Book Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1873 edition. Excerpt: ... "T remember, I remember," is the opening of one of Hood's beautiful poems, which, when we look back, ever comes ringing upon our memory, like the familiar peal of our homechurch bells; for a country boy remembers many things which those who were born and brought up in the streets and smoke of cities never knew. Can we ever forget going " a-cowslipping," in the old Park-house closes, that stretched far behind the summits of the hills which looked down upon the humble home of our childhood? No more than we can forget how our boyish hands were filled with these beautiful wayside flowers, as we stood upon a little knoll beside the pond where we had gathered them, and saw, for the first time in our lives, they grey old towers of Lincoln Minster--that gem of English cathedrals--in the far distance. A proud day it was, when we stood, Columbus-like, on our cowslip-crowned hillock, the first discoverer of that wondrous work, which no one had ever before known--so they said--to be seen nearer than a further range of hills some three or four miles distant. Thousands since that day have stood on the cowslipped knoll to gaze on the hoary cathedral; and we have since heard that no cowslips grow on it now. What years have passed away since we saw the great marigold window give back glory for glory, as it stood steeped in the sunshine of heaven! Cowslips, as all know, like the verbena, sweetwilliam, and several others, are many-flowered; while the daisy and primrose never produce more than a single flower on the same stem. The largest number of cowslips we ever counted on one stem was twenty-seven, and the flower was nearly a foot high, with the stalk as straight as an arrow, and thick in proportion to the heavy truss of bloom it bore. Every separate...