FLORA’S LEXICON.
59
LEMATIS. Clematis Virginiana. Class 13, Potyandria. Order: Heptagynia. This is a climbing shrub of rapid growth, ornamental, and highly fragrant. Its leaves are used by mendicants to produce ulcers, in order to excite commiseration. This infamousartifice is often the cause of real and permanent wounds. This genus embraces no less than thirty species which are distributed over all quarters of the globe. By some writers it is made the emblem of mental beauty; by others, of artifice.
ARTIFICE.
Shallow artifice begets suspicion,
And like a cobweb veil but thinly shades
The face of thy design: alone disguising
What should have ne’er been seen; imperfect mischief!
Thou, like the adder, venomous and deaf,
Hast stung the traveller; and, after, hear’st
Not his pursuing voice; e’en when thou think’st
To hide, the rustling leaves and bended grass
Confess and point the path which thou hast crept.
O fate of fools! officious in contriving;
In executing, puzzled, lame, and lost.
And like a cobweb veil but thinly shades
The face of thy design: alone disguising
What should have ne’er been seen; imperfect mischief!
Thou, like the adder, venomous and deaf,
Hast stung the traveller; and, after, hear’st
Not his pursuing voice; e’en when thou think’st
To hide, the rustling leaves and bended grass
Confess and point the path which thou hast crept.
O fate of fools! officious in contriving;
In executing, puzzled, lame, and lost.
Congreve.
What’s the bent brow, or neck in thought reclined?
The body’s wisdom to conceal the mind.
A man of sense can artifice disdain,
As men of wealth may venture to go plain;
And be this truth eternal ne’er forgot,
Solemnity’s a cover for a sot.
I find the fool when I behold the screen;
For ’tis the wise man’s interest to be seen.
The body’s wisdom to conceal the mind.
A man of sense can artifice disdain,
As men of wealth may venture to go plain;
And be this truth eternal ne’er forgot,
Solemnity’s a cover for a sot.
I find the fool when I behold the screen;
For ’tis the wise man’s interest to be seen.
Young.
