THE TEMPLE OF NATURE. 249 



banners floors tessellated with flowery mosaic, or bespread 

 with verdant velvet massive pillars and slender shafts mar- 

 bled with painted lichen and entwined by graceful creepers 

 all these combine, while they immeasurably eclipse the beauty, 

 to attest the origin of Gothic art. 



As with this glorious fane, so it is with the worshippers of 

 every degree which are found assembled beneath its aerial canopy. 

 Beauty and variety are the prevailing characteristics of living 

 things ; and if in dignity and grace of form man and a few of 

 the larger animals must be confessed pre-eminent, we find in di- 

 versity of shape and brilliancy of colouring a striking augmenta- 

 tion as we descend, relatively to size, in the scale of created beings. 



Amongst those gifts of creation not essential to existence, 

 but bounteously bestowed to enhance its enjoyment, are those 

 gratifications of the eye for which it is indebted to the colour- 

 ing properties of light. But for these, what a sombre world 

 should we live in ! 



" If," says Dr. Brewster, " the objects of the material world 

 had been illuminated with white light, all the particles of 

 which possessed the same degree of refrangibility, and were 

 equally acted upon by the bodies on which they fall, all nature 

 would have shown with a leaden hue, and all the combinations 

 of all external objects, and all the features of the human coun- 

 tenance, would have exhibited no other variety than that which 

 they would possess in a pencil sketch or China-ink drawing ; but 

 He who has exhibited such matchless skill in the organization 



