HANDBOOK OF 



INTRODUCTION. 



Meek creatures ! the first mercy of the earth, visiting with hushed soft- 

 ness its dintless rocks ; creatures full of pity, covering with strange 

 and tender honour the scarred disgrace of ruin laying quiet finger 

 on the trembling stones to teach them rest. No words, that I know 

 of, will say what these mosses are. None are delicate enough, none 

 perfect enough, none rich enough. How is one to telj of the rounded 

 bosses of furred and beaming green, the starred divisions of rubied 

 bloom, fine-filmed, as if the rock spirits could spin porphyry as we 

 do glass, the traceries of intricate silver, and fringes of amber, 

 lustrous, arborescent, burnished through every fibre into fitful bright- 

 ness and glossy traverses of silken change, yet all subdued and pen- 

 sive, and framed for simplest, sweetest offices of grace ? They will 

 not be gathered, like the flowers, for chaplet or love-token ; but of 

 these the wild bird will make its nest, and the wearied child his 

 pillow. 



And, as the earth's first mercy, so they are its last gift to us : when all 

 other service is vain from plant and tree, the soft mosses and grey 

 lichen take up their watch by the head-stone. The woods, the 

 blossoms, the gift-bearing grasses, have done their parts for a time ; 

 but these do service for ever. Trees for the builder's yard, flowers 

 for the bride's chamber, corn for the granary, moss for the grave. 

 Ruskirfs "Modern Painters," vol. v., pp. 102, 103. 



A WALK through green fields, country lanes, or woods is 

 rendered more enjoyable, and I believe more conducive 

 to healthy exercise, if we have some special study to call us 

 there, than such a walk would be if indulged in for the 

 mere sake of what is termed a constitutional. For it is 

 well to have something that will for a time enable us to for- 



