223 



"■saos. 





YETHOLM LOCH. 



I NEED scarcely remind you that a very large portion of our know- 

 ledge and of our pleasures is derived from the impressions made on 

 our senses by the objects with which we are surrounded. And of 

 these objects none can be more influential than vegetable productions, 

 because of their exceeding numbers and general diffusion. They 

 cover the surface of the earth we tread upon ; and send up from it a 

 crowd of wholesome influences from which we cannot escape, and an 

 unfailing stream with rich tribute to every sense. They load the air 

 we breathe with sweet odours, and impregnate the exhilarated blood 

 with their balsams and incense ; they minister much music to the 

 ear, — the flower sighs in the zephyr, and the leaf rustles in the 

 breeze, — the trees murmur in the wind as doth the surging sea, and, 

 in the storm, the woods utter their diapason in solemn or even in 

 awful harmony*. To the eye, plants are the messengers ever of 



* " Cuthulin sat by Tuva's wall : by the tree of the rustling sound." Os- 

 siAN. — Mr. A. Hepburn writes, in a commentary on the Lecture with which 

 he has favoured me : — " Every species of tree, whether in its summer or 

 winter garb, gives forth a distinct sound when stirred by the breeze or the 

 storm : when wandering one sultry day in August 1851 near Tunbridge, 

 Kent, the dancing leaves of a row of the noblest Aspen Poplars I ever 

 beheld, gave forth a sound which carried my mind away to Belhaven bay 

 in E. Lothian, and the rush of its gentlest tide ; a corn-field in June gives 

 forth a similar sound : pine woods — needle-wood of the Germans — give 

 forth manv soul-like sounds. I shall not soon foro;et the moan of the 



