8 INTRODUCTION. 



the violet peeps so modestly. The plants of 

 our country recall the idea of it in the most 

 forcible manner, wherever we meet them. 

 They are often the first objects that attract the 

 attention of those who have been long absent 

 from their native fields, and who on their re- 

 turn pour out the genuine effusions of joy 

 on beholding the village-elm, the well-known 

 oak, or the unchanged yew, whose antiquity 

 is equal to that of the church it shades. We 

 are told of a young Indian, (Pontaveri from 

 Otaheite,) who, in the midst of the splendor 

 of Paris, regretting the simple beauty of his 

 native island, sprang forward at the unex- 

 pected sight of a banana tree in the Jardin 

 des Plantes, embraced it, while his eyes were 

 bathed in tears, and exclaiming with a voice 

 of joy, " Ah ! tree of my country !" seemed, 

 by a delightful illusion of sensibility, to 

 imagine himself for a moment transported to 

 the land which gave him birth. 



We seem as it were for an instant to go 

 back to the delights of infancy, when, on each 

 succeeding spring, we visit the meadows co- 

 vered with cowslips, which afforded us so many 

 happy hours in childhood, as we formed balls 

 of their blossoms. Then the playful girl, be- 

 decked with wreaths and necklaces of daisies, 

 led her little swain in chains formed of the 



