Nay, I will venture so far as to affirm, that the harsher the traits may be in homely persons, who have suffered degradation from a faulty education, the more sublime and impressive will be the contrasts produced in them by those which they acquire from habits of virtue; for when we find goodness under an unpromising exterior, we are as agreeably surprised as at finding violets and primroses under a shrubbery of briars and thorns. Such was the sensation inspired, on a first introduction to the crabbed looking de Turenne; such too, was the beauty of Socrates, who with the features of a profligate, delighted every eye while he discoursed of virtue. I have no doubt, that the repelling outside of these two great men, may have largely contributed to give a peculiar prominency to the excellence of their heart.

Moral beauty, then, is that after which we are bound to aspire, that its divine irradiations may be diffused over our features, and over our actions. To no purpose will a prince himself make his boast of high

birth, riches, credit, or wit; the people, in order to know him, must look him in the face. The people form their judgment of him entirely from the physiognomy; it is, in every country, the first, and frequently, the last letter of recommendation. p. 121.

Naturalists consider colours as accidents. But if we attend to the general uses for which nature employs them, we shall be persuaded that there is not, even on rocks, a single shade impressed without a meaning and a purpose.

p. 150.

Reader, be not astonished at either the number, or extent of plants. Let this great truth be deeply impressed on thy heart: God has made nothing in vain! p. 172.

There is not a particle of vapour in the universe that goes to waste. p. 213.

Nature universally redoubles her skill and exertions in favour of the little and the weak. p. 220.

Men, in every country, prize those things only, which are rare and mysterious.

p. 223. Vegetables, which are the most contemptible in the eyes of man, are frequently the most necessary in the order of creation.

Thus, the thorny plants are the original eradles of the forests; and the scourge of the agriculture of man, is the bulwark of that of nature. p. 236.

I shall pursue this reflection no further; but it evidently demonstrates the newness of the world. Were it eternal, and exempted from the care of a Providence, its vegetables would long since have undergone all the possible combinations of the chance which re-sows them. We should find their different species in every situation where it was possible for them to grow. From this observation I deduce another consequence, namely this, that the Author of nature evidently intended to link mankind together, by a reciprocal communication of benefits, the chain of which is, as yet, very far from

being completed. Where is, for example, the benefactor of humanity, who shall transport to the Ostiacs and the Samoïedés of Waigat's Strait, Winter's tree from the Straits of Magellan, the bark of which unites the savour of cloves, of pepper, and of cinnamon? And, who is the man that shall convey to Magellan's Strait the pease tree of Siberia, to feed the starving Patagonian?

p. 241.

I do not recollect that I ever saw the ivy on the trunks of pines, of firs, or of other trees whose foliage lasts all the year round. It invests those only, which are stripped by the hand of Winter. Symbol of a generous friendship, it attaches itself only to the wretched. p. 255.

Thus Providence is so much the more powerful, as the creature is more feeble.

Other plants have relations to animals the more tenderly affecting, in proportion as climates and seasons seem to exercise over the animal the greater degree of severity. p. 267.

When the grayish fruit of the genipa of the Antilles comes to maturity, and falls from the tree, it bounces on the ground with a noise like the report of a pistol. Upon this signal, more than one guest, no doubt, resorts thither in request of a repast. This fruit seems particularly destined to the use of the land crabs, which are eagerly fond of it, and very soon grow fat on this kind of food. It would have answered no purpose to them to see it on the tree, which they are incapable of climbing; but they are informed of the moment when it is proper for food, by the noise of its fall.

So widely extended are these relations, that it may be confidently affirmed, that there is not a down upon a plant, not an intertexture of a shrub, not a cavity, not a colour of a leaf, not a prickle, but what has its utility. p. 270.

But whatever enchantment may be diffused by plants and animals over the situations which have been assigned to them by nature, I never can consider a landscape as