ps, lilies, and seeds of other things, by Dolton when he
returns, desiring him not to put them into the hold. Send the roots in
a net or basket, to be hung up anywhere out of the reach of salt water,
and the seeds in a separate small box. You need not be at any expense,
any friend will supply these things. The cowslips and daisies of your
fields would be great acquisitions here." What the daisies of the
English fields became to Carey, and how his request was long after
answered, is told by James Montgomery, the Moravian, who formed after
Cowper the second poet of the missionary reformation:--

THE DAISY IN INDIA

"A friend of mine, a scientific botanist, residing near Sheffield, had
sent a package of sundry kinds of British seeds to the learned and
venerable Doctor WILLIAM CAREY. Some of the seeds had been enclosed in
a bag, containing a portion of their native earth. In March 1821 a
letter of acknowledgment was received by his correspondent from the
Doctor, who was himself well skilled in botany, and had a garden rich
in plants, both tropical and European. In this enclosure he was wont to
spend an hour every morning, before he entered upon those labours and
studies which have rendered his name illustrious both at home and
abroad, as one of the most accomplished of Oriental scholars and a
translator of the Holy Scriptures into many of the Hindoo languages.
In the letter aforementioned, which was shown to me, the good man
says:--'That I might be sure not to lose any part of your valuable
present, I shook the bag over a patch of earth in a shady place: on
visiting which a few days afterwards I found springing up, to my
inexpressible delight, a Bellis perennis of our English pastures. I
know not that I ever enjoyed, since leaving Europe, a simple pleasure
so exquisite as the sight of this English Daisy afforded me; not having
seen one for upwards of thirty years, and never expecting to see one
again.'

"On the perusal of this passage, the following stanzas seemed to spring
up almost spontaneously in my mind, as the 'little English flower' in
the good Doctor's garden, whom I imagined to be thus addressing it on
its sudden appearance:--

"Thrice welcome, little English flower!
My mother-country's white and red,
In rose or lily, till this hour,
Never to me such beauty spread:
Transplanted from thine island-bed,
A treasure in a grain of earth,
Strange as a spirit from the dead,
Thine embryo spran