"The woodbine I will pu' when the evening star is near, And the diamond draps of dew shall be her een sae clear." From Michael Drayton:-- "The azured harebell next with them they neatly mixt: T' allay whose luscious smell they woodbine placed betwixt ... The columbine amongst they sparingly do set, And now and then among, of eglantine a spray." And lastly, from Shakespeare:-- "And leaf of eglantine, whom not to slander, Out-sweetened not thy breath." There is evidently some confusion here, and the eglantine of one poet is not the eglantine of another. Sir Walter Scott, we take it, is thinking of the wild clematis or virgin's bower, when he wishes the eglantine to remain untrimmed. And Milton undoubtedly refers to the honeysuckle, which, twisting round the framework of a cottage-porch, tempts the neighbouring bees to rifle its calyxes of their honeyed sweets. But the _true_ eglantine of our earlier poets seems to have been the prickly sweetbriar, formerly called _Rosa eglantina_; now known as _Rosa rubiginosa_. No plant is of greater value for a garden hedge, owing to the delicious fragrance exhaled not only by its flowers but by its leaves. On the other hand, the "lush woodbine," which so often finds honourable mention in our poets, is none other than the honeysuckle, the "twisted eglantine" of Milton. Its botanical name is _Caprifolium_. The eglantine and the woodbine, therefore, though occasionally confounded by careless writers, are two entirely distinct plants; the former being the sweetbriar of modern gardens, and the latter the honeysuckle. [Illustration: FIG. 81.--"Our leafy hedgerows."] It has been justly said by a writer (whom we have already quoted), that of all the flowers which, towards the end of summer and the beginning of autumn, adorn our pastoral scenery, "filling the air with fragrance, and the earth with beauty," none are more generally attractive than the wild climbing plants of our leafy hedgerows. By interlacing their delicate boughs, covered with foliage and flowers,--or with berries bright and sparkling,--or, as in the wild clematis, crowned with the lightest, feathery seeds,--they wind about the trees and bushes in festoons and wreaths of the utmost elegance,--and contribute in no slight degree to the aspect of richness and beauty which the landscape exhibits at this time of the year. As their stems are so slender and delicate that they would be crushed by the burthen of their flowery clusters and numerous leaves, or rent and uprooted by the wind, unless they found support from other plants, we see them hanging by their tendrils, or by their pliant arms, about the trunks of aged trees,--the ancestral elms, or "those green-robed senators of mighty woods, tall oaks,"--like a frail maiden to the sturdy arm of some strong-shouldered brother, or, it may be, of some one "nearer and dearer still." In reference to those climbing plants, one curious circumstance deserves to be noted.