THE RUSTIC LANE AND WOODSIDE. 193 



certain kind of suggestive or relative beauty. Hence the 

 pleasure it affords us when we see it on the borders of 

 woods, hanging its purple clusters of fruit over some 

 placid stream from the summit of an alder, or hiding 

 the rudeness of a neglected building with its broad foli- 

 age. There is hardly an old road or rustic byway in 

 the interior of the country which is not festooned by 

 wild grapevines, and some of the most delightful arbors 

 on old country roadsides are formed by these vines, trel- 

 lised upon an ancient apple-tree or drooping birch. 



When a green by-road passes over a wet meadow and 

 crosses a brook under a natural arch formed by overhang- 

 ing alders fastened together by creeping vines, the shade 

 afforded by this arbor is greatly heightened by a twining 

 canopy of clematis, or virgin's bower, climbing over 

 the trees and shrubs, always keeping on the outer sur- 

 face, and supporting itself by tendrils. We often pass 

 through copses of shrubbery completely overspread by 

 this vine, rendered conspicuous when in fruit by multi- 

 tudes of little silken and feathery tufts, which are far 

 more beautiful than its flowers. There is not much 

 beauty in this plant, and I attribute the interest attached 

 to it chiefly to its poetical name and the romantic history 

 of the European virgin's bower. 



