The trouble attending them is all my own, and is one of those employments which never appear laborious.  Those who have better conveniences may proceed on a larger scale; but I contrive to keep up a due succession, which to a floral epicure is every thing.  To be a day in the year without seeing a flower is a novelty to me, and I am persuaded much more might be done with my humble means than I have effected, had I sufficient leisure to attend to the retarding or forcing them.  I cover every space in my sitting-room with these beautiful fairy things of creation, and take so much delight in the sight of them, that I cannot help recommending those of limited incomes, like myself, to follow my example and be their own nurserymen.  The rich might easily obtain them without; but what they procure by gold, the individual of small means must obtain by industry.  I know there are persons to whom the flowers of Paradise would be objects of indifference; but who can imitate, or envy such?  They are grovellers, whose coarseness of taste is only fitted for the grossest food of life.  The pleasures “des Fleurs et des Livres” are, as Henry IV. observed of his child, “the property of all the world.”

New Monthly Magazine.

* * * * *

PRINCIPLES OF BLACKWOOD’S MAGAZINE.

Shepherd. (Standing up.) It’s on principles like these—­boldly and unblushingly avoo’d here—­in Mr. Awmrose’s paper-parlour, at the conclusion o’ the sixth brodd, on the evening o’ Monday the 22nd o’ September, Anno Domini aughteen hunder and twunty-aught, within twa hours o’ midnicht—­that you, sir, have been yeditin’ a Maggasin that has gone out to the uttermost corners o’ the yerth, wherever civilization or uncivilization is known, deludin’ and distracktin’ men and women folk, till it’s impossible for them to ken their right hand frae their left—­ or whether they’re standin’ on their heels or their heads—­or what byeuk ought to be perused, and what byeuk puttin intil the bottom o’ pye-dishes, and trunks—­or what awthor hissed, or what awthor hurraa’d—­or what’s flummery and what’s philosophy—­or what’s rant and what’s religion—­or what’s monopoly and what’s free tredd—­or wha’s poets or wha’s but Pats—­or whether it’s best to be drunk, or whether it’s best to be sober a’ hours o’ the day and nicht—­or if there should be rich church establishments as in England, or poor kirk ones as in Scotland—­ or whether the Bishop o’ Canterbury, wi’ twenty thousan’ a-year, is mair like a primitive Christian than the Minister o’ Kirkintulloch wi’ twa hunder and fifty—­or if folk should aye be readin’ sermons or fishin’ for sawmon—­or if it’s best to marry or best to burn—­or if the national debt hangs like a millstone round the neck o’ the kintra or like a chain o’ blae-berries—­or if the Millennium be really close at haun’—­or the present Solar System be calculated to last to