unless in
the Lebanon.

5. But I have drawn the reader's thoughts to this great race of the
Oreiades at present, because they place for us in the clearest light a
question which I have finally to answer before closing the first volume of
Proserpina; namely, what is the real difference between the three ranks of
Vegetative Humility, and Noblesse--the Herb, the Shrub, and the Tree?

6. Between the herb, which perishes annually, and the plants which
construct year after year an increasing stem, there is, of course, no
difficulty of discernment; but between the plants which, like these
Oreiades, construct for themselves richest intricacy of supporting stem,
yet scarcely rise a fathom's height above the earth they gather and
adorn,--between these, and the trees that lift cathedral aisles of colossal
shade on Andes and Lebanon,--where is the limit of kind to be truly set?

7. We have the three orders given, as no botanist could, in twelve lines by
Milton:--

"Then herbs of every leaf, that sudden flow'r'd
Op'ning their various colours, and made gay
Her bosom smelling sweet; and, these scarce blown,
Forth flourish'd thick the clust'ring vine, forth crept
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The swelling gourd, up stood the corny reed
Embattel'd in her field; and th' _humble shrub,_
_And bush with frizzled hair implicit_: last
Rose, as in dance, the stately trees, and spread
Their branches hung with copious fruits, or gemm'd
Their blossoms; with high woods the hills were crown'd;
With tufts the valleys and each fountain side;
With borders long the rivers."

Only to learn, and be made to understand, these twelve lines thoroughly
would teach a youth more of true botany than an entire Cyclopaedia of modern
nomenclature and description: they are, like all Milton's work, perfect in
accuracy of epithet, while consummate in concentration. Exquisite in touch,
as infinite in breadth, they gather into their unbroken clause of melodious
compass the conception at once of the Columbian prairie, the English
cornfield, the Syrian vineyard, and the Indian grove. But even Milton has
left untold, and for the instant perhaps unthought of, the most solemn
difference of rank between the low and lofty trees, not in magnitude only,
nor in grace, but in duration.

8. Yet let us pause before passing to this greater subject, to dwell more
closely on what he has told us so clearly,--the difference in Grace,
namely, between the trees that rise 'as in