226 PROSERPINA. 



into sudden discomfiture by the wide-waving and 

 opening foliage of the palms and ferns. 



37. But through all the defeats by which insolent 

 endeavours to sum the orders of Creation must 

 be reproved, and in the midst of the successes 

 by which patient insight will be surprised, the 

 fact of the confirmation of species in plants and 

 animals must remain always a miraculous one. 

 What outstretched sign of constant Omnipotence 

 can be more awful, than that the susceptibility 

 to external influences, with the reciprocal power 

 of transformation, in the organs of the plant ; and 

 the infinite powers of moral training and mental 

 conception over the nativity of animals, should be so 

 restrained within impassable limits, and by incon- 

 ceivable laws, that from generation to generation, 

 under all the clouds and revolutions of heaven 

 with its stars, and among all the calamities and 

 convulsions of the Earth with her passions, the 

 numbers and the names of her Kindred may 

 still be counted for her in unfailing truth; — still 

 the fifth sweet leaf unfold for the Rose, and the 

 sixth spring for the Lily ; and yet the wolf rave 

 tameless round the folds of the pastoral moun- 

 tains, and yet the tiger flame through the forests 

 of the night ! 



