ESSAY IX. 437 walking Or swimming, should receive their continual sustenance, and their increase. Let us first consider this as it relates to the vegetable part of the creation. What a profusion of beauty and fragrancy, of shapes andcolours, of smells and tastes is scattered among the herbs and flowers of the ground, among the shrubs, the trees; and the fruits of the field ! Colouring in its original glory and perfection triumphs here ; red, yellow, green, blue, purple, with vastly more diversities than the rainbow ever knew, or the prism can represent, are distributed among the flowers and blossoms. And what variety of tastes, both original and compounded, of sweet, bitter, sharp, with a thousand namelessflavours, are found among the herbs of the garden ? What an amazing difference of shapes and sizes appears amongst the trees of the field and forest in their branches and their leaves : and what a luxurious and elegant distinction in their several fruits ? How very nu- m.erous are their distinct properties and their uses in human life ? and yet these two common elements, earth and water, are the only materials, out of which they are all composed; from the be- ginning to the end of nature and time. Let the gardener dress for himself one field of fresh earth, and make it as uniform as he can ; then let him plànt therein all the varieties of the vegetableworld, in their roots or in their seeds, as he shall think most proper; yet out of this common earth, under the droppings of common water from heaven, every one of these plants shall be nourished, and grow up in their pro- per forms ; all the infinite diversity of shapes and sizes, colours tastes and smells, which constitute and adorn the vegetable world, (would the climate permit) might be produced out of the same clods. What rich and surprising wisdom, appears in that almighty operator, who out of the same matter shall perfume the bosom of the rose, and give the garlic its offensive and nau- seous powers ? who from the same spot of ground, shall raise the liquorice and the wormwood, and dress the cheek of the tulip in all its glowing beauties ? What a surprise to see the same field furnish the pomegranate and the orange tree, with their juicy fruit, and the stalks of corn with their dry and husky grains 1 To observe the oak raised from a little acorn, into its stately growth and solid timber ; and that pillars for the support of fu- ture temples and palaces should spring out of tite same bed of earth, that sent up`the vine with such soft and feeble limbs as are unable to support themselves ? What a natural kind of prodigy is it, that chilling and burning vegetables should arise out of the same spot ? that the fever and frenzy should start up from the same bed where the palsy and the lethargy lie dormant in their seeds? Is it not exceeding strange, that healthful andpoisonous juices should rise up in their proper plants out of the saure corn. E e 3
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