STUDY XI. ÏO5 



low of the colour of a dried walnut, or a gray like 

 the bark of a beech-tree. 



Thofe expreflions would be fo much the more 

 exact, that Nature invariably employs fuch tints 

 in vegetables, as determining characters and indi- 

 cations of maturity, of vigor, or of decay; and 

 that our peafantry can diftinguifh the different 

 fpecies of wood in the forefts by infpecYion of 

 their bark fimply. Thus, not Botany alone, but 

 all the Arts, might find, in vegetables, an inex- 

 hauftible dictionary of unvarying colours, which 

 would not be embarrafled with barbarous and techni- 

 cal compound words, but which would continually 

 prefent new images. Our books of Science would 

 thence derive much pleafing vivacity, from being 

 embellifhed by comparifons and expreffions bor- 

 rowed from the loveliefl kingdom of Nature. 



The great Poets of Antiquity carefully availed 

 ïhemfelves of this, by referring mod of the events 

 of human life to fome appearance of the vegetable 

 kingdom. Thus Homer compares the fleeting ge- 

 nerations of feeble mortals to the leaves which drop 

 from the trees of the foreft, at the end of Autumn; 

 the frelhnefs of beauty to that of the rofe ; and the 

 palenefs which overfpreads the countenance of a 

 young man wounded to death in battle, as well 

 4s the attitude of his drooping head, to the colour 



and 



