8 DESCRIPTIONS OF NATURAL SCENEBY 



farther" ( 46 ). In this simple description of the landscape 

 and of the life of the forest, there speak feelings more inti- 

 mately allied to those of modern times than any thing that 

 Greek and Roman antiquity have bequeathed to us. Erom 

 the lonely mountain hut to which Basilius had retired, the 

 eye looks down on the humid roof of foliage of the forest be- 

 neath ; the resting-place for which he and his friend Gregory 

 of Nazianzum ( 47 ) have so long panted is at last found. 

 The sportive allusion at the close to the poetic mythus of 

 Alcmseon sounds like a distant lingering echo, repeating in 

 the Christian world accents belonging to that which had 

 preceded it. 



Basil's Homilies on the Hexaemeron also bear witness to 

 Ms love of nature. He describes the mildness of the con- 

 stantly serene nights of Asia Minor, where, according to his 

 expression, the stars, "those eternal flowers of heaven/' 

 raise the spirit of man from the visible to the Invisible ( 48 ). . 

 "When, in speaking of the creation of the world, he desires 

 to praise the beauty of the sea, he describes the aspect 

 of the boundless plain of waters in its different and vary- 

 ing conditions "how, when gently agitated by mildly 

 breathing airs, it gives back the varied hues of heaven, now 

 in white, now in blue, and now in roseate light ; and caresses 

 the shore in peaceful play \" 



We find in Gregory of Nyssa, the brother of Basil, the 

 same delight in nature, the same sentimental and partly 

 melancholy vein. " When/' he exclaims, " I behold each 

 craggy hill, each valley, and each plain clothed with fresh- 

 springing grass; the varied foliage with which the trees are 

 adorned ; at my feet the lilies to which nature has given a 

 double dower, of sweet fragrance, and of beauty of colour; 



