THE rOBBST. 299 



ing/ Though the thorny^ fruit-bearing shrub may owe 

 us many apologies for scratched fingers or torn clotheSj 

 we can forgive it everything for the pleasure it has 

 afforded us. But we feel that, apart from the influence of 

 associatiouj the Bramble has an undoubted claim to be 

 considered picturesque. To our mind, indeed, forest 

 clumps and forest underwood would lose half their pic- 

 turesqueness if deprived of this prickly trailer. Often, 

 too, we have seen it produce what Gilpin, with quaint 

 simplicity, calls 'a good effect,' when, having climbed 

 over the matted vegetation which canopies the space, 

 midway between opposing hedgebanks, in so many of the 

 ' green lanes ' of western England, it has dropped its 

 tendrils down through the mass of green, reflecting the 

 sunlight from its young and glossy leaves. Need we speak 

 of the attraction of its pretty blossom, of the charm of its 

 coloured fruit— flrst green, then red, then black — or of the 

 rich hues of its autumnal foliage ? — Ed. 



Bufc, however beautiful these minuter plants 

 and -wild flowers may be in the natural scene, 

 yet no painter would endeavour to represent them 

 with exactness. They are too common, too un- 

 dignified, and too much below his subject. In- 

 stead of gaining the character of an exact copier 

 of Nature by a nice representation of such trifles, 

 he would be esteemed puerile, and pedantic. Fern 



