THE SHORES OF BRITAIN. 41 



vast size of some, the strange and uncouth forms 

 of others, and the extreme delicacy and vivid hues 

 of many, cannot fail to attract attention: and it 

 needs not the additional knowledge that many of 

 them are pressed into the service of man to assure 

 us that they are not less worthy of the consideration 

 of rational beings than others of the glorious works 

 of God. "Viewing these tribes," observes Dr. Gre- 

 ville, "in the most careless way, as a system of sub- 

 aqueous vegetation, or even in a merely picturesque 

 light, we see the depths of ocean shadowed with 

 submarine groves, often of vast extent, intermixed 

 with meadows, as it were, of the most lively hues ; 

 while the trunks of the larger species, like the great 

 trees of the tropics, are loaded with innumerable 

 minute kinds, as fine as silk, or transparent as a mem- 

 brane."* In stating some particulars of the history 

 of but a few of the species found on our own shores, 

 I hope to show that the contempt which has been, 

 even to a proverb, cast upon the "vile sea- weed," 

 is very much misplaced. It is only a contracted 

 mind, governed by debasing selfishness, which mea- 

 sures the esteem in which it holds any object by 

 the decree to which it ministers to the comfort or 

 profit of man; the instructed Christian will feel a 

 higher gratification in the thought that the perfec- 

 tions of God shine forth more luminously the more 

 His handiwork is examined. It was no selfishness 

 that prompted the Sons of God, when they saw this 

 beautiful and glorious world, fresh in its unsullied 

 prime, come from the hands of its Maker, — to sing 



* Algae Britannieae. Intr. 

 d2 



