ath side, and thicket,
will afford him some new object. He will be tempted to be continually
in the air, and continually to change the nature and quality of the air,
by visiting in succession the high lands and the low, the lawn, the
heath, the forest. He will never want inducement to be abroad; and the
unceasing variety of the subjects of his observation, will prevent his
walking hastily: he will pursue his studies in the air; and that
contemplative turn of mind, which in his closet threatened his
destruction, will thus become the great means of his recovery.

If the mind tire upon this, from the repeated use, another of nature's
kingdoms opens itself at once upon him; the plant he is weary of
observing, feeds some insect he may examine; nor is there a stone that
lies before his foot, but may afford instruction and amusement.

Even what the vulgar call the most abject things will shew a wonderful
utility; and lead the mind, in pious contemplation higher than the
stars. The poorest moss that is trampled under foot, has its important
uses: is it at the bottom of a wood we find it? why there it shelters
the fallen seeds; hides them from birds, and covers them from frost;
and thus becomes the foster father of another forest! creeps it along
the surface of a rock? even there its good is infinite! its small roots
run into the stone, and the rains make their way after them; the moss
having lived its time dies; it rots and with the mouldered fragments of
the stone forms earth; wherein, after a few successions, useful plants
may grow, and feed more useful cattle![19]

Is there a weed more humble in its aspect, more trampled on, or more
despised than knot grass! no art can get the better of its growth, no
labour can destroy it; 'twere pity if they could, for the thing lives
where nothing would of use to us; and its large and most wonderfully
abundant seeds, feed in hard winters, half the birds of Heaven.

What the weak moss performs upon the rock the loathed toadstool brings
about in timber: is an oak dead where man's eye will not find it? this
fungus roots itself upon the bark, and rots the wood beneath it; hither
the beetle creeps for shelter, and for sustenance; him the woodpecker
follows as his prey; and while he tears the tree in search of him, he
scatters it about the ground; which it manures.

Nor is it the beetle alone that thus insinuates itself into the
substance of the vegetable tribe: the tender aphide[20], whom