102 STUDIES OF NATURE. 



Painters do in fimilar cafes. They diverfify their 

 whites by (hades, half-tints, and reflexes; but 

 thefe whiles are not pure ; they are always dif- 

 turbed with yellow, blue, green, or gray. Nature 

 employs feveral fpecies of white, without dimi- 

 nifhing the purity of it, by dotting, rumpling, 

 radiating, varnifhing it, and in various other ways 

 ....Thus, the whites of the lily, of the daify, of 

 the lily-of-the-valley, of the narciflus, of the ane- 

 mone- nemorofa, of the hyacinth, are all different 

 from each other. The white of the daify has fome- 

 ihing of that of a ihepherdefles cornet ; that of 

 the hyacinth has a refemblance of ivory ; and that 

 of the lily, half tranfparent and cryftalline, re- 

 fembîes the pafte of porcelain. I believe, there- 

 fore, that all the whites, produced by Nature, or 

 by Art, might be referred to thofe of the petals of 

 our flowers. We fhould thus have, in vegetables, 

 a, fcale of {hades of the pureft white. 



We might, in like manner, procure all the pure 

 and imaginable fhades of yellow, of red, and of 

 blue, from the flowers of the jonquil, of the faf- 

 fron, of the butter-flower of the meadow, of the 

 role, of the poppy, of the blue bottle of the corn- 

 field, of the larkfpur, and fo on. We might find, 

 in the fame manner, among our common flowers, 

 all the compound (hades, fuch as thofe of the im- 

 purpled violet and foxglove, which are formed of 



the 



