242 BABBICOMBE TO HOPE'S NOSE. 



cury aids the effect, with, its light and feathery spikes. 

 But the hyacinth is the presiding genius loci; how 

 compactly do its smooth stems rise in serried rank, 

 each drooping with the weight of its numerous blue 

 bells ! All through the wood, in the tangled briery 

 thicket, and especially on each side of the path, as 

 far as the eye can see on either hand, there is a dense 

 belt of azure blossoms, reminding me of the ancient 

 Hebrew garment with its "fringes of blue" (Numb. 

 xv. 38). Butterflies are out, rejoicing in the advent 

 of spring : the garden-white flits to and fro amidst 

 the flowers ; the speckled-wood dances up and down, 

 in its peculiar jerking way, over the herbage; and now 

 and then a tiny blue flashes out in mazy flight from 

 the groves, seen for a moment, like one of the 

 hyacinth blooms whisked about by an eddy of wind, 

 and then as suddenly lost to view. 



How brilliant is the emerald hue of the young 

 foliage ! the limp and tender leaves of the beech, and 

 especially those of the ivy, shining as if varnished, 

 almost concealing in their profusion the old olive 

 foliage that bespreads the gray stone. See those 

 rugged masses, those huge angular blocks, those 

 peaks and obelisks, which, at some period or other in 

 the past ages, have been loosened by rain and frost, 

 and have plunged with mad crash and roar down the 

 slope, burying the shrubs and trees in crushed ruin, 

 till their own descending impulse was arrested. See 

 how Nature is ever asserting its restorative power ! 

 Naturam expelles furcd, tamen usque recurret. A 



