208 PROSERPINA. 



parched and fruitless existence is given to the heaths, with 

 beautiful application of the context, in our English trans- 

 lation of Jeremiah xvii. 6 ; but I find the plant there 

 named is, in the Septuagint, Wild Tamarisk ; the moun- 

 tains of Palestine being, 1 suppose, in that latitude, too 

 low for heath, unless in the Lebanon. 



5. But I have drawn the reader's thoughts to this great 

 race of the Oreiades at present, because they place for 

 us in the clearest light a question which I have finally to 

 answer before closing the first volume of Proserpina ; 

 namely, what is the real difference between the three 

 ranks of Vegetative Humility, and Noblesse the Herb, 

 the Shrub, and the Tree ? 



6. Between the herb, which perishes annually, and 

 the plants which construct year after year an increasing 

 stem, there is, of course, no difficulty of discernment ; 

 but between the plants which, like these Oreiades, con- 

 struct for themselves richest intricacy of supporting stem, 

 yet scarcely rise a fathom's height above the earth they 

 gather and adorn, between these, and the trees that lift 

 cathedral aisles of colossal shade on Andes and Lebanon, 

 where is the limit of kind to be truly set ? 



7. "We have the three orders given, as no botanist 

 could, in twelve lines by Milton : 



" Then herbs of every leaf, that sudden flowVd 

 Op'ning their various colours, and made gay 

 Her bosom smelling sweet ; and, these scarce blown, 

 Forth flourish'd thick the clustering vine, forth crept 



