583 



as to the general reader, Mr. Henfrey's resume must prove a welcome 

 boon. 



In the Introductory Chapter the universality of vegetation, and its 

 varied influences upon the mind, are thus pleasantly pictured : — 



" The pages of the book of Nature offer a vast variety of characters 

 for our perusal, but of all we find there inscribed, none surpass in 

 beauty of form or the interest of their revelations those presented by 

 vegetable life. Mountain and valley, flood and lake, plain and undu- 

 lating hill, may give the bolder features of a landscape, but dark and 

 cheerless must the grandest combination of forms appear where the 

 eye can find no green resting-place ; gloomy and repulsive the scene 

 where no trace of vegetation, telling with its varying hue the tale of 

 life and change, breaks the dull monotony of the stark masses of the 

 earth's cnist. It is difficult, indeed, to those who are without the 

 actual experience, to picture in the mind those desert tracts which do 

 actually exist upon the globe, where the burning sun sears out as it 

 were the ordinary covering of the soil ; or those barren rocky shores, 

 clothed but by a few lichens, where the inhospitable climate refuses a 

 resting-place even to a blade of grass. We are connected with the 

 vegetable world by so many ties, of pleasure, interest, and necessity, 

 that we commonly regard its existence as a matter of course, and sel- 

 dom pause to consider how and why it is, but merely direct our atten- 

 tion to those of its peculiarities which relate to its useful qualities, or 

 which lend to it the raanifold charms which delight our gaze in natu- 

 ral scenery. From the very infancy of our race the influence of vege- 

 tation upon the moral feelings has been recognized, poets have dwelt 

 upon it in all ages, and scarcely a striking form or commonly recur- 

 ring kind of plant is without its real or fanciful associations. Waving 

 corn-fields ! even the bare mention of them seems to raise a vision of 

 peace, plenty and contentment; traversing the woodland path we cast 

 awhile the cares that press upon us in the busy haunts of congregated 

 man, and share the freedom and independence of the unrestrained life 

 around ; or in the deep and silent solitude of the black pine forest, we 

 feel revive within us that superstitious awe that gave birth to the 

 strange traditions of our northern ancestors. No temperament at all 

 awake to the influence of external nature can escape the depressing 

 influence of the low swampy plain, where among plashing water- 

 courses the ' cluster'd marish-mosses ' creep, and amid the rustling 

 reeds 



' Willows whiten, aspens quiver, 

 Little breezes dusk and shiver.' 



