The Botanic Garden

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[Illustration: FLORA attired by the ELEMENTS]

THE

BOTANIC GARDEN;

_A Poem, in Two Parts._

PART I.

CONTAINING

THE ECONOMY OF VEGETATION.

PART II.

THE LOVES OF THE PLANTS.

WITH

Philosophical Notes.

ADVERTISEMENT.

The general design of the following sheets is to inlist Imagination
under the banner of Science; and to lead her votaries from the looser
analogies, which dress out the imagery of poetry, to the stricter, ones
which form the ratiocination of philosophy. While their particular
design is to induce the ingenious to cultivate the knowledge of Botany,
by introducing them to the vestibule of that delightful science, and
recommending to their attention the immortal works of the celebrated
Swedish Naturalist, LINNEUS.

In the first Poem, or Economy of Vegetation, the physiology of Plants is
delivered; and the operation of the Elements, as far as they may be
supposed to affect the growth of Vegetables. In the second Poem, or
Loves of the Plants, the Sexual System of Linneus is explained, with the
remarkable properties of many particular plants.

APOLOGY.

It may be proper here to apologize for many of the subsequent
conjectures on some articles of natural philosophy, as not being
supported by accurate investigation or conclusive experiments.
Extravagant theories however in those parts of philosophy, where our
knowledge is yet imperfect, are not without their use; as they encourage
the execution of laborious experiments, or the investigation of
ingenious deductions, to confirm or refute them. And since natural
objects are allied to each other by many affinities, every kind of
theoretic distribution of them adds to our knowledge by developing some
of their analogies.

The Rosicrucian doctrine of Gnomes, Sylphs, Nymphs, and Salamanders, was
thought to afford a proper machinery for a Botanic poem; as it is
probable, that they were originally the names of hieroglyphic figures
representing the elements.

Many of the important operations of Nature were shadowed or allegorized
in the heathen mythology, as the first Cupid springing from the Egg of
Night, the marriage of Cupid and Psyche, the Rape of Proserpine, the
Congress of Jupiter and Juno, Death and Resuscitation of Adonis, &c.
many of which are ingeniously explained in the works of Bacon, Vol. V.
p. 47. 4th Edit. London, 1778. The Egyptians were possessed of many
discoveries in philosophy and chemistry before the invention of letters;
these were then expressed in hieroglyphic paintings of men and animals;
which after the discovery of the alphabet were described and animated by
the poets, and became first the deities of Egypt, and afterwards of
Greece and Rome. Allusions to those fables were therefore thought proper
ornaments to a philosophical poem, and are occasionally introduced
either as represented by the poets, or preserved on the numerous gems
and medallions of antiquity.

TO

THE AUTHOR

OF THE

POEM ON THE LOVES OF THE PLANTS.

BY THE REV. W.B. STEPHENS.

Oft tho' thy genius, D----! amply fraught
With native wealth, explore new worlds of mind;
Whence the bright ores of drossless wisdom brought,
Stampt by the Muse's hand, enrich mankind;

Tho' willing Nature to thy curious eye,
Involved in night, her mazy depths betray;
Till at their source thy piercing search descry
The streams, that bathe with Life our mortal clay;

Tho', boldly soaring in sublimer mood
Through trackless skies on metaphysic wings,
Thou darest to scan the approachless Cause of Good,
And weigh with steadfast hand the Sum of Things;

Yet wilt thou, charm'd amid his whispering bowers
Oft with lone step by glittering Derwent stray,
Mark his green foliage, count his musky flowers,
That blush or tremble to the rising ray;

While FANCY, seated in her rock-roof'd dell,
Listening the secrets of the vernal grove,
Breathes sweetest strains to thy symphonious shell,
And gives new echoes to the throne of Love.

_Repton, Nov. 28, 1788._

_Argument of the First Canto._

The Genius of the place invites the Goddess of Botany. 1. She descends,
is received by Spring, and the Elements, 59. Addresses the Nymphs of
Fire. Star-light Night seen in the Camera Obscura, 81. I. Love created
the Universe. Chaos explodes. All the Stars revolve. God. 97. II.
Shooting Stars. Lightning. Rainbow. Colours of the Morning and Evening
Skies. Exterior Atmosphere of inflammable Air. Twilight. Fire-balls.
Aurora Borealis. Planets. Comets. Fixed Stars. Sun's Orb, 115. III. 1.
Fires at the Earth's Centre. Animal Incubation, 137. 2. Volcanic
Mountains. Venus visits the Cyclops, 149. IV. Heat confined on the Earth
by the Air. Phosphoric lights in the Evening. Bolognian Stone. Calcined
Shells. Memnon's Harp, 173. Ignis fatuus. Luminous Flowers. Glow-worm.
Fire-fly. Luminous Sea-insects. Electric Eel. Eagle armed with
Lightning, 189. V. 1. Discovery of Fire. Medusa, 209. 2. The chemical
Properties of Fire. Phosphorus. Lady in Love, 223. 3. Gunpowder, 237.
VI. Steam-engine applied to Pumps, Bellows, Water-engines, Corn-mills,
Coining, Barges, Waggons, Flying-chariots, 253. Labours of Hercules.
Abyla and Calpe, 297. VII. 1. Electric Machine. Hesperian Dragon.
Electric kiss. Halo round the heads of Saints. Electric Shock. Fairy-
rings, 335. 2. Death of Professor Richman, 371. 3. Franklin draws
Lightning from the Clouds. Cupid snatches the Thunder-bolt from Jupiter,
383. VIII. Phosphoric Acid and Vital Heat produced in the Blood. The
great Egg of Night, 399. IX. Western Wind unfettered. Naiad released.
Frost assailed. Whale attacked, 421. X. Buds and Flowers expanded by
Warmth, Electricity, and Light. Drawings with colourless sympathetic
Inks; which appear when warmed by the Fire, 457. XI. Sirius. Jupiter and
Semele. Northern Constellations. Ice-islands navigated into the Tropic
Seas. Rainy Monsoons, 497. XII. Points erected to procure Rain. Elijah
on Mount-Carmel, 549. Departure of the Nymphs of Fire like sparks from
artificial Fireworks, 587.

THE
ECONOMY OF VEGETATION.

CANTO I.

STAY YOUR RUDE STEPS! whose throbbing breasts infold
The legion-fiends of Glory, or of Gold!
Stay! whose false lips seductive simpers part,
While Cunning nestles in the harlot-heart!--
5 For you no Dryads dress the roseate bower,
For you no Nymphs their sparkling vases pour;
Unmark'd by you, light Graces swim the green,
And hovering Cupids aim their shafts, unseen.

"But THOU! whose mind the well-attemper'd ray
10 Of Taste and Virtue lights with purer day;
Whose finer sense each soft vibration owns
With sweet responsive sympathy of tones;
So the fair flower expands it's lucid form
To meet the sun, and shuts it to the storm;--
15 For thee my borders nurse the fragrant wreath,
My fountains murmur, and my zephyrs breathe;
Slow slides the painted snail, the gilded fly
Smooths his fine down, to charm thy curious eye;
On twinkling fins my pearly nations play,
20 Or win with sinuous train their trackless way;
My plumy pairs in gay embroidery dress'd
Form with ingenious bill the pensile nest,
To Love's sweet notes attune the listening dell,
And Echo sounds her soft symphonious shell.

[ _So the fair flower_. l. 13. It seems to have been the original design
of the philosophy of Epicurus to render the mind exquisitely sensible to
agreeable sensations, and equally insensible to disagreeable ones.]

25 "And, if with Thee some hapless Maid should stray,
Disasterous Love companion of her way,
Oh, lead her timid steps to yonder glade,
Whose arching cliffs depending alders shade;
There, as meek Evening wakes her temperate breeze,
30 And moon-beams glimmer through the trembling trees,
The rills, that gurgle round, shall soothe her ear,
The weeping rocks shall number tear for tear;
There as sad Philomel, alike forlorn,
Sings to the Night from her accustomed thorn;
35 While at sweet intervals each falling note
Sighs in the gale, and whispers round the grot;
The sister-woe shall calm her aching breast,
And softer slumbers steal her cares to rest.--

[_Disasterous Love_. l. 26. The scenery is taken from a botanic garden
about a mile from Lichfield, where a cold bath was erected by Sir John
Floyer. There is a grotto surrounded by projecting rocks, from the edges
of which trickles a perpetual shower of water; and it is here
represented as adapted to love-scenes, as being thence a proper
residence for the modern goddess of Botany, and the easier to introduce
the next poem on the Loves of the Plants according to the system of
Linneus.]

"Winds of the North! restrain your icy gales,
40 Nor chill the bosom of these happy vales!
Hence in dark heaps, ye gathering Clouds, revolve!
Disperse, ye Lightnings! and, ye Mists, dissolve!
--Hither, emerging from yon orient skies,
BOTANIC GODDESS! bend thy radiant eyes;
45 O'er these soft scenes assume thy gentle reign,
Pomona, Ceres, Flora in thy train;
O'er the still dawn thy placid smile effuse,
And with thy silver sandals print the dews;
In noon's bright blaze thy vermil vest unfold,
50 And wave thy emerald banner star'd with gold."

Thus spoke the GENIUS, as He stept along,
And bade these lawns to Peace and Truth belong;
Down the steep slopes He led with modest skill
The willing pathway, and the truant rill,
55 Stretch'd o'er the marshy vale yon willowy mound,
Where shines the lake amid the tufted ground,
Raised the young woodland, smooth'd the wavy green,
And gave to Beauty all the quiet scene.--

She comes!--the GODDESS!--through the whispering air,
60 Bright as the morn, descends her blushing car;
Each circling wheel a wreath of flowers intwines,
And gem'd with flowers the silken harness shines;
The golden bits with flowery studs are deck'd,
And knots of flowers the crimson reins connect.--
65 And now on earth the silver axle rings,
And the shell sinks upon its slender springs;
Light from her airy seat the Goddess bounds,
And steps celestial press the pansied grounds.

Fair Spring advancing calls her feather'd quire,
70 And tunes to softer notes her laughing lyre;
Bids her gay hours on purple pinions move,
And arms her Zephyrs with the shafts of Love,
Pleased GNOMES, ascending from their earthy beds,
Play round her graceful footsteps, as she treads;
75 Gay SYLPHS attendant beat the fragrant air
On winnowing wings, and waft her golden hair;
Blue NYMPHS emerging leave their sparkling streams,
And FIERY FORMS alight from orient beams;
Musk'd in the rose's lap fresh dews they shed,
80 Or breathe celestial lustres round her head.

[_Pleased Gnomes_. l. 73. The Rosicrucian doctrine of Gnomes, Sylphs,
Nymphs, and Salamanders affords proper machinery for a philosophic poem;
as it is probable that they were originally the names of hieroglyphic
figures of the Elements, or of Genii presiding over their operations.
The Fairies of more modern days seem to have been derived from them, and
to have inherited their powers. The Gnomes and Sylphs, as being more
nearly allied to modern Fairies are represented as either male or
female, which distinguishes the latter from the Aurae of the Latin
Poets, which were only female; except the winds, as Zephyrus and Auster,
may be supposed to have been their husbands.]

First the fine Forms her dulcet voice requires,
Which bathe or bask in elemental fires;
From each bright gem of Day's refulgent car,
From the pale sphere of every twinkling star,
85 From each nice pore of ocean, earth, and air,
With eye of flame the sparkling hosts repair,
Mix their gay hues, in changeful circles play,
Like motes, that tenant the meridian ray.--
So the clear Lens collects with magic power
90 The countless glories of the midnight hour;
Stars after stars with quivering lustre fall,
And twinkling glide along the whiten'd wall.--
Pleased, as they pass, she counts the glittering bands,
And stills their murmur with her waving hands;
95 Each listening tribe with fond expectance burns,
And now to these, and now to those, she turns.

I. "NYMPHS OF PRIMEVAL FIRE! YOUR vestal train
Hung with gold-tresses o'er the vast inane,
Pierced with your silver shafts the throne of Night,
100 And charm'd young Nature's opening eyes with light;
When LOVE DIVINE, with brooding wings unfurl'd,
Call'd from the rude abyss the living world.
"--LET THERE BE LIGHT!" proclaim'd the ALMIGHTY LORD,
Astonish'd Chaos heard the potent word;--
105 Through all his realms the kindling Ether runs,
And the mass starts into a million suns;
Earths round each sun with quick explosions burst,
And second planets issue from the first;
Bend, as they journey with projectile force,
110 In bright ellipses their reluctant course;
Orbs wheel in orbs, round centres centres roll,
And form, self-balanced, one revolving Whole.
--Onward they move amid their bright abode,
Space without bound, THE BOSOM OF THEIR GOD!

[_Nymphs of primeval fire_. l. 97. The fluid matter of heat is perhaps
the most extensive element in nature; all other bodies are immersed in
it, and are preserved in their present state of solidity or fluidity by
the attraction of their particles to the matter of heat. Since all known
bodies are contractible into less space by depriving them of some
portion of their heat, and as there is no part of nature totally
deprived of heat, there is reason to believe that the particles of
bodies do not touch, but are held towards each other by their self-
attraction, and recede from each other by their attraction to the mass
of heat which surrounds them; and thus exist in an equilibrium between
these two powers. If more of the matter of heat be applied to them, they
recede further from each other, and become fluid; if still more be
applied, they take an aerial form, and are termed Gasses by the modern
chemists. Thus when water is heated to a certain degree, it would
instantly assume the form of steam, but for the pressure of the
atmosphere, which prevents this change from taking place so easily; the
same is true of quicksilver, diamonds, and of perhaps all other bodies
in Nature; they would first become fluid, and then aeriform by
appropriated degrees of heat. On the contrary, this elastic matter of
heat, termed Calorique in the new nomenclature of the French
Academicians, is liable to become consolidated itself in its
combinations with some bodies, as perhaps in nitre, and probably in
combustible bodies as sulphur and charcoal. See note on l. 232, of this
Canto. Modern philosophers have not yet been able to decide whether
light and heat be different fluids, or modifications of the same fluid,
as they have many properties in common. See note on l. 462 of this
Canto.]

[_When Love Divine_. l. 101. From having observed the gradual evolution
of the young animal or plant from its egg or seed; and afterwards its
successive advances to its more perfect state, or maturity; philosophers
of all ages seem to have imagined, that the great world itself had
likewise its infancy and its gradual progress to maturity; this seems to
have given origin to the very antient and sublime allegory of Eros, or
Divine Love, producing the world from the egg of Night, as it floated in
Chaos. See l. 419. of this Canto.

The external crust of the earth, as far as it has been exposed to our
view in mines or mountains, countenances this opinion; since these have
evidently for the most part had their origin from the shells of fishes,
the decomposition of vegetables, and the recrements of other animal
materials, and must therefore have been formed progressively from small
beginnings. There are likewise some apparently useless or incomplete
appendages to plants and animals, which seem to shew they have gradually
undergone changes from their original state; such as the stamens without
anthers, and styles without stigmas of several plants, as mentioned in
the note on Curcuma, Vol. II. of this work. Such is the halteres, or
rudiments of wings of some two-winged insects; and the paps of male
animals; thus swine have four toes, but two of them are imperfectly
formed, and not long enough for use. The allantoide in some animals
seems to have become extinct; in others is above tenfold the size, which
would seem necessary for its purpose. Buffon du Cochon. T. 6. p. 257.
Perhaps all the supposed monstrous births of Nature are remains of their
habits of production in their former less perfect state, or attempts
towards greater perfection.]

[_Through all his realms_. l. 105. Mr. Herschel has given a very sublime
and curious account of the construction of the heavens with his
discovery of some thousand nebulae, or clouds of stars; many of which
are much larger collections of stars, than all those put together, which
are visible to our naked eyes, added to those which form the galaxy, or
milky zone, which surrounds us. He observes that in the vicinity of
these clusters of stars there are proportionally fewer stars than in
other parts of the heavens; and hence he concludes, that they have
attracted each other, on the supposition that infinite space was at
first equally sprinkled with them; as if it had at the beginning been
filled with a fluid mass, which had coagulated. Mr. Herschel has further
shewn, that the whole sidereal system is gradually moving round some
centre, which may be an opake mass of matter, Philos. Trans. V. LXXIV.
If all these Suns are moving round some great central body; they must
have had a projectile force, as well as a centripetal one; and may
thence be supposed to have emerged or been projected from the material,
where they were produced. We can have no idea of a natural power, which
could project a Sun out of Chaos, except by comparing it to the
explosions or earthquakes owing to the sudden evolution of aqueous or of
other more elastic vapours; of the power of which under immeasurable
degrees of heat, and compression, we are yet ignorant.

It may be objected, that if the stars had been projected from a Chaos by
explosions, that they must have returned again into it from the known
laws of gravitation; this however would not happen, if the whole of
Chaos, like grains of gunpowder, was exploded at the same time, and
dispersed through infinite space at once, or in quick succession, in
every possible direction. The same objection may be stated against the
possibility of the planets having been thrown from the sun by
explosions; and the secondary planets from the primary ones; which will
be spoken of more at large in the second Canto, but if the planets are
supposed to have been projected from their suns, and the secondary from
the primary ones, at the beginning of their course; they might be so
influenced or diverted by the attractions of the suns, or sun, in their
vicinity, as to prevent their tendency to return into the body, from
which they were projected.

If these innumerable and immense suns thus rising out of Chaos are
supposed to have thrown out their attendant planets by new explosions,
as they ascended; and those their respective satellites, filling in a
moment the immensity of space with light and motion, a grander idea
cannot be conceived by the mind of man.]

115 II. "ETHEREAL POWERS! YOU chase the shooting stars,
Or yoke the vollied lightenings to your cars,
Cling round the aerial bow with prisms bright,
And pleased untwist the sevenfold threads of light;
Eve's silken couch with gorgeous tints adorn,
120 And fire the arrowy throne of rising Morn.
--OR, plum'd with flame, in gay battalion's spring
To brighter regions borne on broader wing;
Where lighter gases, circumfused on high,
Form the vast concave of exterior sky;
125 With airy lens the scatter'd rays assault,
And bend the twilight round the dusky vault;
Ride, with broad eye and scintillating hair,
The rapid Fire-ball through the midnight air;
Dart from the North on pale electric streams,
130 Fringing Night's sable robe with transient beams.
--OR rein the Planets in their swift careers,
Gilding with borrow'd light their twinkling spheres;
Alarm with comet-blaze the sapphire plain,
The wan stars glimmering through its silver train;
135 Gem the bright Zodiac, stud the glowing pole,
Or give the Sun's phlogistic orb to roll.

[_Chase the shooting stars_. l. 115. The meteors called shooting stars,
the lightening, the rainbow, and the clouds, are phenomena of the lower
regions of the atmosphere. The twilight, the meteors call'd fire-balls,
or flying dragons, and the northern lights, inhabit the higher regions
of the atmosphere. See additional notes, No. I.]

[_Cling round the aerial bow_. l. 117. See additional notes, No. II]

[_Eve's silken couch_. l. 119. See additional notes, No. III.]

[_Where lighter gases_. l. 123. Mr. Cavendish has shewn that the gas
called inflammable air, is at least ten times lighter than common air;
Mr. Lavoisier contends, that it is one of the component parts of water,
and is by him called hydrogene. It is supposed to afford their principal
nourishment to vegetables and thence to animals, and is perpetually
rising from their decomposition; this source of it in hot climates, and
in summer months, is so great as to exceed estimation. Now if this light
gas passes through the atmosphere, without combining with it, it must
compose another atmosphere over the aerial one; which must expand, when
the pressure above it is thus taken away, to inconceivable tenuity.

If this supernatural gasseous atmosphere floats upon the aerial one,
like ether upon water, what must happen? 1. it will flow from the line,
where it will be produced in the greatest quantities, and become much
accumulated over the poles of the earth; 2. the common air, or lower
stratum of the atmosphere, will be much thinner over the poles than at
the line; because if a glass globe be filled with oil and water, and
whirled upon its axis, the centrifugal power will carry the heavier
fluid to the circumference, and the lighter will in consequence be found
round the axis. 3. There may be a place at some certain latitude between
the poles and the line on each side the equator, where the inflammable
supernatant atmosphere may end, owing to the greater centrifugal force
of the heavier aerial atmosphere. 4. Between the termination of the
aerial and the beginning of the gasseous atmosphere, the airs will
occasionally be intermixed, and thus become inflammable by the electric
spark; these circumstances will assist in explaining the phenomena of
fire-balls, northern lights, and of some variable winds, and long
continued rains.

Since the above note was first written, Mr. Volta I am informed has
applied the supposition of a supernatant atmosphere of inflammable air,
to explain some phenomena in meteorology. And Mr. Lavoisier has
announced his design to write on this subject. Traite de Chimie, Tom. I.
I am happy to find these opinions supported by such respectable
authority.]

[_And bend the twilight_. l. 126. The crepuscular atmosphere, or the
region where the light of the sun ceases to be refracted to us, is
estimated by philosophers to be between 40 and 50 miles high, at which
time the sun is about 18 degrees below the horizon; and the rarity of
the air is supposed to be from 4,000 to 10,000 times greater than at the
surface of the earth. Cotes's Hydrost. p. 123. The duration of twilight
differs in different seasons and in different latitudes; in England the
shortest twilight is about the beginning of October and of March; in
more northern latitudes, where the sun never sinks more than 18 degrees,
below the horizon, the twilight continues the whole night. The time of
its duration may also be occasionally affected by the varying height of
the atmosphere. A number of observations on the duration of twilight in
different latitudes might afford considerable information concerning the
aerial strata in the higher regions of the atmosphere, and might assist
in determining whether an exterior atmosphere of inflammable gas, or
Hydrogene, exists over the aerial one.]

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