"I flattered all the beauteous country round, As poets use--the skies, the clouds, the fields, The happy violets, hiding from the roads The primroses run down to, carrying gold-- The tangled hedgerows, where the rows push out Their tolerant horns and patient churning mouths 'Twixt dripping ash-boughs--hedgerows all alive With birds, and gnats, and large white butterflies, Which look as if the May-flower had caught life And palpitated forth upon the wind: Hills, vales, woods, netted in a silver mist; Farms, granges, doubled up among the hills, And cattle grazing in the watered vales, And cottage chimneys smoking from the woods, And cottage gardens smelling everywhere, Confused with smell of orchards." [Illustration: FIG. 75.--"And cattle grazing in the watered vales."] As I read this fine passage, the thought occurred to me, how many thousands there are who, in such a scene as it so vividly depicts, would see no beauty whatever, whose heart would not respond to it, whose sympathies would not be aroused by all its variety of outline and all its rich magnificence of colour! Yet not in so wide a landscape alone, but in the smallest nook,--in the little clump of elms by the side of the stream, in yonder grassy knoll rising straight up from the old churchyard, in the quiet angle of the green pasture-meadows,--there is a whole world of wonder and beauty for him who has eyes to see and a heart to feel! Look at the flowery bank which runs along the side of an English lane. Is it not crowded with objects of the rarest and purest interest? Count the many varieties of grasses which clothe it so abundantly, count the many species of flowers and herbs which adorn it with a grace beyond all human skill, and acknowledge that in itself it might supply the inquirer with matter for years of study and meditation. Pursuing this train of thought, I was led to think of the number of genera and species into which the plant world is divided,--a remarkable proof, not only of the power and wisdom, but of the goodness of the Creator, of His desire to furnish man with inexhaustible sources of pleasure and entertainment; and finally, to put to myself the question, How many vegetable species exist over the whole surface of the globe? If this corner of a leafy English lane is so rich in variety, what must be the case with "the wide, wide world?"