GENEALOGY. 141 



fairest, the stem following them and sustaining, where they 

 will. 



36. Thus, as we examine sucessively each part of any plant, 

 new sisterhoods, and unthought-of fellowships, will be found 

 between the most distant orders ; and ravines of unexpected 

 separation open between those otherwise closely allied. Few 

 botanical characters are more definite than the leaf structure 

 illustrated in Plate VI., which has given to one group of the 

 Drosidfe the descriptive name of Ensatse, (see above, Chapter 

 IX., 11,) but this conformation would not be wisely permit- 

 ted to interfere in the least with the arrangement founded on 

 the much more decisive floral aspects of the Iris and Lily. So, 

 in the fifth volume of ' Modern Painters,' the sword-like, or 

 rather rapier-like, leaves of the pine are opposed, for the sake 

 of more vivid realization, to the shield-like leaves of the greater 

 number of inland trees ; but it would be absurd to allow this 

 difference any share in botanical arrangement, else we should 

 find ourselves thrown into sudden discomfiture by the wide- 

 waving and opening foliage of the palms and ferns. 



37. But through all the defeats by which insolent endeav- 

 ors 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 out- 

 stretched 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 concep- 

 tion over the nativity of animals, should be so restrained 

 within impassable limits, and by inconceivable 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 tame- 

 less round the folds of the pastoral mountains, and yet the 

 tiger flame through the forests of the night 



