23O PROSERPINA. 



4. Neither the Erica;, as I have just said, nor 

 Aurora; bear useful fruit ; and the Erica? are 

 named from their consequent worthlessness in 

 the eyes of the Greek farmer ; they were the 

 plants he 'tore up' for his bed, or signal-fire, 

 his word for them including a farther sense of 

 crushing or bruising into a heap. The Westmore- 

 land shepherds now, alas ! burn them remorselessly 

 on the ground, (and a year since had nearly set the 

 copse of Brantwood on fire just above the house). 

 The sense of parched and fruitless existence is 

 given to the heaths, with beautiful application of 

 the context, in our English translation of Jeremiah 

 xvii. 6 ; but I find the plant there named is, in 

 the Septuagint, Wild Tamarisk ; the mountains of 

 Palestine being, I 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 Vege- 

 tative 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 



