THE ST011Y OF A BLADE OF GRASS. 
13 
matter. To make one more step in this catalogue of 
instances, we may call the perfumer into court, to inform 
us how it happens that oil of verbena, and other perfumes 
bearing the same name, are produced from a flower which 
we generally consider to be without scent altogether, for 
the true scented verbena js not a verbena at all, but an 
aloysia. The witness will depose that it is a misnomer, 
for verbena perfume is in reality the produce of the lemon- 
grass, Andropogon schcenanthus , a native of India, where 
it is also used by Europeans as a tea-plant, the infusion 
of which is tonic, and valuable as a febrifuge. 
But its highest use is in its beauty after all, and this 
prepares the way for the chapter that follows. But we 
must here, in the list of utilities, class the village green, 
the smooth, bright, and springy cricket-ground, and the 
close-shaven lawn, where the children play; for the sun¬ 
shine of life should be reflected on the verdure of Nature, 
in a world where there are so many cheap sources of 
physical health and social happiness. These things follow 
of necessity, if we write down distinctly that the grass 
carpets the playground of the children, when they make 
the sky ring with their laughter, and the elastic turf 
rebound to the tramp of their tiny, lively feet. The 
very ground is blessed where children tread—is blessed 
already by its own greenness, and sprinklings of gold 
and silver, it is doubly-blessed, when children make 
their sport upon it, and ignore all laws and all history 
in wild abandonment to the impulses of nature. God 
bless them; and if a tear starts while we say so, it shall fall 
upon the grass that weeps a million better tears than these 
every-day breaks, for beauty, and simplicity, and truth. 
