147 
it wends its course onward, until it is lost among the waves 
of the English Channel. It may be further observed, that 
if the rich ground of the lowland country be altogether 
neglected and saturated with wet, it yields abundant crops 
of reed and sedge in dense, unapproachable masses, l^o 
Elowering Eerns or Shield Eerns there. The old writers 
used to say, that reed and fern have a deadly enmity one to 
the other. On the other hand, if there be woods in more 
elevated positions with loose soil, and in a damp situation 
with the water dripping down some gully, or dashing and 
foaming over some crag or rock so hastily and so grandly ; 
nay, if there be only some huge hedge-bank in a narrow 
lane, with overhanging majestic oak trees, or, if there be on 
some great eminence an old ruin, which was once our fore- 
fathers’ boast and defence, but is rapidly falling into decay, 
embosomed in thickets and forests, in such pjaces as these 
may we expect to behold the Eerns in all their loveliness 
and grandeur. 
