NOVEMBER. 507 



plants in America ; and in Europe, the yellow wall-flower, 

 the chenopody and the ivy. 



In every ruin, therefore, we see the commencement of a 

 new and beautiful creation. When a tree has fallen and has 

 begun to decay, an infinite host of curious and delicate 

 plants, of the simplest vegetable forms are fostered upon the 

 surface of its trunk. Mushrooms of every description spring 

 out from the inner bark, and lichens and mosses, as various 

 in their hues as they are delicate in their forms, decorate all 

 the outside. Insects which, under the magnifying glass, ex- 

 hibit the various plumes and glittering ornaments of the most 

 brilliant birds and butterflies, live under the protection of 

 these minute plants, as the larger animals find shelter in a 

 forest of trees. When the timber has entirely perished, and 

 has become assimilated with the soil, another host of plants 

 of a higher order take the place of the former, until new 

 forests have reared their branches over the ruins of those of a 

 preceding age. Rocks, continents and worlds are subject to 

 the same decay, and the same ultimate renovation. Thus 

 the whole system of the universe is but an infinite series of 

 permutations and combinations, all the atoms, amidst appar- 

 ent chaos, moving in the most mathematical order, and 

 gradually resolving themselves into organized forms, infinite 

 in their numbers and arrangements. 



In this country we have no classic ruins. The relics of 

 the ancient structures of the aborigines can hardly awaken a 

 romantio. sentiment. We cannot associate with them any 

 agreeable historic reminiscences. We behold in them only 

 the evidences of savage customs, unformed art, and a misera- 

 ble superstition, which aff'ord nothing to admire. No scenes 

 are so well fitted as the ruins of a great and civilized nation, 

 to inspire the mind with that contemplative habit which is 

 the foundation of the poetical character. They fill the soul 

 with noble conceptions, and serve to divert the thoughts from 

 a consideration of mere personal interest, and turn them back 

 upon the ages of chivalry and romance. 



Nature has so constituted the mind as to enable it to con- 

 vert all her scenes, under certain circumstances into sources 



