PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS. 15 



description of the physiognomy of nature. George Eorster, 

 in the narrative of his voyages, and in his other publications, 

 Goethe, in the descriptions of nature which so many of his 

 immortal works contain, Buffon, Bernardin de St. Pierre, 

 and Chateaubriand, have traced with inimitable truth of 

 description the character of some of the zones into which 

 the earth is divided. Not only do such descriptions afford us 

 mental enjoyment of a high order, but the knowledge of 

 the character which nature assumes in different regions is 

 moreover intimately connected with the history of man, and 

 of his civilisation. For although the commencement of this 

 civilisation is not solely determined by physical relations, 

 yet the direction which it takes, the national character, and 

 the more grave or gay dispositions of men, are dependent in 

 a very high degree on climatic influences. How powerfully 

 have the skies of Greece acted on its inhabitants ! The 

 nations settled in the fair and Tiappy regions bounded by 

 the Euphrates, the Halys, and the Egean Sea, also early 

 attained amenity of manners and delicacy of sentiment. 

 When in the middle ages religious enthusiasm suddenly 

 re-opened the sacred East to the nations of Europe who were 

 sinking back into barbarism, our ancestors in returning to 

 their homes brought with them gentler manners, acquired 

 in those delightful valleys. The poetry of the Greeks, and 

 the ruder songs of the primitive northern nations, ^owe 

 great part of their peculiar character to the aspect of the 

 plants and animals seen by the bard, to the mountains and 

 valleys which surrounded him, and to the air which he 

 breathed. And to recall more familiar objects, who does not 



