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Show [ rso ] Slow treads fair CANNABIS the breezy firand, The difiaff fireatns diilievell' d in her hand; Now to the left her ivory neck inclines, And leads in Paphian curves its azure lines ; Dark waves the fringed lid, the warm cheek glows, 115 And the fair ear the parting locks difclofe; I 20 Now to the right with airy fweep ilie bends, Quick join the threads, the dancing fpole depends. -Five Swains attracted guard the Nymph, by turns ( rsr ) So when with light and £hade, concordant firife! Stern CLoTHO weaves the chequer' d thread of life; Hour after hour the growing line ext~nds, The cradle and the coffin bound its ends ; Soft cords of filk the whirling fpoles reveal, If fmiling Fortune turn the giddy wheel; But if fweet .Love with baby-fingers twines, And wets with dewy lips the lengthening lines, Skein after fkein celefiial tints unfold, 135 Her grace inchants them., and her beauty burns ; And all the filken tiffue !hines with gold. To each fhe bows with fweet affuafive f1nile, 12 5 Hears his [oft vows, and turns her fpole the while. Warm with fweet blufhes bright G ALANTHA glows, Cannabis. 1. II5· Chinefe Hemp. Two houfes. Five males. A new fpecies of bemp, of which an account is given by K. Fitzgerald, Efq. in a letter to Sir Jofeph Banks, and which is believed to be much fuperior to the hemp of other countries. A few feeds of this plant were fown in England on the 4th ·Of June, and grew to fourteen feet feven inches in height by the middle of OB:ober; they were nearly feven inches in circumference, and bore m:my lateral branches, and produced very white and tough fibres. At fome parts of the time thefc plants grew nearly eleven inches in a week .Philof. Tranf. Vol. LXXII. p. 46. Papbian curves. I. 118. In his .ingenious work, entitled, The Analyfis of Beauty, Mr. Hogarth believes that the triangular glafs, which was dedicated to Venus in her temple at Paphos, contained in it a line bending fpirally round a cone with a certain <Iegree of curvature, and that this pyramidal outline and ferpentine curve confl:itute the principles of Grace and Beauty. And prints with frolic fiep the tnelting fi1ows : Galan thus. 1. 137. Nivalis. Snowdrop. Six males, one female. The firfl: flower .that appears after the winter folfl:ice. See StillingAeet's Calendar of Flora. Some fnowdrop-roots taken up in winter, and boiled, had the infipid mucilagino~s tafie of the Orchis, and, if cured in the fame manntr, would probably make as good falep. The roots of the Hyacinth, I am informed, are equally infipid, and might be ufed as an article of food. Gmelin, in his hifl:ory of Siberia, fays the Martigon Lily makes a part of the food of that country, which is of the fame natural order as the fnow-drop. Some roots of Crocus, which I boiled, had a difagreeable flavour. The difficulty of raifing the Orchis from feed has, perhaps, been a principal reafon of its not being cultivated in this country as an article of food. It is affirmed, by one of the Linnean School, in the Amrenit. A eadem. that the feeds of Orchis will ripen, ~f |