And kiss the thresholds, and the posts embrace.
The fatal work inhuman Pyrrhus plies;
And all his father* sparkles in his eyes.
Nor bars nor fighting guards his force sustain:
The bars are broken, and the guards are slain.
In rush the Greeks, and all the apartments fill;
Those few defendants whom they find, they kill.
Not with so fierce a rage the foaming flood
Roars, when he finds his rapid course withstood,
Bears down the dams with unresisted sway,
And sweeps the cattle and the cots away.

Perhaps you may of Priam's fate inquire.
He, when he saw his regal town on fire,
His ruined palace, and his entering foes,-
On every side inevitable woes;

In arms disused invests his limbs, decayed
Like them with age; a late and useless aid.
His feeble shoulders scarce the weight sustain;
Loaded, not armed, he creeps along with pain,
Despairing of success, ambitious to be slain!
Uncovered but by heaven, there stood in view
An altar; near the hearth a laurel grew,
Dodder'd with age, whose boughs encompass round
The household gods, and shade the holy ground.
Here Hecuba, with all her helpless train

Of dames, for shelter sought, but sought in vain.
Driven like a flock of doves along the sky,
Their images they hug, and to their altars fly.
The queen, when she beheld her trembling lord,
And hanging by his side a heavy sword,

"What rage," she cried, "has seized my husband's mind?

What arms are these, and to what use designed?

These times want other aids! Were Hector here, Even Hector now, in vain like Priam, would appear. With us one common shelter thou shalt find,

Or in one common fate with us be joined."

* His father was the celebrated Achilles.

DEPARTURE OF ENEAS.

Armed once again, my glittering sword I wield,
While my other hand sustains my weighty shield;
And forth I rush to seek the abandoned field.
I went: but sad Creüsa stopped my way,
And 'cross the threshold in my passage lay,
Embraced my knees, and, when I would have gone,
Shewed me my feeble sire, and tender son.
"If death be your design, at least," said she,
"Take us along, to share your destiny.
If any farther hopes in arms remain,

This place, these pledges of your love, maintain.
To whom do you expose your father's life,

Your son's, and mine, your now forgotten wife?”
While thus she fills the house with clamorous cries,
Our hearing is diverted by our eyes:

For, while I held my son, in the short space
Betwixt our kisses and our last embrace,
(Strange to relate!) from young Iülus' head,
A lambent flame arose, which gently spread
Around his brows, and on his temples fed.
Amazed, with running water we prepare
To quench the sacred fire, and slake his hair;
But old Anchises, versed in omens, reared
His hands to heaven, and this request preferred:
"If any vows, almighty Jove, can bend

Thy will, if piety can prayers commend;

Confirm the glad presage which thou art pleased to send."

Scarce had he said, when on our left we hear
A peal of rattling thunder roll in air:
There shot a streaming lamp along the sky,
Which on the winged lightning seemed to fly:
From o'er the roof the blaze began to move,
And, trailing, vanished in the Idæan grove.
It swept a path in heaven, and shone a guide,
Then in a steaming stench of sulphur died.

Dryden's Virgil.

GARDENING.

Ir must not be supposed that the employment of handlabour in gardening is solely determined by the circumstance of the size of the ground not admitting the use of the plough; for an easy remedy would instantly suggest itself in this case—that of increasing the area of land cultivated for gardens, or what is equivalent, uniting several small gardens into one large one.

The

true cause of the necessity for digging with a spade instead of ploughing is, that the plough is inadequate to bring the soil into such a state as is necessary for raising the proper produce of a garden with the least quantity of subsequent labour.

The greater part of the vegetables raised in gardens are either exotics from warmer climates, or indigenous plants improved by careful tillage bestowed on successive generations of them for many centuries; and if this care were not constantly employed, the plants in their improved state would not be able to bear the comparative rigour of our climate, but would speedily degenerate to their original or natural state.

The chief object of all tillage is to supply the growing plants with constant nourishment by the frequent moving of the soil about them, and also to prevent their being robbed of that food by weeds growing among them. The operations required to effect these objects can only be carried on when the plants are placed with great regularity in straight lines; and that each plant may be accessible, they must be planted in small patches, or beds, of earth, with walks between them. Instead of sowing the seed of many vegetables in drills, and afterwards rooting up the superabundant plants, (the mode of cultivating turnips in fields,) it is productive of more economy both of seed and time, as well as of more benefit to their subsequent growth, to sow the seed closely in a small patch of ground, and to transplant the young plants when arrived

at a certain age. By this means they may not only be planted in their proper beds with the utmost regularity, but there is also another motive for adopting this plan.

Every plant has particular seasons, at which, when growing in its native soil or in its native climate, the various stages of its development take place, and if transferred to a less genial situation, it must be sheltered during its infancy from the severity of the air; added to which, these successive stages of growth in all plants may be accelerated within certain limits by the application of artificial heat, in order to promote the germination of the seed and its early and rapid growth. This is a desirable object, in order to meet the demands of those who, having the means of purchasing luxuries, furnish the remuneration due to those who employ their care and skill in raising early produce by forced cultivation.

The artificial heat is applied in various manners, according to the vegetable, and to the mode of its growth, but the premature germination of the seed is effected by sowing it on a hot-bed, which is prepared in the following manner. Stable-litter (or straw which has been saturated with the dung, &c., of horses and cattle) is piled with care and regularity into a square heap flat at the top. The fermentation, which speedily ensues in such a mixture of animal and vegetable matter, evolves a quantity of heat, which is maintained and confined by the magnitude of the mass: on this heap fine mould is strewed, to the depth of seven or eight inches, and on the whole a frame is put, which is covered over with matting, or, if intended to be permanent, with glass lights. The seed being sown in this mould, the heat confined by the frame excites germination and produces rapid growth in the plant. When strong enough to bear the open air, to which they must be gradually habituated, the young plants are taken up with every care, that the fine fibres of their roots may not be injured, and they are then planted in the bed in the following manner :

The earth being broken fine by digging and raking, a line is set out by means of a string stretched between

two pegs or iron pins, and the gardener, taking the plant in his left hand, with the dibble in his right, he makes a perpendicular hole about six or eight inches deep; into this hole he lets the root of the plant descend, till the junction of the stem and root, or the neck of the plant, is level with the ground. He then pushes in the fine earth to fill up the hole again, and putting the dibble in obliquely at a small distance from the plant, by a twist of the tool presses the mould close up to the root. Without this precaution the plant would die, if the fine fibres of the root, instead of being in close contact with the earth, were left in the gaps of the loose pieces.

The plants, after this removal, will languish for a day or two, particularly if the weather be hot and dry; but they will then revive and grow with increased vigour, in consequence of the greater space from which their roots can derive nourishment. Plants should never be planted out in wet weather, or when the earth is wet from recently fallen rain, for the mould in this state would, after being worked, harden into a mortar which the fibres of the roots could never penetrate. When it is practicable, the operation should be performed just before rain when the earth is too dry for it to adhere at all in clods under the hoe or spade.

As soon as possible after the transplanting, when the recently moved plants begin to grow again, the earth should be hoed or dug between them, and, if necessary, a little should be drawn up the stems. Weeds must always be eradicated, or hoed down by the Dutch or thrust-hoe as soon as they appear; and once or twice at least during the growth of the plants the earth between them should be dug deeply, except the plants are vegetables cultivated for their tap-roots, as carrots, parsnips, beet, &c., or are bulb-bearing, as onions, leeks, &c.

If the earth were dug deeply between the former class of plants, the roots would fork, or throw out side shoots, instead of growing straight or undivided; and the last-named kind of plants would, in such a case, not form large and full bulbs, but would run to neck.