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the stars ; and what beauty is resplendent in every one of them. 

 Take the vegetable tribes, the trees, the flowers and the verdant 

 fields ; take the animal creation, from the fairy bird that cleaves 

 the liquid air with his burnished wing, to the pearl of exquisite 

 brilliancy, that lies buried in the depths of the sea ; and what a 

 divine beauty shines out in the whole. Examine the minutest 

 atom, which you can pick from the earth with the finest nee- 

 dle, the smallest flower that drinks in the refreshing dew, the 

 least insect that floats in the sun-beam, the tenderest leaf that 

 quivers in the breeze, and the vast continent with all its mixed 

 and varied features of land and water, of valley and mountain, 

 of prairie and forest ; take the vast ocean, with its ceaseless 

 heavings, and its deep cerulean waves, and the golden and 

 crimsoned heavens at the rising and setting sun ; look at na- 

 ture, even in her decay, in the variegated glories of autumn, 

 or reposing under her jewelled mantle in the death of winter, 

 look at every thing in its individual form, or in its combina- 

 tions, and even in objects which seem offensive or loathsome, 

 or terrific, — all, all, is flooded with beauty. I have stood hour 

 after hour, gazing at the mighty Niagara ■ and while I beheld 

 in its tremendous movement, an image of the Divine Power, 

 and in its ceaseless flow, a symbol of the Divine Eternity, yet 

 in its deep torrent of living green, its glittering tresses, of a 

 whiteness which the drifted snow does not surpass, and in the 

 dazzling iris, spanning its troubled and foaming abyss, and 

 girding, as it were, the lion's neck with a cincture of brilliants, 

 beauty, ineffable beauty, pervaded and triumphed over the 

 whole ; and there, of all other places on earth, seemed to have 

 fixed her shrine and to demand universal homage. 



XVII. Particular Farms. — 1. In giving an account of the 

 agriculture of Middlesex county, the farm of Elias Phinnky, 

 of Lexington, may be expected to occupy a prominent place. 

 In the skilful and judicious improvements which he has 

 effected, I think the farmers of Massachusetts would not long 



