Proserpina, Volume 1 | Page 2

151. f. 1.
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Botanists are divided in their opinions respecting the genus of this plant; LINN?US considers it as an Anthericum, HALLER and MILLER make it an Hemerocallis.
It is a native of Switzerland, where, HALLER informs us it grows abundantly in the Alpine meadows, and even on the summits of the mountains; with us it flowers in May and June.
It is a plant of great elegance, producing on an unbranched stem about a foot and a half high, numerous flowers of a delicate white colour, much smaller but resembling in form those of the common white lily, possessing a considerable degree of fragrance, their beauty is heightened by the rich orange colour of their anther?; unfortunately they are but of short duration.
MILLER describes two varieties of it differing merely in size.
A loamy soil, a situation moderately moist, with an eastern or western exposure, suits this plant best; so situated, it will increase by its roots, though not very fast, and by parting of these in the autumn, it is usually propagated.
PARKINSON describes and figures it in his Parad. Terrest., observing that "divers allured by the beauty of its flowers, had brought it into these parts."
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{4}
Which said book was therefore undertaken, to put, if it might be, some elements of the science of botany into a form more tenable by ordinary human and childish faculties; or--for I can scarcely say I have yet any tenure of it myself--to make the paths of approach to it more pleasant. In fact, I only know, of it, the pleasant distant effects which it bears to simple eyes; and some pretty mists and mysteries, which I invite my young readers to pierce, as they may, for themselves,--my power of guiding them being only for a little way.
Pretty mysteries, I say, as opposed to the vulgar and ugly mysteries of the so-called science of botany,--exemplified sufficiently in this chosen page. Respecting which, please observe farther;--Nobody--I can say this very boldly--loves Latin more dearly than I; but, precisely because I do love it (as well as for other reasons), I have always insisted that books, whether scientific or not, ought to be written either in Latin, or English; and not in a doggish mixture of the refuse of both.
Linn?us wrote a noble book of universal Natural History in Latin. It is one of the permanent classical treasures of the world. And if any scientific man thinks his labors are worth the world's attention, let him, also, write {5} what he has to say in Latin, finishedly and exquisitely, if it take him a month to a page.[2]
But if--which, unless he be one chosen of millions, is assuredly the fact--his lucubrations are only of local and temporary consequence, let him write, as clearly as he can, in his native language.
This book, accordingly, I have written in English; (not, by the way, that I could have written it in anything else--so there are small thanks to me); and one of its purposes is to interpret, for young English readers, the necessary European Latin or Greek names of flowers, and to make them vivid and vital to their understandings. But two great difficulties occur in doing this. The first, that there are generally from three or four, up to two dozen, Latin names current for every flower; and every new botanist thinks his eminence only to be properly asserted by adding another.
The second, and a much more serious one, is of the Devil's own contriving--(and remember I am always quite serious when I speak of the Devil,)--namely, that the most current and authoritative names are apt to be founded on some unclean or debasing association, so that to interpret them is to defile the reader's mind. I will give no instance; too many will at once occur to any {6} learned reader, and the unlearned I need not vex with so much as one: but, in such cases, since I could only take refuge in the untranslated word by leaving other Greek or Latin words also untranslated, and the nomenclature still entirely senseless,--and I do not choose to do this,--there is only one other course open to me, namely, to substitute boldly, to my own pupils, other generic names for the plants thus faultfully hitherto titled.
As I do not do this for my own pride, but honestly for my reader's service, I neither question nor care how far the emendations I propose may be now or hereafter adopted. I shall not even name the cases in which they have been made for the serious reason above specified; but even shall mask those which there was real occasion to alter, by sometimes giving new names in cases where there was no necessity of such kind. Doubtless I shall be accused of doing myself what