OF FOREST-TREES.

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a while more distinctly display every limb and member completely per-fect, with all their apparel, tire, and trim of beautiful and flourishingvegetables, endowed with all the qualities of the. species ?.

Contemplate we again what it is which begins the motion, and kindlesthe flame of these Automata, causing them first to radiate in the earth,and then to display their top in the air, so different poles (as I may calkthem) in such different mediums. What it is which imparts this elastic,peristaltic, and other motions, so very like to the sensible and perfectestanimal. How they elect, and then introsume their proper food, and givesuck as it were, to the yet tender infant, till it have strength and force toprey on, and digest the more solid juices of the earth ; for then, and nottill then, do the roots begin to harden 11 . Consider how they afsimilateseparate, and distribute these several supplies ; how they concoct, trans-mute, augment, produce and nourish without separation of excrements,,(at least to us visible) and how. without violation of virginity they generatetheir like..

For their preservation, nature has invested the whole tribe and nation(as we may say) of vegetables, with garments suitable to their naked andexposed bodies, temper, and climate : Thus some are clad with a coarser,and resist all extremes of weather; others with more tender and delicateskins and scarfs, as it were, and thinner raiment. Quid foliorum cle-scribam diversitales? What shall we say of the mysterious forms, variety,and variegation of the leaves and flowers, contrived with such art, yetwithout art; some round,, others long, oval, multangular, indented,crisped, rough, smooth and polished, soft and flexible at every tremulousblast, as if it would drop in a moment, and yet so obstinately adhering,as to be able to contest against the fiercest winds that prostrate mightystructures !—There it abides till God bids it fall: For so the wise Dis-poser of things has placed it, not only for ornament, but use andprotection both of body and fruit; from the excefsive heat of summer, and

n In the corn tribe, the flour of the grain is converted into a milky juice, which nourishesthe infant germ till its roots become sufficiently strong to extract nourishment from theearth. At this early period, there is a manifest analogy between the animal and vegetableworlds, and if no other proof could be brought of the existence and wisdom of a SupremeBeing, this alone would, in my opinion, be conclusive. See this beautiful subject treatedof at large in vol. 1. p. S3,