite,
Live there, and prosper.

Nor taste alone and well-contrived display
Suffice to give the marshalled ranks the grace
Of their complete effect. Much yet remains
Unsung, and many cares are yet behind,
And more laborious; cares on which depend
Their vigour, injured soon, not soon restored.
The soil must be renewed, which, often washed,
Loses its treasure of salubrious salts,

And disappoints the roots; the slender roots
Close interwoven, where they meet the vase,
Must smooth be shorn away; the sapless branch
Must fly before the knife; the withered leaf
Must be detached, and where it strews the floor
Swept with a woman's neatness, breeding else
Contagion, and disseminating death.
Discharge but these kind offices (and who
Would spare, that loves them, offices like these?)
Well they reward the toil. The sight is pleased,
The scent regaled, each odoriferous leaf,
Each opening blossom freely breathes abroad
Its gratitude, and thanks him with its sweets.

But all green-houses do not yield the enjoyments which a green-house is calculated to produce; because all are not well contrived, or judiciously managed for that purpose. Some do not know what a green-house will, and what it will not afford; and others expect all its peculiar enjoyments without their accompanying cares. Some erect a green-house of such a form and position, that the plants within can never prosper; others in such a situation, relatively to the house, that if they prosper they can never be enjoyed; and not a few think they have done every thing when they have completed the construction, stocked it with plants, and committed it to the future care of a house servant or mere out-door labourer.

But a green house, to be of any value to the owner, must not be trifled with in this manner. It is entirely a work of art: the plants inclosed are in the most artificial situation in which they can be placed, and require constant and unremitting attention to counteract the tendency of that artificial state to destroy them. It is a common notion that a plant in a pot is in a safer state than a plant in the open ground; but this is a most erroneous notion, and directly the reverse of the fact. Placing plants in pots is often more convenient for the cultivator; but it always checks and counteracts the natural habits of the plant: it checks the extension of the roots, and, by consequence, of the shoots; and it subjects these roots to be alternately deluged by water, and dried up for want of it,—and all this under the best management. Under a careless gardener, if the pots are not properly drained, and this drainage kept in repair, the soil will be soaked in water till the roots are rotted; or by neglecting to shift the plants to pots of a larger size at proper seasons, the roots will get matted so as to derive no benefit from the soil, preclude the water from entering, and thus first

stint, and then kill the plant. But plants in a greenhouse are not only in an artificial and injurious state as to the soil, but also as to their climate, and especially as to heat, light, and air. These requisites to vegetation require also to be particularly attended to, so as partly to imitate nature, and partly to effect particular purposes of art on natural principles. Finally, it must be obvious, that where there is so much art, there must be a greater tendency to disease and accident than in ordinary nature; and consequently, that no small degree of vigilance is required in this respect.

But let not our readers be alarmed at these obstacles, or imagine that, by a moderate degree of care and attention, all these evils may not be avoided, and the enjoyments of a green-house fully obtained. An excellent work, called the Green-House Companion, to which we are indebted for the above remarks, will furnish a great deal of valuable information respecting green-houses: it is, indeed, an indispensable guide to every one who undertakes the management of this agreeable appendage to a house and grounds.

The Winter Nosegay.

What nature, alas! has denied
To the delicate growth of our isle,
Art has, in a measure, supplied,

And winter is decked with a smile.

See, Mary, what beauties I bring

From the shelter of that sunny shed,

Where the flowers have the charms of the spring,
Though abroad they are frozen and dead.

"Tis a bower of Arcadian sweets,

Where Flora is still in her prime,—

A fortress to which she retreats

From the cruel assaults of the clime:
While earth wears a mantle of snow,
These pinks are as fresh and as gay
As the fairest and sweetest that blow
On the beautiful bosom of May.