STUDY XI. 



239 



which they ought rather to call a harmonic fait, the 

 moft powerful remedy which can be employed as 

 an amifcorbutic, and the (curvy is a difeafe which 

 is readily, and ufually caught in thofe dreadful 

 climates. 



For my own part, I apprehend that the qualities 

 of plants are harmonic as their forms ; and that 

 as often as we find them grouped agreeably and 

 conftantly, there mufl refult from the union of 

 their qualities, for nourishment, for health, or for 

 pleafure, a harmony as agreeable as that which 

 arifes from the contrail of their figures. This is a 

 prefumption that I could fupport, by referring to 

 the inftinct of animals, which, in browfing on the 

 herbage, vary the choice of their aliments ; but 

 this confideration would lead me away from my 

 fubject. 



1 mould never come to a conclufion, were I to 

 go into a detail refpefling the harmonies of (o 

 many plants which we undervalue, becaufe they 

 are feeble or common. If wc fuppofe them, for 

 thought's fake, of the fize of our trees, the majefty 

 of the palm-tree would difappear before the mag- 

 nificence of their attitudes and of their propor- 

 tions. Some of them, fuch as the echium, rife 

 like fuperb candlefticks, forming a vacuum round 

 their centre, and rearing toward Heaven their 



prickly 



