4 BRAMBLES AND BAY LEAVES. 
to see “ against the sun spread Robin Hood and the 
Lincoln green; Sliakspere, Spenser, and Herrick, with 
their multiplied images, pictures, and allusions; all 
living and fresh from the green world itself, and re¬ 
dolent of lime-tree perfume, dank moss, woodland 
echoes, velvet meadows, and all the associations which 
cling like halos of light around them. With green 
things the human heart grows larger, and human life 
more real—for we are fast rooted in the earth, even 
when imagination makes its boldest flights; and there 
is a practical suggestion offered us by the blue heaven, 
which, as a curtain, hides from us the city of God, that 
the green earth is our best place until His purpose is 
accomplished. 
In No. 387 of the Spectator occurs a passage on the 
colour of grass, which will fit into this place most appro¬ 
priately :—“ There are writers of great distinction who 
have made it an argument for Providence that the whole 
earth is covered with green, rather than any other 
colour, as being such a right mixture of light and shade, 
that it comforts and strengthens the eye, instead of 
weakening or grieving it.” A word from Sir William 
Temple may well follow this :—“ There are besides the 
temper of our climate two things particular to us that 
contribute much to the beauty and elegance of our gar¬ 
dens, which are the gravel of our walks, and the almost 
perpetual greenness of our turf.” This chapter cannot 
better end than with a terse couplet from Dan Chaucer— 
“ Colours ue know I non, withouten drede, 
But swicke colours as growen in the mede." 
FliANKELEINE’S t ALE, V. 1535. 
