10 
tinged with gold, purple as the grape, blue as the expanse of heaven^ and 
blushing like the cheek of youth, we are led to imagine ourselves in fairy 
land, or in another and a better world, where every delicate sense is 
delighted, and all around breathes fragrance and expands beauty; where the 
heart seems to participate in the joy of laughing nature* Groves and gar¬ 
dens have, indeed, been always supposed to sooth the mind into a placid 
temper, peculiarly favourable to the indulgence of contemplation and 
virtue. 
The universe is so full of wonders/that perhaps eternity alone can be 
sufficient to survey and admire them all; perhaps, too, this delightful em¬ 
ployment may be one great part of the felicity of the blessed. If the prin¬ 
cipal delight of the soul has been in the contemplation of the beauties of the 
creation, and the adoration of their Almighty Author, it soars, when disem¬ 
bodied, into the celestial regions, duly prepared for the full enjoyment of 
intellectual happiness. 
Nor does the advantages of the study of Botany rest only in exalting 
our conceptions of the Deity. “ Wlioever,” says an ingenious writer,^ 
“ has turned his mind so as to comprehend the extensive system of the 
vegetable kingdom, in the manner as at present taught, and has traced this 
system through its various connections and relations, either descending from 
generals to particulars, or ascending by a gradual progress from individuals 
to classes, till it embraces the whole vegetable world, will by the mere 
exercise of the faculties employed for this purpose, acquire an arrangement, 
a perception of order, of distinction, and subordination, which it is not per¬ 
haps in the nature of any other study so effectually to bestow. In this view 
the examination of the vegetable kingdom seems peculiarly proper for youth, 
to whose unperverted minds the study of natural objects is always an inte¬ 
resting occupation, and who will not only find in this employment an inno¬ 
cent and an healthful amusement, but will familiarise themselves to that re¬ 
gulated train of ideas, that perception ot relation between parts and the 
whole, which is of use not only in every other department of natural know¬ 
ledge, but in all the concerns of life.” 
Independent too of the habits of order and arrangement which will 
thus be established, it may justly be observed, that the bodily senses are 
* Roscoe, of Liverpool. 
