BLOSSOMING —~AND STRICKEN IN DAYS, Common Heath. (Ling.) JOHN RUSKIN, M.A. or “Tuts Seven Lames or Arcuirecrure,” “THe Caown or Wixp Ottve,” | “Sesame anv Lizizs,” etc, NEW YORK , CORYELL & COMPANY 10-318 StxtH AVENUE. > a An tf I] Mie ; VotumE I. i Sh Seas ees Be | . . . CHAPTER I. At ASTI AM CHAPTER IL lt SAT TA SIT a (CHAPTER III. pS Mons os aint Oye ae CHAPTER IV. Yuadvi _ CHAPTER V. _ CHAPTER VI. ee Josam, all SEAM 5 CHAPTER VIL. | or JoTHAM, ° ‘ ‘CHAPTER IX. AND IN, ° P Mi eae PORTIA oy CHAPTER VIII. . . . . . . - . . . ef 31 107 _ GENEALOGY, . ee . gee ots. ° : CHAPTER XII. Cora AND KRONOS, ° +; ae ae; : CHAPTER XII Tue SEED AND Husk, AWA fod) Tue Fruit Girt, . “Raises VotumeE II. I «Mune ONT iets YY 2 rs . CHAPTER VIOLA, .« ara et ; 4 _ CHAPTER IL PINGUICULA, ‘ * Seat Ji AATIARND fs ‘ CHAPTER IIL Vino . . . sh Att AMTSHA iT : a : CHAPTER » GIULIETTA, . . > ‘il ATA ; INDEX L DEscrirrive NomenciaturE, | ° 1!) , te r INDEX IL. | pacise NAMES, . 4 APUTARgD : INDEX IIL. Larin on Grex amas, V, aT A : o . : ° meManTets i JUV ASTIAND A) AATIARD re Art or ENGRAVING, . . . | LECTURE IL. ( OF ENGRAVING TO OTHER ARTS IN FLORENCE, LECTURE III. . <1Cs OF Woop ENGRAVING, ra - a E} Sign LECTURE IV. INICS OF METAL ENGRAVING, 7 . . . a LECTURE V. i LECTURE VI. N te FLORENTINE SCHOOLS OF ENGRAVING (SANDRO Re 8 se ew APPENDIX. : ARTICLE I, 1! PRESENT STATE OF ENGRAVING IN ENGLAND ee Bast ie ARTICLE IL. NorEs, : * a Ft a e IN THE GERMAN SCHOOLS OF ENGRAVING (HOLBEIN 324 35° 385 gy t GMAsonsT Fi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PROSERPINA. _ Voitume IL. * . .* * . * * * * * . * . . ie * * * * * * all . . . * . * . . * . Ovtuine or Lear or Burpock : . . " Burpock Lear ILLUSTRATED BY PAPER . - Monocor PLant “ka . "a . . xi « 109 109 SpEcIES oF GRASS FLEUR-DE-LYs LEaF . pt < oe 2 CMOITAAT2ULI AO % VircuLa . VERONICA REGINA fMMAICOAT se 5 Fiora Danica . ek amMYIOY ~. Votume II. I a 3 ' ARIADNE FLORENTINA.- BE vine i. aa ee « Reerat® seven wo % . Norwos aA d We a . ° 5 p ; Trte't * « . . 3 " WOT We - sata vu capasreieee ai; savant caMnmaTe ssaHnT - ¢ JAiayea aay T red Jarrerts eomanwkt ‘ ; ; T7¥ae0s4 VO Bate wT LIST OF PLATES, Pao Reeve aed _ > a egwil aaa XmIT A a0T oer #i | TROSERPINA, ics ae ea la ators oe ¥ RIMIMOH I196Y OxrMOU STxvrasuD L TyPE or Leaves. Common Bay LAUREL . ‘ ‘ Va@QgAD anrT ul Korranosol zuT p LEAVES. NORTHERN ATTIC TYPE . Vioia CANINA. STRUCTURAL DETAILS = ane a SOT BUNT MOaD cvinaya TH ior ‘ ZUSAAMAA T 40 Bontate ant 74 MOrTroM uo sa0M 2 ixagdarene’) rash A aeanwM Lod +o cCavosad wieyd anT =~ ew ING PAGE 4s 4 34 ITZ + ae 180 f ARIADNE FLORENTINA. “aoe PLATES ‘ PAGE I, THINGS CELESTIAL AND TERRESTRIAL ° : g02 ‘II, Tue STtaR oF FLORENCE. : . . + 306 III. At EVENING, FROM THE TOP OF FESOLE ° . 317 IV. By THE SPRINGS OF PARNASSUS. : ° ° | 321 V. Herat Cons!DERED ASA MODE OF MOTION. : 335 VI. FAIRNESS OF THE SEA AND AIR. : : + 338 VII. For A TIME AND TIMES . . . . 372 VIII. THe NympeH BELOVED oF APOLLO. MICHAEL ANGELO . 373 IX. IN THE WoopsorIpa . : . ° : 373 X. GRass OF THE DESERT ‘ . ° : + 376 XI. OBEDIENTE DoMINO VOCI HOMINIS). . - 385 XII. THE CORONATION IN THE GARDEN ° ° + 396 PROSERPINA , kh Tape l? IDIES OF WAYSIDE FLOWERS _ aes: pers | ¥ is Ps Z es a! ay Ere : sie oie ithe, Fae ae 2 meee pOOS « ae 4 Yellen fi : i ».. .... INTRODUCTION. ptt bas pcrod 911) ip dou Wi poy +a ; BRANTWOOD, 14th March, 1874 | Xesrmpax evening I was looking over the first book. in which Y died Botany,—Ourtis'’s Magazine, published in 1795 at o. 3, St. George’s Crescent, Blackfriars Road, and sold by he principal booksellers in Great Britain and Ireland. Its lates are excellent, so that I am always glad to find in it the “ id po a flower I know. And I came yesterday upon what 2 to be a variety of a favourite flower of mine, called, : in Cn urtis, “the St. Bruno's Lily.” ag IT n obliged to say “ what I suppose to be a variety,” be- 2 > my pet lily is branched,* while this is drawn as un- br bel especially stated to be so. And the page of to xt, in which this statement is made, is so characteristic of potanical books, and botanical science, not to say all science gt taught for the blessing of mankind ; and of the diffi- Senge accompanying its communication, that I extract papntire, printing it, on page 7, as nearly as possible in oe a oe yon ‘observe, in this instructive page, that you have in pa teah nine, nine names given you for one flower ; and that x these nine names, you are not even at liberty to make 7 = because the united authority of Haller and Miller “4 be considered as an accurate balance to the single author- aot Linneus; and you ought therefore for the present to seen. yourself, balanced between the sides. You may be ‘ther embarrassed by finding that the Anthericum of Savoy ii ao least, it throws off its flowers on each side in a bewilderingly i y way ; a real lily can’t branch, I believe : but. if not, what is the P us sof the botanical books saying ‘‘ on au unbranched stem” ? 6 INTRODUCTION. is only described as growing in Switzerland. And farther still, by finding that Mr. Miller describes two varieties of it, which differ only in size, while you are left to conjecture whether the one here figured is the larger or smaller; and how great the difference is. Farther, If you wish to know anything of the habits of the plant, as well as its nine names, you are informed that it grows both at the bottoms of the mountains, and the tops ; and that, with us, it flowers in May and June,—but you are not told when, in its native country. The four lines of the last clause but one, may indeed be useful to gardeners ; but—although I know my good father and mother did the best they could for me in this beautiful book; and though the admirable plates of it did their work, and taught me much, I cannot wonder that neither my infantine nor boyish mind was irresistibly attracted by the text of which this page is one of the most favourable speci- mens; nor, in consequence, that my botanical studies were— when I had attained the age of fifty—no farther advanced than the reader will find them in the opening chapter of this book. Which said book was therefore undertaken, to put, if it might be, some elements of the science of botany into a form more tenable by ordinary human and childish faculties ; or— for I can scarcely say I have yet any tenure of it myself—to make the paths of approach to it more pleasant. In fact, I only know, of it, the pleasant distant effects which it bears to simple eyes ; and some pretty mists and mysteries, which I invite my young readers to pierce, as they may, for themselves, —my power of guiding them being only for a little way. Pretty mysteries, I say, as opposed to the vulgar and ugly mysteries of the so-called science of botany,—exemplified suf- ficiently in this chosen page. Respecting which, please ob- serve farther ;—Nobody—I can say this very boldly—loves Latin more dearly than I; but, precisely because I do love it (as well as for other reasons), I have always insisted that books, whether scientific or not, ought to be written either in Latin, or English ; and not in a doggish mixture of the netone * of both. - INTRODUCTION. er Lrirastrum. Savoy ANTHERICUM, or Sr Brouno’s Lrry. ae os on ak ee Ot De bc Oe tc Class and Order. Hexanpria Monocynta. Generic Character. -patens. Caps. ovata. gh Character and Synonyms. { Lihastrum foliis planis, scapo simplicissimo, corollis campanulatis, staminibus declinatis. Linn. Syst. Vegetab. ed. 14. Murr. p. 330. Ait. Kew. v. Lp. 449. floribus patulis secundis. Hail. Hist. . n. 1230. NGIUM magno flore. Bauh. Pin. 29. ie BeaesnaTUM Allobrogicum majus. Clus. cur. app. allt. A TUM Allobrogicum. The Savoye Spider-wort. Park. Parad. p. 150, tab. 151. f. 1. nt; LinN#us considers it as an Anthericum, HALLER and MILLER ak in Hemerocallis. It is a native of Switzerland, where, HALLER informs us, it grows ‘abundantly in the Alpine meadows, and even on the summits of the “mountains ; with us it flowers in May and June. i Itisa plant of great elegance, producing on an unbranched stem about foot and a half high, numerous flowers of a delicate white colour, much ‘smaller but resembling in form those of the common white lily, pos- sessing a considerable degree of fragrance, their beauty is heightened y the rich orange colour of their antherez; unfortunately they are but short duration. MILLER describes two varieties of it differing merely in size. __ A loamy soil, a situation moderately moist, with an eastern or western exposure, suits this plant best ; so situated, it will increase by its roots, on h not very fast, and by parting of these in the autumn, it is usu- y propagated. -PARKINSON describes and figures it in his Parad. Terrest., observing “divers allured by the beauty of its flowers, had brought it inte , pas INTRODUCTION. Linnzeus wrote a noble’ book of universal Natural History in Latin. It is one of the permanent classical treasyres of the world. And if any scientific man thinks his labours are worth - the world’s attention, let him, also, write what -he has to say in Latin, finishedly and exquisitely, if it take him a month to a page.* But if—which, unless he be one ddan of millions, is assure edly the fact—his lucubrations are only of local and bi rary consequence, let him write, as clearly as he can, in’ native language. This book, accordingly, I have written in English ; (not, by the way, that I could have written it in anything else—so there ‘are small thanks to me); and one of its purposes is to inter- pret, for young English readers, the necessary Tah chia or Greek names of flowers, and to make them vi and vital to their understandings. But two great difficulties occur doing this. The first, that there are generally from ‘three ‘ four, up to two dozen, Latin names current for every and every new botanist thinks his eminence only to erly asserted by adding another. The second, and a much more serious one, is of the Devil's own contriving—(and remember I am always quite serious when I speak of the Devil,)—namely, that the most current and authoritative names are apt to be founded on some > un clean or debasing association, so that to interpret them is to defile the reader’s mind. I will give no instance; too many will at once occur to any learned reader, and the unlearned I need not vex with so much as one: but, in such eases, since I could only take refuge in the untranslated word by leaving other Greek or Latin words also untranslated, and the clature still entirely senseless,—and I do not ehoose to do this,—there is only one other course open to me, namely, to substitute boldly, to my own pupils, other genet names for the plants thus faultfully hitherto titled. aha U, As I do not do this for my own pride, but honestly for my *I have by happy chance just added to my Oxford library the poet Gray’ 8 copy of Linneus, with its exquisitely written Latin eee sire lary alike to scholar and naturalist. wt veey imenned INTRODUCTION. - pi - Keaieiblite question nor care how far the emen- mpopese, may be now or hereafter adopted. I shall ame the cases in which they have been made for the a above specified ; but even shall mask those spose. wes real occasion to alter, by sometimes giving mesin cases where there was no necessity of such kind. le ~ I shall be accused of doing myself what I violently in others. I doso; but with a different motive—of h let the reader jiadeps' as he is disposed. The practical t will be that the children who learn botany on the sys- adopted in this book will know the useful and beautiful 3 ss hitherto given, in all languages ; the useless 2 ithe 0 common one, I trust may yet by some scientific per 18 porapter. and with ultimate nAteninge: : riatum—I hope will be accurately enforced rete i: t not less carefully the learning of the pretty English one Taiilce Grass”—with due observance that ‘“ Ladies’ eS hath leaves like unto Millet in fashion with many white +3 sor ln and silver strakes running along through the of the leaves, fashioning the same like to laces of : sad green silk, very beautiful and faire to behold.” I have said elsewhere, and can scarcely repeat too often, at a come when men of science will think their mes disgraced, instead of honoured, by being used to bar- 2 nomenclature ; I hope therefore that my own name 7 be kept well out of the way ; but, having been privileged of ound the School of Art in the University of Oxford, I think Tam justified in requesting any scientific writers who y look kindly upon this book, toadd such of the names ageested in it as they think deserving of acceptance, to their ate » lists of synonyms, under the head of ‘“Schol. Art. The difficulties thrown in the way of any quiet private $tadent by existing nomenclature may be best illustrated by ay simply stating what happens to myself in endeavouring 10 INTRODUCTION. to use the page above facsimile’d. Not knowing how far St. Bruno’s Lily might be connected with my own pet one, and not having any sufficient book on Swiss botany, I take down Loudon’s Encyclopedia of Plants, (a most useful book, as far as any book in the present state of the science can be useful,) and find, under the head of Anthericum, the Savoy Lily in- deed, but only the following general information -—* 809. Anthericum. A name applied by the Greeks to the stem of the asphodel, and not misapplied to this set of plants, which in some sort resemble the asphodel. Plants with fleshy leaves, and spikes of bright yellow flowers, easily cultivated if kept dry.” _ Hunting further, I find again my Savoy lily calle jaiapliler- plant, under the article Hemerocallis, and the only informa- tion which the book gives me under Hemerocallis, is that it means ‘beautiful day’ lily; and then, ‘‘ This is an ornamental genus of the easiest culture. The species are remarkable among border flowers for their fine orange, yellow, or blue flowers. The Hemerocallis coerulea has been considered a distinct genus by Mr. Salisbury, and called Saussurea.” As I correct this sheet for press, however, I find that the Heme- rocallis is now to be called ‘ Funkia,’ “in honour of Mr, wae a Prussian apothecary.” All this while, meantime, I have a suspicion that sap iteet Savoy Lily is not, in existing classification, an Anthericum, nor a Hemerocallis, but a Lilium. It is, in fact, simply a Turk’s cap which doesn’t curl up. But on trying ‘Lilium’ in Loudon, I find no mention whatever of any wild branched white lily. I then try the next word in my specimen page of Gubtin ; but there is no ‘ Phalangium ’ at all in Loudon’s index. And : now I have neither time nor mind for more search, but will give, in due place, such account as I can of my own dwarf branched lily, which I shall call St. Bruno’s, as well as this Liliastrum—no offence to the saint, I hope. For it grows . very gloriously on the limestones of Savoy, presumably, there- fore, at the Grande Chartreuse ; though I did not notice it there, and made a very unmonkish use of it when J gathered = = INTRODUCTION. 1i ye away to Chamouni. My Fors always treated me like a in affairs of the heart. ese before, in 1842, by making a careful drawing of wood- _ sorrel at Chamouni ; and bitterly sorry I am, now, that the work wasinterrupted. For I drew, then, very delicately; and should have made a pretty book if I could have got peace. Even yet, Ican manage my point a litile, and would far rather be _ making outlines of flowers, than writing ; and I meant to have _ drawn every English and Scottish wild flower, like this clus- ‘i ter of bog heather opposite,}+—back, and profile, and front. q But ‘Blackwood’s Magazine,’ with its insults to Turner, - dragged me into controversy ; and I have not had, properly - speaking, a day's peace since; so that in 1868 my botanical _ studies were advanced only as far as the reader will see in next chapter ; and now, in 1874, must end altogether, I sup- a », heavier thoughts and work coming faston me. So that, es among my notebooks, two or three, full of broken ma- mehr Sail terials for the proposed work on flowers ; and, thinking they “may be useful even as fragments, I am going to publish them i their present state,—only let the reader note that while my other books endeavour, and claim, so far as they reach, to give trustworthy knowledge of their subjects, this one only eer how such knowledge may be obtained ; and it is little 7 = It was in the year 1860, in June. _ 4Admirably engraved by Mr. Burgess, from my pen drawing, now at ‘Oxford. By comparing it with the plate of the same flower in Sower- by’s work, the student will at once see the difference between attentive ‘drawing, which gives the cadence and relation of masses in a group, md the mere copying of each flower in an unconsidered huddle. gs INTRODUCTION. more than a history of efforts and plans;-—but of. both, Tbe: lieve, made in right methods. J at GR One part of the book, however, will, I think, be found of permanent value. Mr. Burgess has engraved on wood, in re~ duced size, with consummate skill, some of the excellent old drawings in the Flora Danica, and has interpreted, and fac+ simile’d, some of his own and my drawings from nature, with a vigour and precision unsurpassed in woodcut illustration, which render these outlines the best exercises in black and white I have yet been able to prepare for my drawing The larger engravings by Mr. Allen may also borenedl aE vantage as copies for drawings with pen or sepia. Beat) iF fv RoME, 10¢h May (my father’s birthday), - I found the loveliest blue asphodel I ever saw in my life, setlenings 5 in the fields beyond Monte Mario,—a spire two feet high, of more than two hundred stars, the stalks of them. all deep blue, as well as the flowers. Heaven send all honest. people the gathering of the like, momar wad” fae : orow Rerhea > gee i tire aE TOUTE jolient , Ott tet einai +9 Tey ad vat vig ‘tigtld aa a eaois aah * (howe oF” ote wont eyo da ‘(te Obese wee ry Ueber Cp tomy 7 Eh ee 3 Ape ei yk: ssh way . cf ouy bas 5 CHAPTER L moss, DENMARK HILL, 3rd November, 1868. is mortifying enough to write,—but I think thus bought to be written,—concerning myself, as ‘ the author ] Painters.’ In three months I shall be fifty years : and I don’t at this hour—ten o’clock in the morning of ty mebymdred and sixty-eighth day of my forty-ninth year re 2 is oo a I howe more ivigided to know-+ some day a. was so beautiful, and so difficult to examine, that one could only do it in some quite separated time of happy leisure— which came not. I never was like to have less leisure than 0 Ws but Lwill know what moss is, if possible, forthwith. c an :I ipl find. of it in all the botanical books in the house. | it, of them all, I get. this general notion of a moss,—that it as a fine fibrous root,—a stem surrounded with spirally set es,—and. produces its fruit in a small case, under a cap. er omens’ however, ona weatense of Louis Figuier’s, : feet of poplars and willows, are robust vegetable organ- s, which do not decay.” * rs ne pourrissent point.” What do they do with sé a then ?—it immediately occurs to me to ask. SPtle 14 PROSERPINA. It certainly does not, by any means : but, however modified or limited, this immortality is the first thing we ought to take note of in the mosses. They are, in some degree, what the “everlasting” is in flowers. Those minute green leaves of theirs do not decay, nor fall. But how do they die, or how stop growing, then ?—it is the first thing I want to know about them. And from all the books in the house, I can’t as yet find out this, Meanwhile I will look at the leaves themselves. 4, Going out to the garden, I bring in a bit of old brick, emerald green on its rugged surface,* and a thick piece of mossy turf. First, for the old brick : To think of the quantity of pleas- ure one has had in one’s life from that emerald green velvet, —and yet that for the first time to-day I am verily going to look at it! Doing so, through a pocket lens of no great power, I find the velvet to be composed of small star-like groups of smooth, strong, oval leaves,—in- tensely green, and much like the young leaves of any other plant, except in this ;— they all have a long brown spike, like a sting, at their ends. 5. Fastening on that, I take the Flora Danica,t and look through its plates of mosses, for their leaves only ; and I find, first, that this spike, or strong central rib, is characteristic ;— secondly, that the said leaves are apt to be not only spiked, but serrated, and otherwise angry-looking at the points ;—thirdly, that they have a tendency to fold together in the centre (Fig. 1 }); and at last, after an hour’s work at them, it strikes me Fra, 1, * The like of it I have now painted, Number 281, CAs# xm., in the — Educational Series of Oxford. + Properly, Flore Danice, but it is so tiresome to print the aipb- thongs that I shall always call it thus. It is a folio series, exquisitely begun, a hundred years ago; and not yet finished. } Maguified abovt seven times. See note at end of this chapter. MOSS. 15 : they are more like pineapple leaves than any. isthinense to me, very unpleasantly, at the same time, at I don’t know what a pineapple is! »pping to ascertain that, I am told that a pineapple gs to the ‘Bromeliacee ’—(can’'t stop to find out what mens) —nay that of these plants “the pineapple is the ” (Loudon); “their habit is acid, their leaves me toothed with spines, their bracteas often coloured | cre and their flowers either white or blue ”—(what ieir flowers like?) But the two sentences that most re me, are, that in the damp forests of Carolina, the Til “a , which is an ‘epiphyte’ (i.e., a plant growing on other grey “forms dense festoons among the branches of the - trees, vegetating among the black mould that collects upon e bark of trees in hot damp countries ; other species are in- habitants of deep and gloomy forests, and others form, with _ their spring leaves, an impenetrable herbage in the Pampas oe, So they really seem to be a kind of moss, on a Be: y Next, I find in Gray,* Bromeliacexw, and—the very thing % -want—“ Tillandsia, the black moss, or long moss, which, Yike most Bromelias, grows on the branches of trees.” So the ; pple is really a moss ; only it is a moss that flowers but q . “The fine fruit is caused by the consolidation of the imperfect flowers.” (I wish we could consolidate some _ imperfect English moss-flowers into little pineapples then,— though they were only as big as filberts.) But we cannot follow that farther now ; nor consider when a flower is per- - fect, and when it is not, or we should get into morals, and I “don’t know where else ; swe will go back to the moss I have ; age for I begin to see my way, a little, to understanding ia = The second piece I have on the table is a cluster—an — 1 or two deep—of the moss that grows everywhere, and the birds use ar nest-building, and we for packing, and Wr ic =A | America — System of Botany,’ the best technical book I have. re Be ; : AS 16 PROSERPINA. the like. It is dry, since yesterday, and its fibres define them: — selves against the dark ground in warm green, a glittering light. Note that burnished lustre ofthe minute leaves ; they are necessarily always relieved against dark hol lows, and this lustre makes ‘them mucli ‘clearer’ and’ brighter — than if they were of dead green. In that lustre~and it is characteristic of them—they differ wholly from the dead; aloe- like texture of the pineapple leaf; and remind me, as T look at them closely, a little of some comditionti of chaff, as on heads of wheat after being threshed. I will hunt down that clue — presently ; meantime there is something else to hed besarte the old brick. it daodct 8. Out of its emerald green cushions of esinindesbaeaieael rise, here and there, thin red threads, each with a little brown — cap, or something like a cap, at the top of it. These red — threads shooting up out of the green tufts, are, I believe, the — fructification of the moss ; fringing its surface in the woods, — and on the rocks, with the small forests of brown stems, each — carrying its pointed cap or crest—of infinitely varied *mode,’_ as we shall see presently ; ; and, which is one of their most blessed functions, carrying high the dew in the morning; every spear balancing its own erystal globe. 9) 9. And now, with my own broken memories of moss, and this unbroken, though unfinished, gift of the noble labour of © other people, the Flora Danica, I can I ‘idea. of the precious little plant, for myself, and forthe reader. © All mosses, I believe, (with such exceptions and collateral groups as we may afterwards discover, but they are not-many,) : that is to say, some thousands of species, are, in their strength of existence, composed of fibres surrounded by elusters of dry spinous leaves, set close to the fibre they grow on. Out of this leafy stem descends a fibrous root, and ascends in its sea- son, a capped seed. as We must get this very clearly into our heads. Fig. 2, 4, is” a little tuft of a common wood moss of Norway,* in. its fruit” season, of its real size; but at present I want. talc ie 3 **Dicranum cerviculatum,’ sequel to Flora Danica, weectlanta’ & MOSS. 17 ‘Paling it to pieces, we find it composed of seven little iny-keeping fibres, each of which, by itself, ears asin Fig. 2,8: but as in this, its real , it is’ too small, not indeed for our respect, for our comprehension, we magnify it, Fig. 1 thereupon perceive it to be indeed com- O8E dof, ‘a, the small fibrous root which sustains t e plant ;b, the leaf-surrounded stem which is je actual being, and main creature, moss ; and, e aspirant pillar, and cap, of its fructification. “11. But there is one minor division yet. You see T have drawn the central part of the moss sete Fig. 2,) half in outline and half in black ; ithat, similarly, in the upper group, which is rete to show the real roots, the base of the ¢ “is black. And you remember, I doubt not, iow often in gathering what most invited ring, of deep green, starry, perfectly soft and living wood-moss, you found it fall asunder _imyour hand into multitudes of separate threads, each with its bright green crest, and long root blackness. That blackness at the root—though only so ‘notable in this wood-moss and collateral species, windeed's general character of the mosses, with rat 2 exceptions. It is their funeral blackness ; -—that, I perceive, is the way the moss leaves die. They do not fall—they do not visibly decay. “But they decay invisibly, in continual secession, beneath the ascending crest. They rise to form that crest, all green and bright, and take the ghtand air from those out of which they grew ; and those, their ancestors, darken and die slowly, and at last become _ amass of mouldering ground. In fact, as I perceive farther, ‘their final duty is so to die. The main work of other leaves a their life,—but these have to form the earth out of which 18 PROSERPINA. all other leaves are to grow. Not to cover the rocks with golden velvet only, but to fill their crannies with the dark earth, through which nobler creatures shall one day seek their being. 12. “Grant but as many sorts of mind as moss.” Pope could not have known the hundredth part of the number of ‘sorts’ of moss there are ; and I suppose he only chose the word because it was a monosyllable beginning with m, and the best English general expression for despised and minute structures of plants. But a fate rules the words of wise men, which makes their words truer, and worth more, than the men themselves know. No other plants have so endless yari- ety on so similar a structure as the mosses ; and none teach so well the humility of Death. As for the death of our bodies, we have learned, wisely, or unwisely, to look the fact of that in the face. But none of us, I think, yet care to look the fact of the death of our minds in the face. I do not mean death of our souls, but of our mental work. So far as itis good art, indeed, and done in realistic form, it may perhaps not die ; but so far as it was only good thought—good, for its time, and apparently a great achievement therein—that good, use- ful thought may yet in the future become a foolish thought, and then die quite away,—it, and the memory of it,—when better thought and knowledge come. But the better thought could not have come if the weaker thought had not come first, and died in sustaining the better. If we think honestly, our thoughts will not only live usefully, but even perish use- fully—like the moss—and become dark, not without due ser- vice. But if we think dishonestly, or malignantly, our thoughts will die like evil fungi,—dripping corrupt dew. A 13. But farther. If you have walked moorlands enough to know the look of them, you know well those flat spaces or causeways of bright green or golden ground between the heathy rock masses; which signify winding pools and inlets of stagnant water caught among the rocks ;—pools which the deep moss that covers them blanched, not black, at the root, —is slowly filling and making firm; whence generally the unsafe ground in the moorland gets known by being mossy instead of heathy, and is at last called by its riders, briefly, ee i . Ae * as: ie 5 | aay Yi se MOSS. vee, 19 ‘the Moss’: and as it is mainly at these same mossy places that the riding is difficult, and brings out, the gifts of horse and rider, and discomfits all followers not similarly gifted, the skilled crosser of them got his name, naturally, of ‘moss- rider, or moss-trooper. In which manner the moss of Nor- way and Scotland has been a taskmaster and Maker of Sol” diers, as yet, the strongest known among natural powers. The lightning may kill a man, or cast down a tower, but these little tender leaves of moss—they and their progenitors— have trained the Northern Armies. ee a. _ 14. So much for the human meaning of that decay of the leaves. Now to go back to the little creatures themselves. It seems that the upper part of the moss fibre is especially undecaying among leaves ; and the lower part, especially de- eaying. That, in fact, a plant of moss-fibre is a kind of per- sistent state of what is, in other plants, annual. Watch the year’s growth of any luxuriant flower. First it comes out of the ground all fresh and bright; then, as the higher leaves and branches shoot up, those first leaves near the ground get brown, sickly, earthy,—remain for ever degraded in the dust, and under the dashed slime in rain, staining, and grieving, and loading them with obloquy of envious earth, half-killing them,—only life enough left in them to hold on the stem, and to be guardians of the rest of the plant from all they suffer ; —while, above them, the happier leaves, for whom they are thus oppressed, bend freely to the sunshine, and drink the rain pure. - The moss strengthens on a diminished scale, intensifies, and makes perpetual, these two states,—bright leaves above that never wither, leaves beneath that exist only to wither. _ 15. LT have hitherto spoken only of the fading moss as it is needed for change into earth. But Iam not sure whether a yet more important office, in its days of age, be not its use as a colour. We are all thankful enough—as far as we ever are so—for green moss, and yellow moss. But we are never enough grateful for black moss. The golden would be nothing with- out it, nor even the grey. 30} s PROSERPINA. It is true that there are black lichens enough, and brown ones: nevertheless, the chief use of lichens is for silver and gold colour on rocks’; and it is the dead moss which gives the ‘\ leopard-like touches of black. And yet here again—as toa . thing I have been looking at and painting all my life—I am _ Brought ‘to,..pause, the moment I think of it carefully. The black moss which gives the precious Velasquez touches, lies, much of it, flat on the rocks; radiating from its centres— powdering in the fingers, if one breaks it off, like dry tea. Is it a black species? or a black-parched state of other species, perishing for the sake of Velasquez effects; instead of accumu- lation of earth ? and, if so, does it die of drought, accident- ally, or, in a sere old age, naturally? and how is it related to the rich green bosses that grow in deep velvet? Amd there again is another matter not clear to me. One calls them ‘velvet’ because they are all brought to an even surface at the top. Our own velvet is reduced to such trimness by cut- ting. But how is the moss trimmed? By what scissors? Carefullest Elizabethan gardener never shaped his yew hedge more daintily than the moss fairies smooth these soft rounded surfaces of green and gold. And just fancy the difference; if they were ragged! If the fibres had every one of them leaye to grow at their own sweet will, and to be long or short as they liked, or, worse still, urged by fairy prizes into labo- riously and agonizingly trying which could grow nagar Fancy the surface of a spot of competitive moss! 5 16. But how is it that they are subdued into Can nglagilh obedience, like a erystal of wavellite?* Strange—that the — vegetable creatures growing so fondly on rocks should form themselves in that miueral-like manner. It is true that the tops of all well-grown trees are rounded, on a large scale, as equally ; but that is because they grow from a central stem, while these mossy mounds are made out of independent fila- ments, each growing to exactly his proper height in the sphere —short ones outside, long in the middle. | Stop, though ; is that so? I am not even sure of that; perhaps they are built *The reader should buy a small specimen of this mineral i: bode useful type of many structures, “MOSS 21 ‘over’ a little dome of decayed moss below.* I must find out filament grows, separately—from root to cap, a set leaves. And meanwhile I dou’t know so much as what a root is—or what a leaf is. Be- fore puzzling myself any farther in examination either of moss or, any other grander vegetable, I had better define these pri- - taal forms of all vegetation, as well as I can—or rather begin ~ ion of them, for future completion and correction. | For, ea my reader must already sufficiently perceive, this book _ isliterally to be one of studies—not of statements. Some one me once, very shrewdly, When he wants to work out Pere writes a book on it. That is a very true saying e main,—I work down or up to my mark, and let the | process and progress, not caring to conceal them. But tl book will be nothing but process. I don’t mean to assert, anything ~aaniadeie in it from the first page to the last. -viin gascod. bu _ * Lucca, Aug. 9th, 1874, —I have left this passage as originally writ- ten, but I believe the dome is of accumulated earth, Bringing home, : ited after bin 9 heaps of all kinds of mosses from the hills ‘the Archbishop Ruggieri was hunting the wolf and her __ whelps in Ugolino’s dream, I am more and more struck, every day, with _ their special function as earth-gatherers, and with the enormous im- _ portance to their own brightness, and to our service, of that dark and | degraded state of the inferior leaves. And it fastens itself in my mind mainly as their distinctive character, that as the leaves of a tree become wood, so the leaves of a moss become earth, while yet a normal part of the pliant. Here is a cake in my hand weighing half a pound, bright ‘surface, with minute crisp leaves; but an inch thick be- Egeeie ie what looks at first like clay, but is indeed knitted fibre of ex- usted moss... Also, I don’t at all find the generalization I made from 4 books likely to have occurred to me from the real things. Yo moss bey that I can find here give me the idea of resemblance to leaves; nor do I see any, through my weak lens, clearly ser- ; but I do find a general tendency to run into a silky filamentous ated ‘im some, especially on a small one gathered from the oe the marble of the cathedral, white threads of considerable dene? at. the extremities of the leaves, of which threads I remember rawin| OF ‘notice in the botanical books. Figure 1 represents, mag- nified, a cluster of these leaves, with the germinating stalk springing _ from their centre; but my scrawl was tired and careless, and for once, Mr. Burgess has copied to accurately. 22 PROSERPINA. Whatever I say, is to be understood only as a conditional statement—liable to, and inviting, correction. And this the _more because, as on the whole, I am at war with the botanists, I can’t ask them to help me, and then call them names after- wards. I hope only for a contemptuous heaping of coals on my head by correction of my errors from them ; in some cases, my scientific friends will, I know, give me forgiving aid ;— but, for many reasons, I am forced first to print the imperfect statement, as I can independently shape it ; for if once I asked for, or received help, every thought would be frost-bitten into timid expression, and every sentence broken by apology. I should have to write a dozen of letters before I could print a line, and the line, at last, would be only like a bit of any other botanical book—trustworthy, it might be, perhaps ; but certainly unreadable. Whereas now, it will rather put things more forcibly in the reader’s mind to have them retouched and corrected as we go on ; and our natural and honest mis- takes will often be suggestive of things we could not have discovered but by wandering. On these guarded conditions, then, I proceed to study, with my reader, the first general laws of vegetable form. CHAPTER IL THE ROOT. 1. Puants in their perfect form consist of four principal parts,—the Root, Stem, Leaf, and Flower. It is true that the stem and flower are parts, or remnants, or altered states, of the leaves ; and that, speaking with close accuracy, we might say, a perfect plant consists of leaf and root. But the division into these four parts is best for practical purposes, and it will be desirable to note a few general facts about each, before endeavouring to describe any one kind of plant. Only, be- cause the character of the stem depends on the nature of the leaf and flower, we must put it last in order of examination ; and trace the development of the plant first in root and leaf; then in the flower and its fruit ; and lastly in the stem. THE ROOT. 28 3 3 f . es the Root. is divided, as I just said, in the main, into two parts, and these have opposite natures. One part seeks the Bees the other hates it. One part feeds on the air ; the other _ on the dust. Hipyspirt that loves the light is called the Leaf. It is anold Ee word ; I cannot get at its origin. The part that hates — the light is called the Root. gar! Greek, pia, Rhiza.* F ; Pte Latin, Radix, “the growing thing,” which shortens, in - | French, into Race, and then they put on the diminutive ‘ine,’ their two words, Race, and Racine, of which we keep Re for animals, and use for vegetables a word of our own | Saxon (and Dutch) dialect,—‘ root ;’ (connected with Rood an of wood ; whence at last the Holy Rood, or Tree). oe e Root has thse great functions : Ast. To hold the plant in its place. co _— 2nd. To nourish it with earth. 8rd. To receive vital power for it from the earth. With this last office is in some degree,—and especially in certain plants,—connected, that of reprodlictior! “But in all plants the root has these three essential func- ‘tions, _ First, I said, to hold the Plant in its place. The Root is its Fetter. ‘You think it, perhaps, a matter of course that a plant is not to be a crawling thing? It is not a matter of course at all. A vegetable might be just what it is now, as compared with an kbimnal ;—might live on earth and water instead of on meat, —might be as senseless in life, as calm in death, and in all its parts and apparent structure unchanged ; and yet be a crawl- ing thing. It is quite as easy to conceive plants moving about like lizards, putting forward first one root and then another, as it is to think of them fastened to their place. It might have 4 been well for them, one would have thought, to have the power '* Learn this word, at any rate; and if you know any Greek, learn k. _ also this group of words : ‘‘ és pCa év ij Sabwon,” which you may chance _ to meet with, and even to think about, some day. ~ 24 PROSERPINA. of going down to the streams to drink, in time of drought ;—of migrating in winter with grim march from north to south of Dunsinane Hillside. Butthatis not theirappointed Fate. They. are—at least all the noblest of them, rooted to their spot. Their honour and use is in giving immoveable shelter,—in remaining landmarks, or lovemarks, when all else is changed : ‘¢ The cedars wave on Lebanon, But Judah’s statelier maids are gone.” 4, Its root is thus a form of fate to the tree. It condemns, or indulges it, in its place, These semi-living creatures, come what may, shall abide, happy, or tormented. No doubt COR cerning “ the position in which Providence has placed them,” is to trouble their minds, except so far as they can ‘mend it by seeking light, or shrinking from wind, or grasping at sup- - port, within certain limits. In the thoughts of men they have thus become twofold images,—on the one side, of spirits restrained and half destroyed, whence the fables of transfor-— mation into trees ; on the other, of spirits patient and rr tinuing, having root in themselves and in good ground, capable of all persistent effort and vital stability, both in them- selves, and for the human States they form. 5. In this function of holding fast, roots have a power of grasp quite different from that of branches. It is not a grasp, or clutch by contraction, as that of a bird’s claw, or of the small branches we call ‘tendrils’ in climbing plants. It isa ' dead, clumsy, but inevitable grasp, by swelling, after contor- tion. For there is this main difference between a branch and root, that a branch cannot. grow vividly but in certain diree- tions and relations to its neighbour branches ; but a root can grow wherever there is carth and can turn in any direction to avoid an obstacle.* * ‘Duhamel, botanist of the last century, tells us that, wishing to preserve a field of good land from the roots of an avenue of elms whieh were exhausting it, he cut a ditch between the field and avenue to in- tercept the roots. But he saw with surprise those of the roots which had not been cut, go down behind the slope of the ditch to keep out of EE a THE ROOT. oe 25 contriving access for itself where it chooses, a f itself into more serpent-like writhing than ericson an ; and when it has once coiled partly round a - yock; or stone, it grasps it tight, necessarily, merely by swell- ing. Nowa root has force enough sometimes to split rocks, _ but not to erush them ; so it is compelled to grasp by flatten- ing as it thickens ; and, as it must have room somewhere, it alters its own shape as if it were made of dough, and holds «' ,not in a claw, but in a wooden cast or mould, ad- . hering to its ‘surface. And thus it not only finds its anchor- age in the rock, but binds the rocks of its anchorage with a Ge cable. : ery -Hence—and this is a most important secondary function 3 = Mile bind together the ragged edges of rocks as a hem * does the torn edge of a dress : they literally stitch the stones ¥ *; 80 that, while it is always dangerous to pass under q s edge of overhanging crag, a8 soon as it has become Etat with trees, it is safe also. The rending power of _ roots on rocks has been greatly overrated. Capillary attrac- _ tion in a willow wand will indeed split granite, and swelling S : roots sometimes heave considerable masses aside, but on the - whole, roots, small and great, bind, and do not rend.* The surfaces of mountains are dissolved and disordered, by rain, and frost, and chemical decomposition, into mere heaps of Tose stones on their desolate summits ; but, where the forests lee ilk Kecumulates and disintegration ceases. And by cut- ting down forests on great mountain slopes, not only is the _ dliimate destroyed, but the danger of superficial landslip fear- _ fully increased. ; - 8 The second function of roots is to gather for the plant 7 the nourishment it needs from the ground. This is partly water, mixed with some kinds of air (ammonia, ete.,) but the ie 2 CUTS if 2 the light, go under the aitch, and into the field again.’”’ And the Swiss _ naturalist Bonnet said wittily, apropos of a wonder of this sort, ‘‘ that — Sometimes: it was difficult to distinguish a cat from a resebush.” be * As the first- great office of the mosses ‘is the gathering of earth, so ics of the grasses is the binding of it. Theirs the Enclranter’s toil, not é in vain y—making ropes out of sea-sand. he Wy 2¢". ae oP o, oe am " + i. a Se a ibe 26 PROSERPINA. plant can get both water and ammonia from the atmosphere ; and, I believe, for the most part does so; though, when it cannot get water from the air, it will gladly drink by its roots. But the things it cannot receive from the air at all are certain earthy salts, essential to it (as iron is essential in our own blood), and of which when it has quite exhausted the earth, no more such plants can grow in that ground. On this subject you will find enough in any modern treatise on agriculture ; all that I want you to note here is that this feeding function of the root is of a very delicate and discriminating kind, needing much searching and mining among the dust, to find what it wants. If it only wanted water, it could get most of that by spreading in mere soft senseless limbs, like sponge, as far, and as far down, as it could—but to get the salt out of the earth it has to s//t all the earth, and taste and touch every grain of it that it can, with fine fibres. And therefore a root is not at all a merely passive sponge or absorbing thing, but an infinitely subtle tongue, or tasting and eating thing. That is why it is always so fibrous and divided and entangled ss in the clinging earth. 9. “Always fibrous and divided”? But many roots are quite hard and solid ! No; the active part of the root is always, I believe, a fibre. But there is often a provident and passive part—a savings bank of root-——in which nourishment is laid up for the plant, and which, though it may be underground, is no more to be considered its real root than the kernel of a seed is. When you sow a pea, if you take it up in a day or two, you will find the fibre below, which is root ; the shoot above, which is plant : aid the pea as anow partly exhausted storehouse, looking very woful, and like the granaries of Paris after the fire. So the round solid root of a cyclamen, or the conical one which you know so well as a carrot, are not properly roots, but perma- nent storehouses,— only the fibres that grow from them are roots. Then there are other apparent roots which are not even store- houses, but refuges ; houses where the little plant lives in its infancy, through winter and rough weather. So that it will be best for you at once to limit your idea of a root to this,— ee THE ROOT. 27 that it is a gn group of growing fibres which taste and suck what is good for the plant out of the ground, and by their united es strength hold it in its place: only remember the thick limbs ‘of roots do not feed, but only the fine fibres at the ends of them which are something between tongues and sponges, and Pe ; while they absorb moisture readily, are yet as particular about _ getting what they think nice to eat as any dainty little boy or girl; looking for it everywhere, and turning angry and sulky if they don’t get it. 10. But the root has, it seems to me, one more function, _ the most important of all. I say, it seems to me, for observe, _ what I have hitherto told you is all (I believe) ascertained and - admitted ; this that I am going to tell you has not yet, as far as I know, been asserted by men of science, though I believe it to be demonstrable. But you are to examine into it, and @ think of it for yourself. There are some plants which appear to derive all their food | Wiiiie the air—which need nothing but a slight grasp of the ground to fix them in their place. Yet if we were to tie them into that place, in a framework, and cut them from their roots, 3 they would die. Not only in these, but in all other plants, the vital power by which they shape and feed themselves, _ whatever that power may be, depends, I think, on that slight ae —— a Se ——— ie i th i Ri a “ , : Ce | touch of the earth, and strange inheritance of its power. It is as essential to the plant’s life as the connection of the head of an animal with its body by the spine is to the animal. Divide the feeble nervous thread, and all life ceases. Nay, in the tree the root is even of greater importance. You will not kill the tree, as you would an animal, by dividing its body or trunk. The part not severed from the root will shoot again. But in the root, and its touch of the ground, is the life of it. My own definition of a plant would be “a living creature whose source of vital energy is in the earth ” (or in the water, asa form of the earth ; that is, in inorganic substance). There is, however, one tribe of plants which seems nearly excepted _ from this law. It is a very strange one, having long been noted for the resemblance of its flowers to different insects ; 3 and it has recently been proved by Mr. Darwin to be depend- 28 PROSERPINA. ; ent on insects for its existence. Doubly strange therefore, it seems, that in some cases this race of plants all but reaches the independent life of insects. It rather settles upon boughs than roots itself in them ; half of its roots may wave in the air, 11. What vital power is, men of science are not a step nearer knowing than they were four thousand years ago. They are, if anything, farther from knowing now than then, in that they imagine themselves nearer. But they know more about its limitations and manifestations than they did. They have even arrived at something like a proof that there is a fixed quantity of it flowing out of things and into them. But, for the present, rest content with the general and sure knowledge that, fixed or flowing, measurable or immeasurable—one with electricity or heat or light, or quite distinct fromany of them— life is a delightful, and its negative, death, a dreadful thing, to human creatures ; and that you can give or gather a certain quantity of life into plants, animals, and yourself by wisdom and courage, and by their reverses can bring upon them any quantity of death you please, which is a much more serious point for you to consider than what life and death are. 12. Now, having got a quite clear idea of a root properly so called, we may observe what those storehouses, refuges, and ruins are, which we find connected with roots. The greater number of plants feed and grow at the same time ; but there are some of them which like to feed first and grow afterwards. For the first year, or, at all events, the first period of their life, they gather material for their future life out of the ground and out of the air, and lay it up in a storehouse as bees make combs. Of these stores—for the most part rounded masses tapering downwards into the ground—some are as good for hu- man beings as honeycombs are ; only notso sweet. We steal them from the plants, as we do from the bees, and these conical upside-down hives or treasuries of Atreus, under the names of carrots, turnips, and radishes, have had important influence on human fortunes. If we do not steal the store, next year the plant lives upon it, raises its stem, flowers and seeds out of that abundance, and having fulfilled its destiny, and pro- vided for its suecessor, passes away, root and branch together. THE ROOT, : 29 re GA preuy example of patience for us in this; _cophirarerin well for young people generally to set them- . selves to grow i in a carrotty or turnippy manner, and lay up _ secret store, not caring to exhibit it until the time comes for - fruitful display. But they must not, in after-life, imitate the a orem vegetable, and blossom only in the strength of what they learned long ago; else they soon come to contemp- ible end. ‘Wise people live like laurels and cedars, and go on in the earth, while they adorn and embalm the air. W, Secondly, Refuges. As flowers growing on trees have _ to live for some time, when they are young in their buds, so _ some flowers growing on the ground have to live for a while, _ when they are young, in what we call their roots. These are mostly among the Drosidz * and other humble tribes, loving _ the ground; and, in their babyhood, liking to live quite dowii - init. A baby crocus has literally its own little dome—domus, _ or duomo—within which in early spring it lives a delicate con- _ vent life of its own, quite free from all worldly care and dan- _ gers, exceedingly ignorant of things in general, but itself brightly golden and perfectly formed before it is brought out. These subterranean palaces and vaulted cloisters, which we -eall bulbs, are no more roots than the blade of grass is a root, in which the ear of corn forms before it shoots up. 15. Thirdly, Ruins. The flowers which have these subter- ranean homes form one of many families whose roots, as well _ as seeds, have the power of reproduction. The succession of _ some plants is trusted much to their seeds: a thistle sows it- self by its down, an oak by its acorns ; the companies of flying emigrants settle where they may ; and the shadowy tree is : eontent to cast down its showers of nuts for swine’s food with | oa a “G ! a ee: = a 7 oe Ww ee Ras ing aps . ° + y the chance that here and there one may become a ship's bul- wark. But others among plants are less careless, or less proud. Many are anxious for their children to grow in the place where they grew themselves, and secure this not merely _ by letting their fruit fall at their feet, on the chance of its _ * Drosidw, in our school nomenclature, is the general name, includ- j ing the four great tribes, iris, asphodel. amaryllis, and lily. See reason for this name given in the ‘ Queen of the Air,’ Section IL 30 PROSERPINA. growing up beside them, but by closer bond, bud springing forth from root, and the young plant being animated by the gradually surrendered life of its parent. Sometimes the young root is formed above the old one, as in the crocus, or beside it, as in the amaryllis, or beside it in a spiral succession, as in the orchis; in these cases the old root always perishes wholly when the young one is formed ; but in a far greater number of tribes, one root connects itself with another by a short piece of intermediate stem; and this stem does not at once perish when the new root is formed, but grows on at one end indefinitely, perishing slowly at the other, the scars or ruins of the past plants being long traceable on its sides. When it grows entirely underground it is called a root-stock. But there is no essential distinction between a root-steck and a creeping stem, only the root-stock may be thought of asa stem which shares the melancholy humour of a root in loy- ing darkness, while yet it has enough consciousness of better things to grow towards, or near, the light. In one family it is even fragrant where the flower is not, and a simple house- leek is called ‘rhodiola rosea,’ because its root-stock has the scent of a rose. 16. There is one very unusual condition of the root-stock which has become of much importance in economy, though it is of little in botany ; the forming, namely, of knots at the ends of the branches of the underground stem, where the new roots are to be thrown out. Of these knots, or ‘ tubers, (swollen things,) one kind, belonging to the tobacco tribe, has been singularly harmful, together with its pungent relative, to a neighbouring country of ours, which perhaps may reach a higher destiny than any of its friends can conceive for it, if it can-ever succeed in living without either the potato, or the pipe. 17. Being prepared now to find among plants many things _ which are like roots, yet are not ; you may simplify and make fast your true idea of a root as a fibre or group of fibres, which fixes, animates, and partly feeds the leaf. Then prac- tically, as you examine plants in detail, ask first respecting them ; What kind of root have they? Is it large or small in THE LEAP. | bl Se cliliesdeebinnie-tralk, and why is it so? What soil does _ it like, and what properties does it acquire from it? The en- _ deayour to answer these questions will soon lead you to a rational inquiry into the plant's history. You will first ascer- tain what-rock or earth it delights in, and what climate and _ circumsiances ; then you will see how its root is fitted to sus. tain it mechanically under given pressures and violences, and . . to find for it the necessary sustenance under given difficulties 4 _ of famine or drought. Lastly you will consider what chemi- eenaanitl appear to be going on in the root, or its store ; _ what processes there are, and elements, which give pungency _ to the radish, flavour to the onion, or sweetness to the liquor- - iee; and of what service each root may be made capable under cultivation, and by proper subsequent treatment, either = feapinels or men. _ 18. I shall not attempt to do any of this for you ; I assume, ; Gnaleins this advice, that you wish to pursue the science of botany as your chief study ; I have only broken moments for it, snatched from my chief occupations, and I have done noth- ing myself of all this I tell you to do. But so far as you can _ work in this manner, even if you only ascertain the history of _ one plant, so that you know that accurately, you will have helped to lay the foundation of a true science of botany, from- which the mass of useless nomenclature,* now mistaken for science, will fall away, as the husk of a poppy falls from the bursting flower. CHAPTER IL THE LEAF. 1, Iy the first of the poems of which the English Govern- ment has appointed a portion to be sung every day for the in- * The only use of a great part of our existing nomenclatnre is to en- _ able one botanist to describe to another a plant which the other has not : 4 q ’ seen. When the science becomes approximately perfect, all known plants will be properly figured, so that nobody need describe them ; and unknown plants be so rare that nobody will care to learn a new and dif- fieult language, in order to be able to give an account of what in all “probability he will never see. 32 -PROSERPINA. "struction and pleasure of the people, there occurs this euri- ous statement respecting any person who will behave himself rightly : ‘‘He shall be like a tree planted by the river side, that bears its fruit in its season. His leaf also shall not wither ; and you will see that whatever he does will prosper.” I call it a curious statement, because the conduct to which this prosperity is promised is not that which the English, as a nation, at present think conducive to prosperity: but . whether the statement be true or not, it will be easy for you to recollect the two eastern figures under whicli the happiness of the man is represented,—that he is like a tree bearing fruit “in its season ;” (not so hastily as that-the frost pinch it, nor so late that no sun ripens it ;) and that “his leaf shall not fade.” Ishould like you to recollect this phrase in the Vul- gate—“folium ejus non defluet ”—shall not fall away,—that is to say, shall not fall so as to leave any visible bareness in winter time, but only that others may come up in its place, and the tree be always green. 2. Now, you know, the fruit of the tree is either for the continuance of its race, or for the good, or harm, of other creatures. In no case is it a good to the tree itself. It is not indeed, properly, a part of the tree at all, any more than the ‘egg is part of the bird, or the young of any creature part of the creature itself. But in the leaf is the strength of the tree itself. Nay, rightly speaking, the leaves are the tree itself. Its trunk sustains ; its fruit burdens and exhausts; but in the leaf it breathes and lives. And thus also, in the eastern sym- bolism, the fruit is the labour of men for others; but the leaf is their own life. “He shall bring forth fruit, in his time ; and his own joy and strength shall be continual.” 8. Notice next the word ‘folium.’ In Greek, ¢vA)ov, ‘phyllon.’ “The thing that is born,” or “put forth.” “When the branch is tender, and putteth forth her leaves, ye know that summer is nigh.” The botanists say, “The leaf-is an expan- sion of the bark of the stem.” More accurately, the bark isa contraction of the tissue of the leaf. For every leaf is born out of the earth, and breathes out of the air; and there are ae ee THE LEAF. et 33 pinsiy eaves that have no stems, but only roots. tis “the springing thing’; this thin film of life ; rising, with its edge g Fel of the ground—infinitely feeble, infindtely fair. With Hy a Folium, in Latin, is rightly associated the word Flos ; for the flower is only a group of singularly happy leaves. From : these two roots come foglio, feuille, feuillage, and fleur ;— blume, blossom, and bloom ; our foliage, and the borrowed 4 _ foil, and the connected technical groups of words in archi- _ tecture and the sciences. Fi 4. ‘This tin film, I said. That is the essential character of a leaf; to be thin,—widely spread out in proportion to its mass. It is the opening of the substance of the earth to the airy is the giver of life. The Greeks called it, there- ‘the born or blooming thing, but the spread or od thinge—“ weradov.” Pindar calls the beginnings of arrel, “petals of quarrel.” Recollect, therefore, this form, 4 Fete; end connect it with Petasos, the expanded cap of _—-Mereury. _ For one great use of both is to give shade. The ia root” ‘of all these words is said to be ET (Pet), which may bY eens Se eaibered | in Greek, as it sometimes occurs in no v 6. But the word ‘petalos’ is connected in Greek with an- % other word, meaning to fly,—so that you may think of a bird ‘ its petals to the wind ; and with another, signi- er: fying Fate in its pursuing flight, the overtaking thing, or overflying Fate. Finally, there is another Greek word mean- ing ‘wide,’ wAarvs (platys); whence at last our ‘plate ’—a _ thing made broad or extended—but especially made broad or _ *flat’ out of the solid, as in a lump of clay extended on the _ wheel, or a lump of metal extended by the hammer. So the _ first we call Platter ; the second Plate, when of the precious ' metals, Then putting b for p, and d for t, we get the blade of an oar, and blade of grass. 6. Now gather a branch of laurel, and look at it carefully. - You may read the history of the being of half the earth in _ one of those green oval leaves—the things that the sun and _ ‘the rivers have made out of dry ground. Daphne—daughter _ of Enipeus, and beloved by the Sun,—that fable gives you at - Vou. L—3 Se Te Tse ART ie ase 2S ee ae see 4 ae ry Lo en eee ak : é , Fae ECE 34 iti PROSERPINA. once the two great facts about vegetation. Where warmth is, and moisture—there also, the leaf. Where no warmth—there is no leaf ; where there is no dew—no leaf. ~ 7. Look, then, to the branch you hold in your hand. That you can so hold it, or make a crown of it, if you. “choose, is the first thing I want you to note of it;—the proportion of size, namely, between the leaf and you. Great part of your life and character, as a human creature, has depended on that, Suppose all leaves had been spacious, like some palm leaves; solid, like cactus stem ; or that trees had grown, as they might of course just as easily have grown, like mushrooms, all one great cluster of leaf round one stalk. Ido not say that they are divided into small leaves only for your delight, or your service, as if you were the monarch of everything—eyen in this atom of a globe. You are made of your proper size ; and the leaves of theirs: for reasons, and by laws, of which neither the leaves nor you know anything. Only note the harmony between both, and the joy we may have in this di- vision and mystery of the frivolous and tremulous petals, which break the light and the breeze,—compared to what, with the frivolous and the tremulous mind which is in us, we could have had out of domes, or penthouses, or walls of leaf. 8. Secondly ; think awhile of its dark clear green, and the good of it to you. Scientifically, you know green in leaves is owing to ‘chlorophyll,’ or, in English, to ‘ green-leaf.’ It may be very fine to know that ; but my advice to you, on the whole, is to rest content with the general fact that leayes are green when they do not grow in or near smoky towns; and not by any means to rest content with the fact that very soon there will not be a green leaf in England, but only greenish black ones, And thereon resolve that you will yourself endeayour to promote the growing of the green wood, rather than of the black. 9. Looking at the back of your laurel-leaves, you see how the central rib or spine of each, and the lateral branchings, strengthen and carry it. I find much confused use, in botani- eal works, of the words Vein and Rib. For, indeed, there are veins in the ribs of leaves, as marrow in bones ; and the pro- 7 PLATE II.—CENTRAL TYPE OF LEAVES. ComMMON BAy LAUREL. THE LEAF. . 35 : _joting bur often gradually depress themselves into a trans- “ ofrivers. But the mechanical force of the framework _ in carrying the leaf-tissue is the point first to be noticed ; it is _that which admits, regulates, or restrains the visible motions of “of the leaf ; while the system of circulation can only be stud- epee the microscope. But the ribbed leaf bears itself to the wind, as the webbed foot of a bird does to the water, ‘ and needs the same kind, though not the same strength, of hy Sores and its ribs always are partly therefore constituted of strong woody substance, which is knit out of the tissue ; iiaieresr can extricate this skeleton framework, and keep it, after the leaf-tissue is dissolved. So I shall henceforward speak simply of the leaf and its ribs,—only specifying the ad- a veined structure on necessary occasions. 10. I have just said that the ribs—and might have said, H dacthor: the stalk that sustains them—are ais out of the tissue of the leaf. But what is the leaf tissue itself knit out of? One would think that was nearly the first thing to be _ discovered, or at least to be thought of, concerning plants,— - namely, how and of what they are made. We say they ‘grow.’ But you know that they can’t grow out of nothing ; _ —this solid wood and rich tracery must be made out of some _ previously existing substance. What is the substance ?—and how is it woven into leaves,—twisted into wood ? 11. Consider how fast this is done, in spring. You walk in February over a slippery field, where, through hoar-frost and mud, you perhaps hardly see the small green blades of © ' trampled turf. In twelve weeks you wade through the same _ field up to your knees in fresh grass ; and in a week or two __ more, you mow two or three solid haystacks off it. In winter _ you walk by your currant-bush, or your vine. They are shrivelled sticks—like bits of black tea in the canister. You pass again in May, and the currant-bush looks like a young _ sycamore tree ; and the vine is a bower: and meanwhile the forests, all over this side of the round world, have grown their foot or two in height, with new leaves—so much _ deeper, so much denser than they were. Where has it all come from? Cut off the fresh shoots from a single branch of 36 _ PROSERPINA. any tree in May. Weigh them; and then consider that so much weight has been added to every such living branch, everywhere, this side the equator, within the last two months. What is all that made of ? 12. Well, this much the botanists really know, and tell us, —It is made chiefly of the breath of animals; that is to say, of the substance which, during the past year, animals have breathed into the air ; and which, if they went on breathing, and their breath were not made into trees, would poison them, or rather suffocate them, as people are suffocated in uncleansed pits, and dogs in the Grotta del Cane. So that you may look upon the grass and forests of the earth as a kind of green hoar-frost, frozen upon it from our breath, 3 on the window-panes, the white arborescence of ice. | 13. But how is it made into wood ? The substances that have been breathed into the air are charcoal, with oxygen and hydrogen,—or, more plainly, char- coal and water. Some necessary earths,—in smaller quantity, but absolutely essential,—the trees get from the ground; but, I believe all the charcoal they want, and most of the water, from the air. Now the question is, where and how & they take it in, and digest it into wood? 14. You know, in spring, and peal through all the year, except in frost, a liquid called ‘sap’ cireulates in trees, of which the nature, one should have thought, might have been ascertained by mankind in the six thousand years they have been cutting wood, Under the impression always that it had’ been ascertained, and that I could at any time know all about it, I have put off till to-day, 19th October, 1869, when I am past fifty, the knowing anything about it at all. But I will really endeavour now to ascertain something, and take to my botanical books, accordingly, in due order. (1) Dresser’s ‘Rudiments of Botany.” ‘Sap’ not in the index ; only Samara, and Sarcocarp,—about neither of which I feel the smallest curiosity. (2) Figuier’s “Histoire des Plantes.” * ‘Séve,’ not in index; only Serpolet, and She rardia arvensis, which also have no help in them for me. * An excellent book, nevertheless. THE LEAR 3t ar’s Manual ‘of Botany.” ‘Sap,'—yes, at last. “ Ar- 57 Hi ‘Course of fluids in exogenous stems.” I don't care - put he course just now: I want to know where the fluids e from. “If a plant be plunged into a weak solution of acetate of lead,”—I don’t in the least want to know what hap- pens: “From the minuteness of the tissue, it is not easy to determine the vessels through which the sap moves.” Who Lit was? If it had been: easy, I should have done it my- oi Nec take place in the composition of the sap’ in u 1 course.” I dare say; but I don’t know yet what it osition is’ before it begins going up. ‘The Elabor- = ated Sap by Mr. Schultz has been ealled ‘latex.’” I wish Mr. & were in a hogshead of it, with the top on. “On ae- | demi ot: thede movements in the latex, the laticiferous vessels a _ have been denominated cinenchymatous.” Ido not venture the expressions which I here mentally make use of. Be Stay,—here, at last, in Article 264, is something to the purpose’: “It appears then that, in the case of Exogenous a plants, the fluid matter in the soil, containing different sub- stances in solution, is sucked up by the extremities of the - roots.” Yes, but how of the pine trees on yonder rock ?—Is a - there any sap in the rock, or water either? The moisture must be seized during actual rain on the root, or stored up _ from the’ snow ; stored up, any way, in a tranquil, not actively a ‘ - SAPPY: state, till the time comes for its change, of which there is no account here. 16. Thave only one chance left now. Lindley’s “ Introduc- tion to Botany.” ‘Sap,’—yes,—‘ General motion of.’ HL. 325. _ “The course which is taken by the sap, after entering a _ plant, is the first subject for consideration.” My dear doctor, _ Ehave learned nearly whatever I know of plant structure from _ you, and am grateful; and that it is little, is not your fault, - butmine. But this—let me say it with all sincere respect— _ is not what you should have told me here. You know, far _ better than I, that ‘sap’ never does enter a plant at all; but i: only salt, or earth and water, and that the roots alone could ¥ “not make it; and that, therefore, the course of it must be, in Petene part, the result or process of the actual making. But T 38 PROSERPINA. will read now, patiently ; for I know you will tell me much that is worth hearing, though not perhaps what I want. _ Yes; now that I have read Lindley’s statement carefully, I find it is full of precious things ; and this is what, with think- ing over it, I can gather for you, 17. First, towards the end-of January,—as the light en- larges, and the trees revive from their rest,—there is a gen- eral liquefaction of the blood of St. Januarius in their stems ; and I suppose there is really a great deal of moisture rapidly absorbed from the earth in most cases ; and that this absorp- tion is a great help to the sun in drying the winter’s damp out of it for us: then, with that strange vital power,—which sci- entific people are usually as afraid of naming as common peo- ple are afraid of naming Death,—the tree gives the gathered earth and water a changed existence ; and to this new-born liquid an upward motion from the earth, as our blood has from the heart ; for the life of the tree is out of the earth ; and this upward motion has a mechanical power in pushing on the growth. ‘Forced onward by the current of sap, the plumule ascends,” (Lindley, p. 132,) —this blood of the tree haying to supply, exactly as our own blood has, not only the forming powers of substance, but a continual evaporation, “ approximately seventeen times more than that of the human body,” while the force of motion in the sap “is sometimes five times greater than that which impels the blood in the crural artery of the horse.” 18. Hence generally, I think we may conclude thus much, —that at every pore of its surface, under ground and above, the plant in the spring absorbs moisture, which instantly dis- perses itself through its whole system ‘by means of some permeable quality of the membranes of the cellular tissue in- visible to our eyes even by the most powerful glasses” (p. 326) ; that in this way subjected to the vital power of the tree, it becomes sap, properly so called, which passes downwards through this cellular tissue, slowly and secretly ; and then up- wards, through the great vessels of the tree, violently, stretch- ing out the supple twigs of it as you see a flaccid waterpipe swell and move when the cock is turned to fill it, And the THE LEAF. 39 ie tree Denwmies literally a fountain, of which the springing _ streamlets are clothed with new-woven garments of green tis- sue, and of which the silver spray stays in the sky,—a spray, now, of leaves. Ep | 19. That is the gist of the matter ; and a very wonderful - se it is, tomy mind. The secret and subtle descent—the 3 violent and exulting resilience of the tree's blood,—what guides it ?—what compels? The creature has no heart to 4 beat like ours ; one cannot take refuge from the mystery in a * ‘muscular contraction.’ Fountain without supply—playing a by its own force, for ever rising and falling all through the days of Spring, spending itself at last in gathered clouds of leaves, and iris of blossom. _ Very wonderful; and it seems, for the present, that we ‘dane nothing whatever about its causes ; nay, the strangeness ‘ of the reversed arterial and vein motion, mabons a heart, does not not seem to strike anybody. Perhaps, however, it may interest you, as I observe it does the botanists, to know that the cellular tissue through which the motion is effected is ealled Parenchym, and the woody tissue, Bothrenchym ; and _ that Parenchym is divided, by a system of nomenclature which _ has some advantages over that more commonly in use,” * into merenchyma, conenchyma, ovenchyma, atractenchyma, _ eylindrenchyma, colpenchyma, cladenchyma, and prismen- _ ehyma, _ 20. Take your laurel branch into your hand again. There are, as you must well know, innumerable shapes and orders _ Of leaves ;—there are some like claws ; some like fingers, and _ some like feet; there are endlessly cleft ones, and endlessly - elustered ones, and inscrutable divisions within divisions of _ the fretted verdure ; and wrinkles, and ripples, and stitch- ings, and hemmings, and pinchings, and gatherings, and _ crumplings, and clippings, and what not. But there is noth- _ ing so constantly noble as the pure leaf of the laurel, bay, _ orange, and olive; numerable, sequent, perfect in setting, z He '*Tindley, ‘Introduction to Botany,’ vol. i, p. 21. The terms : wholly obsolete’ says an authoritative betadie friend. Thank ia "Heaven! ; 4 PROSERPINA. divinely simple and serene. I shall call these noble leaves ‘Apolline’ leaves. They characterize many orders of plants, great and small,—from the magnolia to the myrtle, and ex- quisite ‘myrtille’ of the hills, (bilberry) ; but wherever you find them, strong, lustrous, dark green, simply formed, richly scented or stored,—you have nearly always kindly and werd vegetation, in healthy ground and air. 21. The gradual diminution in rank beneath the Ay leaf, takes place in others by the loss of one or more of the qualities above named. The Apolline leaf, I said, is strong, lustrous, full in its green, rich in substance, simple in form. The inferior leaves are those which have lost strength, and become thin, like paper; which have lost lustre, and become dead by roughness of surface, like the nettle,—(an Apolline ~ leaf may become dead by bloom, like the olive, yet not lose beauty) ; which have lost colour and become feeble in green, as in the poplar, or crudely bright, like rice ; whieh have lost substance and softness, and have nothing to give in scent or nourishment ; or become flinty or spiny ; finally, whieh have lost simplicity, and become cloven or jagged. Many of these losses are partly atoned for by gain of some peculiar loveliness. _ Grass’ and moss, and parsley and fern, have each their own delightfulness ; yet they are all of inferior power and honour, compared tothe Apolline leaves. 22. You see, however, that though your laurel leaf has a central stem, and traces of ribs branching from it, in a verte- brated manner, they are so faint that we cannot take it for\a type of vertebrate structure. But the two figures of elm and alisma leaf, given in Modern Painters (vol. iii.), and now here repeated, Fig. 3, will clearly enough show the opposition be- tween this vertebrate form, branching again usually at the edges, a, and the softly opening lines diffused at the stem, and gathered at the point of the leaf, b, which, as you almost with- out doubt know already, are characteristic of a-vast group of plants, including especially ali the lilies, grasses, and palms, which for the most part are the signs of local or temporary moisture in hot countries ;—loeal, as of fountains and. ee temporary, as of rain or inundation, THE LEAF. - | 4] aa ~ caida considered why it is so rich upon the grass ; _—why it is not upon the trees? It is partly on the trees, but yet your memory of it will be always chiefly of its gleam upon the lawn. On many trees you will find there is none at all. 7 T cannot: follow out here the many inquiries connected with _ ean gather for themselves out of the air; or else by streams and springs. Hence the division of the verse of the song of Moses : “My doctrine shall drop as the rain ; my speech shall distil as the dew : as the small rain upon the tender herb, and _as the showers upon the grass.” _ 23. Next, examining the direction of the veins in the leaf of - the alisma, }, Fig. 3, you see they all open widely, as soon as _ they can, towards the thick part of the leaf; and them taper, . 4 rently with reluctance, pushing each other outwards, to the point. If the leaf were a lake of the same shape, and its ; stem the a river, the linesof the currents passing through 42 PROSERPINA. it would, I believe, be nearly the same as that of the veins in the aquatic leaf. I have not examined the fluid law accurately, and I do not suppose there is more real correspondence than may be caused by the leaf's expanding in every permitted di- rection, as the water would, with all the speed it can ; but the resemblance is so close as to enable you to fasten the relation of the unbranched leaves to streams more distinetly in your mind,—just as the toss of the palm leaves from their stem may, I think, in their likeness to the springing of a fountain, remind you of their relation to the desert, and their necessity, therein, to life of man and beast. 24, And thus, associating these grass and lily leaves always with fountains, or with dew, I think we may get a pretty gen- eral name for them also. You know that Cora, our Madonna of the flowers, was lost in Sicilian Fields; you know, also, that the fairest of Greek fountains, lost in Greece, was thought to rise in a Sicilian islet ; and that the real springing of the noble fountain in that rock was one of the causes which deter- mined the position of the greatest Greek city of Sicily. So I think, as we call the fairest branched leayes ‘ Apolline,’ we will call the fairest flowing ones ‘Arethusan.’ But remember that the Apolline leaf represents only the central type of land leaves, and is, within certain limits, of a fixed form; while the beau- tiful Arethusan leaves, alike in flowing of their lines, change their forms indefinitely,—some shaped like round pools, and some like winding currents, and many like arrows, and many like hearts, and otherwise varied and variable, as leaves ought to be,—that rise out of the waters, and float amidst the paus- ing of their foam. 25. Brantwood, Easter Day, 1875.—I don’t like to spoil my pretty sentence, above; but on reading it over, I suspect I wrote it confusing the water-lile leaf, and other floating ones of the same kind, with the Arethusan forms. But the water- lily and water-ranunculus leaves, and such others, are to the orders of earth-loving leaves what ducks and swans are to birds ; (the swan is the water-lily of birds; ) they are swim- ming leaves; not properly watery creaturos, or able to live — under water like fish, (unless when dormant), but just like a ee THE LEAP. | 43, their lives on the surface of the waves—though _ And these natant leaves, as they lie on the water surface, do not want strong ribs to carry them,* but have very delicate ones beautifully branching into the orbed space, to keep the tissue nice and flat; while, on the other hand, leaves that _ really have to grow under water, sacrifice their tissue, and __ keep only their ribs, like coral animals ; (‘ Ranunculus hetero- i. ~ phyllus,’ ‘other-leaved Frog-flower,’ and its like,) just as, if _ you keep your own hands too long in water, they shrivel at 4 bay finger-ends. _ 26: So that you must not attach any great botanical impor- g ate to the characters of contrasted aspects in leaves, which I _ wish you to express by the words ‘Apolline’ and ‘ Arethusan’ ; * _ but their mythic importance is very great, and your careful ice of it will help you completely to understand the g be besatahat Greek fable of Apollo and Daphne. There are in- 3 deed several Daphnes, and the first root of the name is far ry in another field of thought altogether, connected with 7 the Gods of Light. But dtymology, the best of servants, is an 4 unreasonable master ; and Professor Max Miiller trusts his F. ‘deep-reaching knowledge of the first ideas connected with the "names of Athena and Daphne, too implicitly, when he sup- poses this idea to be retained in central Greek theology. 3 ‘Athena’ originally meant only the dawn, among nations who © . ‘nothing of a Sacred Spirit. But the Athena who catches Achilles by the hair, and urges the spear of Diomed, has not, in the mind of Homer, the slightest remaining connection with _ the mere beauty of daybreak. Daphne chased by Apollo, may perhaps—though I doubteven this much of consistence in the _ earlier myth—have meant the Dawn pursued by the Sun. _ But there is no trace whatever of this first idea left in the + fable of Arcadia and Thessaly. _ ~ 27. The central Greek Daphne is the daughter of one of q the great river gods of Arcadia; her mother is the Earth. __- * **¥You should see the girders on under-side of the Victoria Water- lily, the most wonderful bit of engineering, of the kind, I know of.”~ _ * Botanical friend.’) 1. PROSERPINA. a ee a Now Arcadia is the Oberland of Greece; and the crests of Cyllene, Drymanthus, and Meenalus* surround it, like the Swiss forest cantons, with walls of rock, and shadows of pine. And it divides itself, like the Oberland, into three regions: first, the region of rock and snow, sacred to Mereury and Apollo, in which Mercury's birth on Cyllene, his construction of the lyre, and his stealing the oxen of Apollo, are all expres- sions of the enchantments of cloud and sound, mingling with the sunshine, on the cliffs of Cyllene. ‘* While the mists Flying, and rainy vapours, call out shapes And phantoms from the crags and solid earth As fast as a musician scatters sounds Out of his instrument.” Then came the pine region, sacred especially to Pan and Menalus the son of Lyeaon and brother of Callisto ; and you had better remember this relationship carefully, for the sake of the meaning of the constellations of Ursa Major and the Mons Meenalius, and of their wolf and bear traditions ; (compare also the strong impression on the Greek mind of the wild leafiness, nourished by snow, of the Bootian Cith- seron,—“ Oh, thou lake-hollow, full of divine leaves, and of wild creatures, nurse of the snow, darling of Diana,” (Pho- nissee, 801). How wild the climate of this pine region is, you may judge from the pieces in the note belowy out of * Roughly, Cyllene 7,700 feet high ; Erymanthus 7,000; Mnalus pI 4 i - , + March 3rd.—We now ascend the roots of the mountain called Kas- tania, and begin to pass between it and the mountain of Alonistena, which is on our right. The latter is much higher than Kastanié, and, like the other peaked summits of the Menalian range, is covered with firs, and deeply at present with snow. The snow lies also in our pass. At a fountain in the road, the small village of Bazeniko is half a mile on the right, standing at the foot of the Menalian range, and now cov. ered with snow. Saeta is the most lofty of the range of mountains, which are in face of Levidhi, to the northward and eastward ; they are alla part of the chain which extends from Mount Khelm.’s, and connects that great sum- mit with Artemisium, Parthenium, and Parnon, Mount Saeté is cov~ See eee OMT aps as Me ite et pte Pi : cis Ake ee? — . Mee a ae THE LEAP. a oe | “ealk s diary in crossing the Meenalian range in spring astly, you have the laurel and vine region, full of sweetnes and Elysian beauty. : ‘dell a dell, is, Sienaliy Apollo pursuing Daphne, and adverse alg hiscor | as in the earlier tradition, abe Sun pursuing see in her stead. _ That is to say, wherever the rocks protect the mist from the sunbeam, and suffer it to water the earth, there the laurel and other richest vegetation fill the _ hollows, giving a better glory to the sun itself. For sunshine, on the torrent spray, on the grass of its valley, and entangled _ among the laurel stems, or glancing from their leaves, be- 2 -eame a thousandfold lovelier and more sacred than the same _ sunbeams, burning on the leafless mountain-side. _ And farther, the leaf, in its connection with the river, is _ typically expressive, not, as the flower was, of human fading and passing away, but of the perpetual flow and renewal of human mind and thought, rising “like the rivers that run q among the hills”; therefore it was that the youth of Greece 2 ns th with firs, The mountain between the plain of Levidhi and Alo- l \, Or, to speak by the ancient nomenclature, that part of the Ma- e an range which separates the Orchomenia from the valleys of Helisson _ and Methydrium, is clothed also with large forests of the same trees ; _ the road across this ridge from Levidhi to Alonistena is now impractica- ble on account of the snow. Tam detained all day at Levidhi by a heavy fall of snow, which before e evening has covered the ground to half.a foot in depth, although the B }is not much elevated above the plain, nor in a more lofty situa- _ tion than Tripolitz4. March 4th.—Yesterday afternoon and during the night the snow fell % _ in such quantities as to cover all the plains and adjacent mountains; a ene the country exhibited this morning as fine a snow-scene as Warwty ‘32. la supply. As the day advanced and the sun appeared, the snow rapidly, but the sky was soon overcast again, and the snow to fall. Ass PROSERPINA. sacrificed their hair—the sign of their continually renewed strength,—to the rivers, and to Apollo. Therefore, to com- memorate Apollo’s own chief victory over death—over Python, the corrupter,—a laurel branch was gathered every ninth year in the vale of Tempe ; and the laurel leaf became the reward or crown of all beneficent and enduring work of man—work of inspiration, born of the strength of the earth, and of the dew of heaven, and which can never pass away. 29. You may doubt at first, even because of its grace, this meaning in the fable of Apollo and Daphne; you will not doubt it, however, when you trace it back to its first eastern origin. When we speak carelessly of the traditions respect- ing the Garden of Eden, (or in Hebrew, remember, Garden of Delight,) we are apt to confuse Milton's descriptions with those in the book of Genesis. Milton fills his Paradise with flowers ; but no flowers are spoken of in Genesis. We may indeed conclude that in speaking of every herb of the field, flowers are included. But they are not named. The things that are named in the Garden of Delight are trees only. The words are, ‘‘ every tree that was pleasant to the sight and good for food ;” and as if to mark the idea more strongly for us in the Septiiagint, even the ordinary Greek word for tree is not used, but the word évAov,—literally, every ‘ wood,’ every piece of timber that was pleasant or good. They are in- deed the “ vivi travi,”—living rafters of Dante’s Apennine. Do you remember how those trees were said to be watered ? Not by the four rivers only. The rivers could not supply the place of rain. No rivers do ; for in truth they are the refuse of rain. No storm-clouds were there, nor hidings of the blue by darkening veil; but there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the face of the ground,—or, as in Septuagint and Vulgate, ‘There went forth a fountain from the earth, and gave the earth to drink.” 30. And now, lastly, we continually think of that Garden of Delight, as if it existed, or could exist, no longer; wholly — forgetting that it is spoken of in Scripture as perpetually existent ; and some of its fairest trees as existent also, or only recently destroyed. When Ezekiel is describing to Pharaoh THE LEAF. 47 icijntinitnonst the Sirienin do you remember what image he gives of them? “Behold, the Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon, with fair branches ; and his top was among the _ thick boughs ; the waters binihvished him, and the deep brought him up, with her rivers running round about his plants. Under his branches did all the beasts of the field bring forth _ their young ; and under his shadow dwelt all great nations.” __ 81. Now hear what follows. ‘‘ The cedars in the Garden of * God could not hide him. The fir trees were not like his _ boughs, and the chestnut trees were not like his branches ; 4 nor any tree in the Garden of God was like unto him in _ beauty.” LE: So that you see, whenever a nation rises into consistent, ; and, through many generations, enduring power, there is still the Garden of God; still it is the water of life which F fiedathe roots of it ; and still the succession of its people is : imaged by the perennial leafage of trees of Paradise. Could _ this be said of Assyria, and shall it not be said of England ? _ How much more, of lives such as ours should be,—just, labo- - rious, united in a‘m, beneficent in fulfilment, may the image _ be used of the leaves of the trees of Eden! Other symbols _ have been given often to show the evanescence and slightness _ of our lives—the foam upon the water, the grass on the house- top, the vapour that vanishes away ; yet none of these are images of true human life. That: life, when it is real, is not evanescent ; is not slight ; does not vanish away. Every noble life leaves the fibre of it interwoven for ever in the work of _ the world ; by so much, evermore, the strength of the human _ race has gained; more stubborn in the root, higher towards heaven in the branch ; and, “as a teil tree, and as an oak,— _ whose substance is in them when they cast their leaves, —so “the holy seed is in the midst thereof.” _ 82. Only remember on what conditions. In the great Psalm of life, we are told that everything that a man doeth shall prosper, so only that he delight in the law of his God, _ that he hath not walked in the counsel of the wicked, nor sat in the seat of the scornful. Is it among these leaves of the al Spring,—helpful leaves for the healing of the na- _ 4 ; *.. >. oy. a le eo) a . 48 PROSERPINA. tions,—that we mean to have our part and place, or rathet among the “brown skeletons of leaves that lag, the forest brook along”? For other leaves there are, and other streams that water them,—not water of life, but water of Acheron. Autumnal leaves there are that strew the brooks, in Vallom- brosa. Remember you how the name of the place waschanged : “Once called ‘Sweet water’ (Aqua bella), now, the Shadowy Vale.” Portion in one or other name we must choose, all of us, with the living olive, by the living fountains of waters, or with the wild fig trees, whose leafage of human soul is strewed along the brooks of death, in the eternal Vallombrosa, CHAPTER IV. 8 rie cy THE FLOWER. Romer, Whit Monday, 1874. _ 1. Own the quiet road leading from under the Palatine to the little church of St. Nereo and Achilleo, I met, yesterday morn- ing, group after group of happy peasants heaped in pyramids on their triumphal carts, in Whit-Sunday dress, stout and clean, and gay in colour ; and the women all with bright arti- ficial roses in their hair, set with true natural taste, and well becoming them. This power of arranging wreath or crown of flowers for the head, remains to the people from classi¢ times. And the thing that struck me most in the look of it was not so much the cheerfulness, as the dignity ;—in a true sense, the becomingness and decorousness of the ornament. Among the ruins of the dead city, and the worse desolation of the work of its modern rebuilders, here was one element at least of honour, and order ;—and, in these, of delight. | And these are the real significances of the flower itself. It — is the utmost purification of the plant, and the utmost disci- . pline. Where its tissue is blanched fairest, dyed purest, set in strictest rank, appointed to most chosen office, there—and created by the fact of this purity and function—is the flower. 2. But created, observe, by the purity and order, more than by the function. The flower exists for its own sake—not a 49 _ The production of the fruit 4 is an added _ iki unites consoiation to us for its death. ) flower is the end of the seed,—not the seed of the FRwatieiou'are fond of cherries, perbaps ; and think that 1 cherry blossom is to produce cherries. Not at all. of cherries is to produce cherry blossoms ; just as the ft ‘bulbs: is to produce hyacinths,—not of hyacinths to e bulbs. Nay, that the flower can multiply by bulb, , or slip, as well as by seed, may show you at once im rial the seed-forming function is to the flower’s _ A flower is to the vegetable substance what a -erystal is to the mineral. “Dust of sapphire,” writes my _ friend Dr. John Brown to me, of the wood hyacinths of Scot- ; land in the spring. Yes, that is so,—each bud more beauti- oer than perfectest jewel—this, indeed, jewel _ “of serene ;” but, observe you, the glory is in the Siliihte thie soronity, the radiance,—not in the mere continu- ptmiestof the creature. . It is because of its beauty that its continuance is worth 4H wen’s while. The glory of it is in being,—not in beget- ting ; and in the spirit and substance,—not the change. For also has its flesh and spirit. Every day of spring is s Whit Sunday—Fire Sunday. The falling fire of the ow, with the order of its zones, and the gladness of its at,—you may eat of it, like Esdras ; but you feed upon F ik daly that you may see it. Do you think that flowers were born to nourish the blind ? _ Fasten well in your mind, then, the conception of order, and parity, as the essence of the flower’s being, no less than > erystal’s. A ruby is not made bright to scatter round Sik child-rubies ; nor a flower, but in collateral and added y ar, to give birth to other flowers. ~ Two main facts, then, you have to study in every flower: Te ataisibty or order of it, and the perfection of its sub- : ; first, the manner in which the leaves are placed for ‘beauty of form ; then the spinning and weaving and blanch- in y of their tissue, for the reception of purest colour, or re- 1g to richest surface. Vou. I.—4 ‘THE FLOWER. 50 PROSERPINA. 4. Virst, the order: the proportion, and answering to each other, of the parts; for the study of which it becomes neces- sary to know what its parts are; and that a flower consists essentially of—Well, I really don’t know what it consists es- sentially of. For some fiowers have bracts, and stalks, and toruses, and ecalices, and corollas, and discs, and stamens, and pistils, and ever so many odds and ends of things besides, of no use at all, seemingly ; and others have no bracts, and no stalks, and no toruses, and no calices, and no corollas, and nothing recognizable for stamens or pistils,—only, when they come to be reduced to this kind of poverty, one doesn’t call them flowers ; they get together in knots, and one calls them catkins, or the like, or forgets their existence altogether ;—I haven't the least idea, for instance, myself, what an oak blos- som is like ; only I know its bracts get together and make a cup of themselves afterwards, which the Italians call, as they do the dome of St. Peter’s, ‘cupola’; and that is a great pity, for their own sake as well as the world’s, that they were not content with their ilex cupolas, which were made to hold something, but took to building these big ones upside-down, which hold nothing—/less than nothing,—large extinguishers — of the flame of Catholic religion, And for farther embarrass- — ment, a flower not only is without essential consistence of a given number of parts, but it rarely consists, alone, of dself, One talks of a hyacinth as of a flower ; but a hyacinth is any number of flowers. One does not talk of ‘a heather’ ; when one says ‘heath,’ one means the whole plant, not the blossom, —because heath-bells, though they grow together for com- pany’ s sake, do so in a voluntary sort of way, and are not fixed in their places ; and yet, they depend on each other for aaa as much as a bunch of grapes. 5. And this grouping of flowers, more or less waywardly, is that most subtle part of their order, and the most difficult to represent. Take the cluster of bog-heather bells, for in- stance, Line-study 1. You might think at first there were no lines in it worth study ; but look at it more carefully. There are twelve bells in the cluster. There may be fewer, or more ; but the bog-heath is apt to run into’ something near that ee a a TRE FLOWER oo: i en together as close as they can, and on one side of the supporting branch only. The natural’ effect would be to bend the branch down; but the branch won't have that, and so leans back tocarry them. Now you see the use of drawing the profile in the middle figure : it shows you the exactly balanced setting of the group,—not drooping, nor erect ; but with a disposition to droop, tossed up by the leaning back of the stem. Then, growing as near as they can 7 other, those in the middle get squeezed. Here is an- aer quite special character. ‘Some flowers don’t like being squeezed at all (fancy a squeezed convolvulus!); but these 4 heather bells like it, and look all the prettier for it,—not the squeezed ones exactly, by themselves, but the cluster alto- _ gether, by their patience. q - Then also the outside ones get pushed into a sort of star- _ shape, and in front show the colour of all their sides, and at q the back the rich green cluster of sharp Jeaves that hold them ; all this order being as essential to the plant as any of the more formal structures of the -bell itself. _. 6. But the bog-heath has usually only one cluster of flowers to arrange on each branch. Take a spray of ling (Frontis- piece), and you will find that the richest piece of Gothic spire- . would be dull and graceless beside the grouping of the floral masses in their various life. But it is difficult to give the accuracy of attention necessary to see their beauty _ without drawing them ; and still more difficult to draw them in any approximation to the truth before they change. This is indeed the fatallest obstacle to all good botanical work. Flowers, or leaves,—and especially the last,—can only be rightly drawn as they grow. And even then, in their loveliest Spring action, they grow as you draw them, and will not stay "quite the same creatures for half an hour. _ 7. I said in my inaugural lectures at Oxford, § 107, that ‘real botany is not so much the description of plants as their biography. Without entering at all into the history of its fruitage, the life and death of the blossom itself is always an eventful romance, which must be completely told, if weil. ‘The grouping g given to the various states of form between bud ae PROSERPINA. and flower is always the most important part of the design of the plant; and in the modes of its death are some of the most touching lessons, or symbolisms, connected with its ex- istence. The utter loss and far scattered ruin of the cistus and wild rose,—the dishonoured and dark contortion of the convolvulus,—the pale wasting of the crimson heath of Apen- nine, are strangely opposed by the quiet closing of the brown bells of the ling, each making of themselves a little cross as they die ; and so enduring into the days of winter. I have drawn the faded beside the full branch, and know not treme: is the more beautiful. 8. This grouping, then, and way of treating each ili their gathered company, is the first and most subtle condition of form in flowers ; and, observe, I don’t mean, just now, the appointed and disciplined grouping, but the wayward and ac- cidental. Don’t confuse the beautiful consent of the cluster in these sprays of heath with the legal strictness of a foxglove, —though that also has its divinity; but of another kind. That legal order of blossoming—for which we may wisely keep the accepted name, ‘ inflorescence,’ —is itself quite a sepa- rate subject of study, which we cannot take up until we know the still more strict laws which are set over the flower itself. 9. Ihave in my hand a small red poppy which I gathered on Whit Sunday on the palace of the Ceesars. It is an in- tensely simple, intensely floral, flower. All silk and flame: a scarlet cup, perfect-edged all round, seen among the wild erass far away, like a burning coal fallen from Heaven’s altars. You cannot have a more complete, a more stainless, type of flower absolute ; inside and outside, all flower. No sparing of colour atiywheteli-ae outside coarsenesses—no interior secrecies ; open as the sunshine that creates it ; fine-finished on both sides, down to the extremest point of innestinciton its narrow stalk ; and robed in the purple of the Ceesars. . Literally so. That poppy scarlet, so far as it could be painted by mortal hand, for mortal King, stays yet, against — the sun, and wind, and rain, on the walls of the house of iseostis, « hundred yards from the spot where I ay the weed of its desolation. remember, of poppy-form among the corn- t aii beak tivbeginniars to think of every flower as essentially a cup. There are flat ones, but you will find that are really groups of flowers, not single blos- a ‘soms; and there are out-of-the-way and quaint ones, very dif- “ficult to define as of any shape; but even these have a cup to , deep down in them. You had better take the a cup or vase, as the first, simplest, and most general true flower. Phe botanists call it a corolla, which means a garland, or a _ kind of crown; and the word is a very good one, because it _ indicates that the flower-cup is made, as our clay cups are, on a potter's wheel ; that it is essentially a revolute form—a whirl | eeveenll whorl’ of leaves ; in reality successive round of the urn they form. i - 11. Perhaps, however, you think poppies in general are not much like cups. But the flower in my hand is a—poverty- : stricken poppy, I was going to write . ——poverty-strengthened poppy, I mean. On richer ground, it would have gushed into flaunting breadth of untenable purple—fiapped its incon- “sistent searlet vaguely to the wind—dropped_the pride of its over my hand in an hour after I gatheredit, But this rough-bred thing, a Campagna pony of a poppy, is as bright and strong to-day as yesterday. So that I can see ex- actly where the leaves join or lap over each other ; and when -T look down into the ex.p, find it to bée-composed of iour leaves _ altogether, —two smaller, set within two larger. 12. Thus far (and somewhat farther) I had written in Rome; but now, putting my work together in Oxford, a sud- _ den doubt troubles me, whether all poppies have two petals ‘smaller then the other two. Whereupon I take down an ex- _ cellent little school-book on botany—the best I've yet found, p thinking to be told quickly ; and I find a great deal about opium ; and, apropos of opium, that the juice of common cel- ine is of a bright orange colour ; and I pause for a bewil- <1 five minutes, wondering if a celandine is a poppy, and low many petals i has: going on again—because I must, 54 PROSERPINA. without making up my mind, on either question—I am told to “‘observe the floral receptacle of the Californian genus Esch- scholtzia.” Now I can’t observe anything of the sort, and I don’t want to; and I wish California and all that’s in it were at the deepest bottom of the Pacific. Next I am told to com- pare the poppy and waterlily ; and I can’t do that, neither— though I should like to ; and there’s the end of the article; and it never tells me whether one pair of petals is always smaller than the other, or not. Only Isee it says the corolla has four petals. Perhaps a celandine may be a double poppy, and have eight, I know they're tiresome irregular things, and I mustn't be stopped by them ;*—at any rate, my Roman poppy knew what it was about, and had its two couples of leaves in clear subordination, of which at the time I went on to inquire farther, as follows. 13. The next point is, what shape are the petals of ? And that is easier asked than answered ; for when you pull them off, you find they won’t lie flat, by any means, but are each of them cups, or rather shells, themselves ; and that it requires as much con- chology as would describe a cockle, before you can properly give ac- count of a single poppy leaf. Or of a single any leaf—for all leaves are either shells, or boats, (or solid, if A not hollow, masses,) and cannot be represented in flat outline, But, laying these as flatas they will lie on a sheet of paper, you will find the Fie, 4. piece they hide of the paper they lie — on can be drawn ; giving approximately the shape of the outer — leaf as at A, that of the inner as at B, Fig. 4; which you will — * Just in time, finding a heap of gold under an oak tree some thou- ; sand years old, near Arundel, I’ve made them out: Eight divided by — three ; that is to say, three couples of petals, with two odd little ones inserted for form’s sake. No wonder I couldn’t decipher them by memory. moval | 4 ’ Dikisig te aici; Socsiningr tli neti elicited Sethi ty Fier 5 ; all above the line a 6 be- r edge of the leaf, oad jeihicdl dd UAB! 40 then gids eas 0 Weide tty drawing the lino wpdils the form. Ov ; every flower petal consists essentially of these two wiously proportioned and outlined. It expands from . pial hoods Sith external line, and for this reason. Jonsidering every flower under the type of a cup, the first of th 2 petal is that in which it expands from the bottom 7 5 the second part, that in which it terminates itself Bo! HER: ai ees Bed. Hants ‘ 6, epee the undivided cups of the three great geometrical A s of flowers—trefoil, quatrefoil and cinquefoil. Draw in the first an equilateral triangle, in the second a quare, in the third a pentagon; draw the dark lines from _ sete 1 ants (D E F) : then (a) the third part of D; (6) = part of E, (c) the fifth part of F, are the nde forms of the petals of the three families ; the relations ' between the developing angle and limiting curve being varied ~ aecordi ing to the depth of cup, and the degree of connection sn the petals. Thus a rose folds them over one another, Fie. 5. > the rim. Thus let the three circles, A B C, Fig. ae PROSERPINA. Mie in the bud; a convolvulus twists them,—the one expanding into a flat cinquefoil of separate petals, and the othenennor deep-welled cinquefoil of connected ones. : I find an excellent illastration in Veronica Polita, one of the most perfectly graceful of field plants because of the light — alternate flower stalks, each with its leaf at the base ; the flower itself a quatrefoil, of which the largest and least petals are uppermost. Pull one off its calyx (draw, if you ean, the © outline of the striped blue upper petal with the jagged edge of pale gold below), and : * = then examine the relative : ©) shapes of the lateral, and least upper petal. Their under surface is vary cu- 4 ; rious, as if covered with white paint; the blue stripes above, in. the di- rection of their growth, deepening the more deli- cate colour with exquisite insistence. <> ZF V A lilae re OIE will a b e §=6. give you a pretty exam- ee. §; ple of the expansion of the petals of a quatrefoil above the edge of the cup or tube; but I must get back to our poppy at present. 15. What outline its petals really have, however, is little shown in their crumpled fluttering ; but that very crumpling arises from a fine floral character which we do not enough value in them. We usually think of the poppy as a coarse flower ; but it is the most transparent and delicate of all the biossoms of the field. The rest—nearly all of them—depend on the fexture of their surfaces for colour. But the poppy is painted glass ; it never glows so brightly as when the sun shines through it. Wherever it is seen—against the light or with the light—always, it is a flame, and warms the wind like a blown ruby. 1% In these two qualities, the accurately balanced loma and a : THE FLOWER. n colour of the petals, you have, as I said, tral being of the flower. All the other parts of it are but we must follow them out in order. % ‘star,—of six rays only,—and surrounded by a Sega My rough-nurtured poppy contents itself with these for its centre ; a rich one would have had the green boss ivided. by a dozen of rays, and surrounded by a dark crowd of crested threads. this green boss is called by botanists the pistil, which ‘ord consists of the two first syllables of the Latin pistil- lum, otherwise more familiarly Englished into ‘pestle.’ The _ meaning of the botanical word is of course, also, that the cen- tral part of a flower-cup has to it something of the relations _ that a pestle has to a mortar! Practically, however, as this parte, has no pounding functions, I think the word is mislead- well as ungraceful ; and that we may find a better one oking a little closer into the matter. For this pestle . ided generally into three very distinct parts: there is a storehouse at the bottom of it for the seeds of the plant ; E above this, a shaft, often of considerable length in deep cups, rising to the level of their upper edge, or cales it; and at the top of these shafts an expanded crest. This shaft the -eall-‘style, from the Greek word for a pillar ; and the erest of it—I do not know why—stigma, from the Greek word for ‘spot.’ The storehouse for the seeds they call the ‘ovary,’ from the Latin ovum, an egg. So you have two- thirds of a Latin word, (pistil)—awkwardly and disagreeably edged im between pestle and pistol—for the whole thing ; you haye an English-Latin word (ovary) for the bottom of it; an English-Greek word (style) for the middle ; and a pure Greek. ord (stigma) for the top. _ 47. This is a great mess of language, and all the worse that the word style and stigma have both of them quite dif- ferent senses in ordinary and scholarly English from this xrced botanical one. And I will venture therefore, for my Own pupils, to put the four names altogether into English. Mnstead of calling the whole thing a pistil, I shall simply call — i 58 PROSERPINA. ae ers it the pillar. Instead of ‘ovary,’ I shall say ‘ Treasury’ (for a seed isn’t an egg, but itis a treasure). The style I shall call the ‘Shaft,’ and the stigma the ‘ Volute.’ So you will have your entire pillar divided into the treasury, at its base, the shaft, and the volute ; and I think you will find these divi- sions easily meotatsiaeies and not unfitted to the sense - the words in their ordinary use. 18. Round this central, but, in the poppy, very aig pillar, you find a cluster of dark threads, with dusty pen- dants or cups at their ends. For these the botanists name ‘stamens,’ may be conveniently retained, each consisting of a ‘ filament,’ or thread, and an ‘ anther,’ or blossoming part. — And in this rich corolla, and pillar, or pillars, with their treasuries, and surrounding crowd of stamens, the essential flower consists. Fewer than these several parts, it cannot have, to be a flower at all; of these, the corolla leads, and is the object of final purpose. The stamens and the treasuries are only there in order to produce future corollas, ae often themselves decorative in the highest degree. These, I repeat, are all the essential parts of a flower. But it would have been difficult, with any other than the poppy, to have shown you them alone; for nearly all other flowers keep with them, all their lives, their nurse or tutor leaves, —the group which, in stronger and humbler temper, pro- tected them in their first weakness, and formed them to the first laws of their being. But the poppy casts these tutorial leaves away. It is the finished picture of impatient and luxury-loving youth,—at first too severely restrained, then casting all restraint away,—yet retaining to the end of life gasceinly and illiberal signs of its once Si submission to laws which were only pain,—not instruction. 19. Gather a green poppy bud, just when it shows the scarlet line at its side ; break it open and unpack the poppy. The whole flower is there complete in size and colour,—its stamens full-grown, but all packed so closely that the fine silk of the petals is crushed into a million of shapeless wrinkles. When the flower opens, it seems a deliverance from torture ; the two imprisoning green leaves are shaken to the ground ; § 2 ss PHE PLOWER. 59 grieved corolla smooths itself in the sun, and vomforts as it can ; but remains visibly crushed and hurt to the girs days. = ot so flowers of gracious breeding. Look at these ru stages ‘in the young life of a primrose, Fig. 7. First confined, as strictly as the poppy within five vinchinp green ves, whose points close over it, the little thing is content remain a child, and finds its nursery large enotigh The sen leaves unclose their points,--the little yellow ones ne SO ¥ ashes ime eee er ee t oer ty a tad OE an at eee e. S5, i! Fre, 7%. open wide to it; and grow, and grow, and throw themselves _ wider at last into their perfect rose. But they never leave : their old nursery for all that; it and they live on together ; _ and the nursery seems a part of the flower. _ 21. Which is so, indeed, in all the loveliest flowers ; and, in 4 Pedal botanical parlance, a flower is said to consist of its ealyx, (or hiding part—Calypso having rule over it,) and corolla, or garland part, Proserpina having rule over it. But : it is better to think of them always as separate ; for this _ ealyx, very justly so named from its main function of conceal- _ ing the fiower, in its youth is usually green, not coloured, and - Ms my 60 PROSERPINA., shows its separate nature by pausing, or at least greatly lin- gering, in its growth, and modifying itself very slightly, while the corolla is forming itself through active change. Look at the two, for instance, ; through the youth of a pease blossom, Fig. 8 KF The entire cluster at first appears pen- oa Ss dent in this manner, | Fra. 8. —S the. stalk beriding Yound ‘on pape into, that position. On which all the little buds, thinking themselves ill- treated, determine not to submit to anything of the sort, turn their points upward persistently, and determine that—at any cost of trouble—they will get nearer the sun. Then they begin to open, and let out their corollas. I give the process of one only (Fig. 9).* It chances to be engraved the reverse way from the bud ;. but that is of no consequence, At first, you see the long lower point of the calyx thought that i/ was going | to be the head of the family, and curls upwards eagerly. Then the little corolla steals out ; and soon does away with that impression on the mind of the calyx. The corolla soars up with widening wings, the abashed calyx re- treats beneath ; and finally the great upper leaf of corolla—not pleased at Pats having its back still turned to the light, and its face down—throws itself entirely back, to look at the sky, and nothing else ;—and your blossom is complete. Keeping, therefore, the ideas of calyx and corolla entirely * Figs. 8 and 9 are both drawn and engraved by Mr. Burgess. THE FLOWER. 61 “distinct, dia, one general point you may note of both ; that, as _ a calyx is originally folded tight over the flower, and has te - open deeply to Jet it out, it is nearly always composed of sharp _ pointed leaves like the segments of a balloon ; while corollas having to open out as wide as possible to shiew themselves, _ are typically like cups or plates, only cut into their edges here " and there, for ornamentation’s sake. a 22. And, finally, though the corolla is essentially the floral _ group of leaves, and vimially receives the glory of colour for itself only, this glory and delight may be given to any other part of the group ; and, as if to show us that there is no really _ dishonoured or degraded membership, the stalks and leaves in some plants, near the blossom, flush in sympathy with it, and become themselves a.part of the effectively visible flower ; —Eryngo—Jura hyacinth, (comosus,) and the edges of upper _ stems and leaves in many plants ; while others, (Geranium lu- cidum,) are made to delight us with their leaves rather than their blossoms ; only I suppose, in these, the scarlet leaf colour isa kind of early autumnal glow,—a beautiful hectic, and fore- taste, in sacred youth, of sacred death. ' Lobserve, among the speculations of modern science, sev- eral, lately, not uningenious, and highly industrious, on the - subject of the relation of colour in flowers, to insects—to se- lective development, etc., etc. There are such relations, of course. So also, the blush of a girl, when she first perceives the faltering in her lover’s step as he draws near, is related essentially to the existing state of her stomach ; and to the state of it through all the years of her previous existence. Nevertheless, neither love, chastity, nor blushing, are merely exponents of digestion. _ All these materialisms, in their unclean stupidity, are essen- tially the work of human bats; men of semi-faculty or semi- ¥ education, who are more or less incapable of so much as see- _ ing, much less thinking about, colour ; among whom, for one- _ sided intensity, even Mr. Darwin must be often ranked, as in his vespertilian treatise on the ocelli of the Argus pheasant, _ which he imagines to be artistically gradated, and perfectly imitative of a ball and socket. If I had him here in Oxford ee a SP = =—s. he tet, see 62... . PROSERPINA. for a week, and could force him to try to copy a feather by Bewick, or to draw for himself a boy’s thumbed marble, his notions of feathers, and balls, would be changed for all the rest of his life. But his ignorance ef good art is no excuse for the acutely illogical simplicity of the rest of his talk of colour in the “Descent of Man.” Peacocks’ tails, he thinks, are the re- — sult of the admiration of blue tails in the minds of well-bred peahens,—and similarly, mandrills’ noses the result of the admiration of blue noses in well-bred baboons. But it never occurs to him to ask why the admiration of blue noses is healthy in baboons, so that it develops their race properly, while similar maidenly admiration either of blue noses or red noses in men would be improper, and develop the race im- properly. The word itself ‘proper’ being one of which he has never asked, or guessed, the meaning. And when he imagined the gradation of the cloudings in feathers to represent succes- sive generation, it never occurred to him to look at the much finer cloudy gradations in the clouds of dawn themselves ; and explain the modes of sexual preference and selective develop- ment which had brought ‘hem to their scarlet glory, before the cock could crow thrice. Putting all these vespertilian speculations out of our way, the human facts concerning col- our are briefly these. Wherever men are noble, they love bright colour; and wherever they can live healthily, bright colour is given them-—in sky, sea, flowers, and living creatures. On the other hand, wherever men are ignoble and sensual, they endure without pain, and at last even come to like (especially if artists,) mud-colour and black, and to dislike rose-colour and white. And wherever it is unhealthy for them to live, the poisonousness of the place is marked by some ghastly colour in air, earth or flowers. There are, of course, exceptions to all such widely founded laws ; there are poisonous berries of scarlet, and pestilent skies that are fair. But, if we once honestly compare a venomous wood-fungus, rotting into black dissolution of dripped slime at its edges, with a spring gentian ; or a puff adder witha salmon trout, or a fog in Bermondsey with a clear sky at Berne, we shall get hold of the entire question on its right PAPAVER RHOBAS 63 a ‘ehaaw able afterwards to study at our leisure, or accept nee hee ee : 4 without doubt or trouble, facts of apparenily contrary mean- ing. And the practical lesson which I wish to leave with the reader is, that lovely flowers, and green trees growing in the - open ‘ir, are the prover guides of men to the places which their maker intended them to inhabit ; while the flowerless and treeless deserts—of reed, or sand, or rock,—are meant to be either heroically invaded and redeemed, or surrendered to the wild creatures which are appointed for them ; happy and wonderful in their wild abodes. ' Nor is the world so small but that we may yet leave in it also unconquered spaces of beautiful solitude; where the chamois and red deer may wander fearleba,.--1ior any fire of avarice scorch from the Highlands of Alp, or Grampian, the rapture of the heath, and the rose. “pag en CHAPTER V. PAPAVER RHOEAS BRANTWOOD, July 11th, 1875. a es L Gece: to take up yesterday a favourite old book, Mavor's British Tourists, (London, 1798,) I found in its fourth volume a delightful diary of a journey made in 1782 through various parts of England, by Charles P. Moritz of Berlin. And iu the fourteenth page of this diary I find the follow- ing passage, pleasantly complimentary to England :— _ “The slices of bread and butter which they give you with your tea are as thin as poppy leaves. But there is another _ Kind of bread and butter usually eaten with tea, which is ; - toasted by the fire, and is incomparably good. This is called * “toast, 2» et werent lk A 9d sade ae seattle I wonder how many people, nowadays, whose bread and butter was cut too thin for them, would think of comparing _ the slices to poppy leaves? But this was in the old days of _ travelling, when people did not whirl themselves past corn- | ‘Bel that they might have more time to walk on paving- 64 PROSERPINA, — stones; andl understood that poppies did not mingle their searlet among the gold, without some purpose of the peppy- Maker that they should be looked at. Nevertheless, with respect to the good and polite German's poetically-contemplated, and finely esthetic, tea, may it not be asked whether poppy leaves themselves, like the bread and butter, are not, if we may venture an opinion—too thin,—im- properly thin? In the last chapter, my reader was, I hope, a little anxious to know what I meant by saying that modern philosophers did not know the meaning of the word ‘proper,’ - and may wish to know what I mean by it myself, And ne I think it needful to explain before going farther. 2. In our English prayer-book translation, the first verse of the ninety-third Psalm runs thus: “ The Lord is King ; and hath put on glorious apparel.” And although, in the future republican world, there are to be no lords, no kings, and no glorious apparel, it will be found convenient, for botanical purposes, to remember what such things once were ; for when Isaid of the poppy, in last chapter, that it was “robed in the purple of the Czesars,” the words gave, to any one who had a clear idea of a Cesar, and of his dress, a better, and even " stricter, account of the flower than if I had only said, with Mr. Sowerby, “petals bright scarlet ;” which might just as well have been said of a pimpernel, or scarlet geranium ;—but of neither of these latter should I have said “robed in purple — of Cvsars.” What I meant was, first, that the poppy leaf looks dyed through and through, like glass, or Tyrian tissue ; and not merely painted: secondly, that the splendour of it is proud,—almost insolently so. Augustus, in his glory, might have been clothed like one of these ; and Saul ; but not David nor Solomon ; still less the teacher of Solomon, when He puts on ‘glorious apparel.’ 3. Let us look, however, at the two translations of the same ver'se. In the vulgate it is “ Dominus regnavit ; decorem ‘alii 3 est ;”” He hai put on ‘ becomingness, nu Bledeith apparel, rather than glorious. In the Septuagint it is evrperevi—well-becomingness ; an ex- the existence of an opposite idea of possible ‘ill-becoming- ness,'—of an apparel which should, in just as aceurate a _ sense, belong appropriately to the creature invested with it, be and yet not be glorious, but ingiorious, and not well-becom- ing, but ill-becoming. The mandrill’s blué nose, for instance, _ already referred to, can we rightly speak of this as ‘cvmperea’? Or the stings, and minute, eblofarleas blossoming of the nettle ? _ May we call these a glorious apparel, as we may the glowing of an alpine rose? + You will find on reflection, and find more convincingly the more accurately you reflect, that there is an absolute sense attached to such words as ‘ decent,’ ‘ honourable,’ ‘ glorious,” or ‘xaXos,’ contrary to another absolute sense in the words _ *imdecent,’ ‘shameful,’ ‘ vile,’ or ‘ aigypos.’ __ And that there is every degree of these absolute qualities _ visible in living creatures ; and that the divinity of the Mind _ of man is in its essential discernment of what is «adov from _ what is aivypor, and in his preference of the kind of creatures _ which are decent, to those which are indecent; and of the __ kinds of thoughts, in himself, which are noble, to those which arevile _. 4, When therefore I said that Mr. Darwin, and his school,* had no conception of the real meaning of the word ‘ proper,’ _ Imeant that they conceived the qualities of things only as __ their ‘properties,’ but not as their ‘ becomingnesses ;’ and see- _ ing that dirt is proper to a swine, malice to a monkey, poison _ to a nettle, and folly to a fool, they called a nettle but a nettle, _ and the faults of fools but folly ; and never saw the difference _ between ugliness and beauty absolute, decency and indecency _ absolute, glory or shame absolute, and folly or sense absolute. _ Whereas, the perception of beauty, and the power of defin- _ ing physical character, are based on moral instinct, and on the | power of defining animal or human character. Nor is it pos- _ sible to say that one flower is more highly developed, or one 7 animal of a higher order, than another, without the assump- pi - * Of Vespertilian science generally, compare ‘Eagles’ Nest,’ pp- 24 F and 126. _ PAPAVER RIIOBAS. 65° 1 which, if the reader considers, must imply certainly: 66° _PROSERPINA. tion of a divine law of perfection to which the one more con. forms than the other. 5. Thus, for instance. That it should ever have been an . open question with me whether a pop- py had always two of its petals less depended wholly on the hurry and imperfection with which the poppy carries out its plan. . Itnever would have * occurred to me to ‘ doubt whether an iris had three of its leaves smaller than the other three, be- cause an iris always completes itself to its own ideal. Nevertheless, on examining various poppies, as I walk- ed, thissummer, up and down the hills and Wakefield, I find the subordina- tion of the upper and lower petals entirely necessary and normal; and that the result of it is to give two distinct profiles to the poppy cup, the difference between which, however, we shall see better in the yellow. Welsh poppy, at present called Meconopsis Cambrica; but which, in the Oxford schools Fie, 10, than the other two, between Sheffield | . : Oe Bl in RR a i ie ie Be hie oe ibd Seal B 4 the flower is seen in profile, as at B, show their margins se" 22. % < < - PAPAVER RHOEAS. 67 will be ‘Papaver eruciforme ’—‘ Crosslet Poppy,’—first, be- cause all our botanical names must be in Latin if possible ; Greek only allowed when we can do no better; secondly, because meconopsis is barbarous Greek ; thirdly, and chiefly, because it is little matter whether this poppy be Welsh or English ; but very needful that we should observe, wher- ever it grows, that the petals are arranged in what used to be, in my young days, called a diamond shape,* as at A, Fig. 10, the two narrow inner ones at right angles to, and projecting farther than, the two outside broad ones; and that the two broad ones, oi folded back, as indicated by the thicker lines, and have a _ profile curve, which is only the softening, or melting away into each other, of two straight lines. Indeed, when the flower is. younger, and quite strong, both its profiles, A and B, Fig. 11, are nearly straight-sided ; and always, p be it young or old, one broader than the other, so as ery to give the flower, seen from above, the shape of a contracted cross, or crosslet. _. 6. Now I find no notice of this flower in Gerarde ; and in Sowerby, out of eighteen lines of closely printed descriptive text, no notice of its crosslet form, while the petals are only stated to be “roundish-concave,” terms equally applicable to at least one-half of all flower petals in the world. The leaves * The mathematical term is ‘rhomb.’ 68 PROSERPINA. are said to be very deeply pinnately partite ; but eremeeeiie neither pinnate nor partite ! And this is your modern cheap science, in ten wolieneld Now I haven’t a quiet moment to spare for drawing this morn- ing ; but I merely give the main relations of the petals, A, and blot in the wrinkles of one of the lower ones, B, Fig. 12 ; and yet in this rude sketch you will feel, I believe, there is some- thing specific which could not belong to any other flower. But all proper description is impossible without careful pro- files of each petal laterally and across it. Which I may not find time to draw for any poppy whatever, because they none A B Fig. 12, of them have well-becomingness enough to make it worth my while, being all more or less weedy, and ungracious, and min- gled of good and evil. Whereupon rises before me, ghostly and untenable, the general question, ‘ What is a weed ?” and, impatient for answer, the particular question, Whatis a poppy ? I choose, for instance, to call this yellow fower a poppy, instead of a “likeness to poppy,” which the botanists meant to eall it, in their bad Greek. I choose also to call a poppy, what the botanists have called “ glaucous thing,” (glaucium). But where and when shall I stop calling things poppies? This is certainly a question to be settled at once, with others apper- taining to it. daledher, nish not an ‘ aceous’ thing, only half some- envi ' thing or half another. I mean to call this plant now in my : hand, either a poppy or not a poppy ; but not poppaceous. other, either a thistle or not a thistle ; but not thistla- z ceous. And this other, either a nettle or not a nettle ; but - not nettlaceous. I know it will be very difficult to carry out _ this principle when tribes of plants are mu@h extended and _ Naried in type : I shall persist in it, however, as far as possi- _ ble; and when plants change so much that one cannot with _ any conscience call them by their family name any more, I F shall put them aside somewhere among families of poor rela- _ tions, not to be minded for the present, until we are well ac- quainted with the better bred circles. I don’t know, for in- . stance, whether I shall call the Burnet ‘ Grass-rose,’ or put it - out of court for having no petals; but it certainly shall not _ be called rosaceous ; and my first point will be to make sure _of my pupils having a clear idea of the central aml unques- tionable forms of thistle, grass, or rose, and assigning to them _ pure Latin, and pretty English, names,—classical, if possible ? pedint: least intelligible and decorous. _8. I return.to our present special question, then, What is a — ~ poppy ? and return also to a book I gave away long ago, and _ have just begged back again, Dr. Lindley’s Ladies’ Botany. _ For without at all looking upon ladies as inferior beings, I _ dimly hope that what Dr. Lindley considers likely to be intel- ligible to them, may be also clear to their very humble servant. ‘The poppies, I find, (page 19, vol. i.) differ from crowfeet in being of a stupefying instead of a burning nature, and in generally having two sepals, and twice two petals, “but as some _ poppies have three sepals, and twice three petals, the num- ber of these parts is not sufficiently constant to form an essential mark.” Yes, I know that, for I found a superb six- _ petaled poppy; spotted like a cistus, the other day in a friend’s garden. But then, what makes it a poppy still? That it is _ of a stupefying nature, and itself so stupid that it does not how many petals it should have, is surely not enough . paeection 2 - 70 _ PROSERPINA. 9. Returning to Lindley, and working the matter farther out with his help, I think this definition might stand: “ poppy is a flower which has either four or six petals, and two or more treasuries, united into one; containing a milky, stupe- fying fluid in its stalks and leaves, and always throwing away its calyx when it blossoms.” And indeed, every flower which unites all these characters, we shall, in the Oxford schools, call ‘ poppy,’ and ‘ Papayer ;’ but when I get fairly into work, I hope to fix my definitions into more strict terms. For I wish all my pupils to form the habit of asking, of every plant, these following four questions, in order, corresponding to the subject of these opening chap- ters, namely, “ What root has it? what leaf? what flower? and what stem?” And, in this definition of poppies, nothing _ whatever is said about the root; and not only I don’t know myself what a poppy root is Like; but in all Sowerby’s POPPY section, I find no word whatever about that matter. 10. Leaving, however, for the present, the root unthought of, and contenting myself with Dr. Lindley’s characteristics, I shall place, at the head of the whole group, our common European wild poppy, Papaver Rhoeas, and, with this, ae the nine following other flowers thus,—opposite. I must be content at present with determining the Latin names for the Oxford schools ; the English ones I shall give as they chance to occur to me, in Gerarde and the classical poets who wrote before the English revolution. When no satisfactory name is to be found, I must try to invent one ; | as, for instance, just now, I don’t like Gerard’s ‘ Corn-rose’ for Papaver Rhoeas, and must coin another ; but this can’t be done by thinking: it will come into my head some day, by chance. I might try at it straightforwardly for a week to gether, and not do it. The Latin names must be fixed at once, somehow; and therefore I do the best I can, keeping as much respect for the old nomenclature as possible, though this involves the illogical — practice of giving the epithet sometimes from the flower, (violaceum, cruciforme), and sometimes from the seed vessel, (elatum, echinosum, corniculatum). Guarding this distinc: — - PAPAVER RHORAS. ates r, we may perhaps be content to call the six last _ of the group, in English, Urchin Poppy, Violet Poppy, Cross- _ let Poppy, Horned Poppy, Beach Poppy, and Welcome Poppy. IT don't think the last flower pretty enough to be connected _ more directly with the swallow, in its English name. Rey + ¢ rE IN IXFORD CATALOGUE. DIoOScoRIDES. In PRESENT BoTany, mettre lt) pnewv potas....| Papaver Rhoeas u. KnTweurn *..| P. Hortense HF bh. Ovdaxizis ¢..| P. Lamottei Bee PEEBOMIOMO tle tcc c cc cee oes P. Argemone _ ®. PB. Echinosum ........)..... Pree ri ry a P. Hybridum AN EN SE «+.+++| Roemeria Hybrida Dh CIE MMREONTOD 6 oi onc! s since tes agecess Meconopsis Cambrica kepativis...| Glaucium Corniculatum 2 kK. wapadis....| Glaucium Luteum Sueur ey WMOMGOMIUM 2.2. .t. 2. eee cee ee Chelidonium Majus seal I shall be well content if my pupils know these ten pop- _ pies rightly ; all of them at present wild in our own country, q isa I believe, also European in range : the head and type of all being the common wild poppy of our cornfields for which _ the name ‘ Papaver Rhoéas," given it by Dioscorides, Gerarde, - and Linneeus, is entirely authoritative, and we will therefore at once examine the meaning, and reason, of that name. 12. Dioscorides says the name belongs to it “did 75 raxéws _ 70 dvBos dmoBddXew,” “ because it casts ofits bloom quickly,” — from féo, (vheo) in the sense of shedding. And this indeed it does,—first calyx, then corolla ;—you may translate it _ * swiftly ruinous” poppy, but notice, in connection with this idea, how it droops its head before blooming: an action which _ Idoubt not, mingled in Homer's thought with the image of ; ois depression when filled by rain, in the passage of the Iliad, Ris 1d owepua apromotetra, + éxtunnes éxovea td Kepdidsov. Dioscorides makes no effort. to distin- bs guish species, but gives the different names as if merely used in differ- ent places $I is also used sometimes of the garden poppy, says Dioscorides, ary ltted & abtis Tov dmov ”—** because the sap, opium, flows from it.” 72 PROSERPINA. which, as I have relieved your memory of three names of poppy families, you have memory to spare for learn- ing. ‘ wey ery bAl “ uhkov 8 &s Erépwoe xapn Bader, hr’ evi Kime St re kapt¢ Bp.lopern, varifjor Te eidpwjow bs érépwo’ Huvoe képn mhAnn: Bapvvder.” “ And as a poppy lets its head fall aside, which in a garden is loaded with its fruit, and with the soft rains of spring, so the youth drooped his head on one side ; burdened with the helmet.” And now you shall compare the translations of igh mae ; hool of with its context, by Chapman and Pope—(or the Pope), the one being by a man of pure English temper, and able therefore to understand pure Greek tempers the other in- fected with all the faults of the falsely classical school of the Renaissance. First I take Chapman :— “His shaft smit fair Gorgythion, of Praim’s princely race — Who in Alpina was brought forth, a famous town in Thrace, By Castianeira, that for form was like celestial breed, ei htt And as a crimson poppy-flower, surcharged with his seed, And vernal humours falling thick, declines his heavy brow, © So, a-oneside, his helmet’s weight his fainting head did bow.’ Next, Pope :— ‘*He missed the mark; but pierced Gorgythio’s heart, And drenched in royal blood the thirsty dart : (Fair Castianeira, nymph of form divine, This offspring added to King Priam’s line). to wUETDS As full-blown poppies, overcharged with rain, {3 Decline the head, and drooping kiss the plain, ; So sinks the youth: his beauteous head, depressed Beneath his helmet, drops upon his breast.”’ 13. I give you the two passages in full, trusting that you may so feel the becomingness of the one, and the graceless- i ness of the other. But note farther, in the Homeric passage, one subtlety which cannot enough be marked even in Chap- — man’s English, that his second word, jue, is employed by — a i Siitatysst ours ck corn, under wind, and of » to its ruin ;* and otherwise, in good Greek s word is sieves as having such specific sense of _ drooping under weight ; or towards death, under the of ewe which they have no more strength to sus- n;+ the passage I quoted from Plato, (‘ Crown of woe: <5 iy Thu passages quoted by Liddell. fod his pate rather tiresome on re-reading it myself, and can- x criticism of the imitation of this passage by Virgil, one es of the Aineid which are purely and vulgarly imitative, false as well as weak by the introducing sentence, ‘*‘ Vol- ere us leto,” after which the simile of the drooping flower is { raat lecitictins, the chief use of which is to warn all sensible en from such business, the following abstract of Diderot’s notes on the : given in the ‘Saturday Review ’ for April 29th, 1871, is worth as the French critic really not aware that Homer had his own way ?) bake his theory of poetical hieroglyphs by no quota- ‘ean show the manner of his minute and sometimes fanci- al criticism by repeating his analysis of the passage of Virgil wherein he death of Euryalus is described: ael echo *Pulchrosque per artus a: ep It cruor, inque humeros cervix collapsa recumbit ; _ Bye Apespreis veluti cum flos succisus aratro a > Languescit moriens ; lassove papavera collo ¥en ear ip Paminate caput, pintvia eum forte gravantur.’ ¥ “The sound of ‘Tt cruor,’ according to Diderot, suggests the image of a jet of blood ; ‘cervix collapsa recumbit,’ the fall of a dying man’s head upon his shoulder ; ‘stccisus’ imitates the use of a ree scythe /(not plough) ; ; ‘demisere ’ is as soft as the eye of a flower; ‘ gravantur,’ pap ihe other hand, has all the weight of a calyx, filled with rain ; ‘col- _ lapsa’ marks an effort and a fall, and similar double duty is parfonned a * papavera,’ the first two syllables symbolizing the poppy upright, the ast two the poppy bent. While thus pursuing his minute investiga- tions, Diderot can scarcely help laughing at himself, and candidly owns that he is open to the suspicion of discovering in the poem beauties which have no existence. He therefore qualities his eulogy by pointing out two faults in the passage. ‘Gravantur,’ notwithstanding the praise ‘it has received, is a little too heavy for the light head of a poppy, even ‘wheu filled with water. As for ‘ aratro,’ coming as it does after the ‘hiss of ‘succisus,’ itis altogether abominable. Had Homer written the Lines, a 74 PROSERPINA. Wild Olive,’ Pp. 95): ‘And bore lightly the burden of gold and of possessions.” And thus you will begin to understand how the poppy became in the heathen mind the type at once of power, or pride, and of its loss; and therefore, both why _ Virgil represents the white nymph Nais, “ pallentes violas, et summa papavera carpens, ”*—gathering the pale flags, and the highest poppies,—and the reason for the choice of this rather than any other flower, in the story of Tarquin’s message to his son. L 14. But you are next to remember the word Rhoeas in another sense. Whether originally intended or afterwards caught at, the resemblance of the word to ‘Rhoea,’ a pome- granate, mentally connects itself with the resemblance of the poppy head to the pomegranate fruit. . And if I allow this flower to be the first we take up for care- ful study in ‘ Proserpina,’ on account of its simplicity of form _ and splendour of colour, I wish you also to remember, in con- nection with it, the cause of Proserpine’s eternal captivity— her having tasted a pomegranate seed,—the pomegranate be- ing in Greek mythology what the apple is in the Mosaic le- gend ; and, in the whole worship of Demeter, associated with — the poppy by a multitude of ideas which are not definitely expressed, but can only be gathered out of Greek art and literature, as we learn their symbolism. The chief character on which these thoughts are founded is the fulness of seed in — the poppy and pomegranate, as an image of life: then the ~ forms of both became adopted for beads or bosses in orna-— mental art ; the pomegranate remains more distinctly a Jew- ish and Christian type, from its use in the border of Aaron’s robe, down to the fruit in the hand of Angelico’s and Botti- celli’s Infant Christs ; while the poppy is gradually confused by the Byzantine Greeks with grapes ; and both of these with — 7 - “ he would have ended with some hieroglyph, which would have contin-— ued the hiss or described the fall of a flower. To the hiss of ‘suecisus’ Diderot is warmly attached. Not by mistala but in order to justify the sound, he ventures to translate ‘aratrum’ into ‘scythe,’ boldly and rightly declaring in a marginal note that this is not the ene “ the word.” PAPAVER RHORAS” oe m fruit. The palm, in the shorthand of their art, grad- becomes a symmetrical branched ornament with two ; this is again confused with the Greek iris, ” s blue i ‘nia: and Pindar’s water-fiag,)—and the Floren- _ tines, in adopting Byzantine ornament, read it.into their own % lys ; but insert two poppyheads on each side of the entire foil, in their finest heraldry. _ 15. Meantime the definitely intended poppy, in late Chris- tian Greek art of the twelfth century, modifies the form of the _ Acanthus leaf with its own, until the northern twelfth-century workman takes the thistle-head for the poppy, and the thistle- leaf for acanthus. The true poppy-lead remains in the south, ‘but gets more and more confused with grapes, till the Re- naissance carvers are content with any kind of boss full of _ geed, but insist on such boss or bursting globe as some essen- _ tial part of their ornament ;—the bean-pod for the same rea- son (not without Pytinparekn notions, and some of republican election) is used by Brunelleschi for main decoration of the lantern of Florence duomo ; and, finally, the ornamentation gets so shapeless, that M. Violet-le-Due, in his ‘Dictionary of Ornament,’ loses trace of its origin altogether, and fancies the 1 agi forms were derived from the spadix of the arum. “16. I have no time to enter into farther details; but . “nlbaph all this vast range of art, note this singular thet, that Z the wheat ear, the vine, the fleur-de-lys, the poppy, and the j leaf of the acanthus-weed, or thistle, occupy the entire _ thoughts of the decorative workmen trained in classic schools, to the exclusion of the rose, true lily, and other the flowers of _ luxury. And that the deeply underlying reason of this is in the relation of weeds to corn, or of the adverse powers of nat- ure to the beneficent ones, expressed for us readers of the _ Jewish scriptures, centrally in the verse, ‘thorns also, and _ thistles, shall it bring forth to thee ; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field” (yopros, grass or corn), and exquisitely _ symbolized throughout the fields of Europe by the presence of the purple ‘ corn-flag,’ or gladiolus, and ‘corn-rose’ (Ge- _ rarde’s name for Papaver Rhoeas), in the midst of carelessly _ tended: corn; and in the traditions of the art of Europe by i 4 76 * > \PROGR ROMS 6 the springing of the Acanthus round the basket of pe phora, strictly the basket for bread, the idea of bread includ- ing all sacred things carried at the feasts of Demeter, Bacchus, and the Queen of the Air. And this springing of the thorny weeds round the basket of reed, distinctly taken up by the Byzantine Italians in the basket-work capital of the twelfth century, (which I have already illustrated at length in the ‘Stones of Venice,’) becomes the germ of all capitals whatso- ever, in the great schools of Gothic, to the end of Gothic time, and also of all the capitals of the pure and noble Re- naissance architecture of Angelico and Perugino, and all that was learned from them in the north, while the introduction of the rose, asa primal element of decoration, only takes place when the luxury of English decorated Gothic, the result of — that licentious spirit in the lords which brought on the Wars of the. Roses, indicates the approach of destruction to the feudal, artistic, and moral power of the northern nations. . For which reason, and many others, I must yet delay the following out of our main subject, till I have answered the other question, which brought me to pause in the middle of this chapter, namely, ‘ What is a weed ?’ bs CHAPTER VI. THE PARABLE OF JOASH, 1. Some ten or twelve years ago, I bought—three times twelve are thirty-six—of a delightful little book by Mrs. Gatty, called ‘Aunt Judy’s Tales ’—whereof to make presents to my little lady friends. I had, at that happy time, perhaps — from four-and-twenty to six-and-thirty—I forget exactly how many—very particular little lady friends ; and greatly wished Aunt Judy to be the thirty-seventh,—the kindest, wittiest, prettiest girl one had ever read of, at least in so entirely proper and orthodox literature. 2. Not but that it is a suspicious sign of infirmity of faith $ in our modern moralists to make their exemplary young peo« ‘THE PARABLE OF JOASH. 17 pretty ; and dress them always in the height of the fashion. One may read Miss Edgeworth’s ‘ Harry and Lucy,’ Mary,’ ‘Fashionable Tales,’ or ‘ Parents’ Assist- h, from end to end, with extremest care; and never find out whether Lucy was tall or short, nor whether q ‘Mary was dark or fair, nor how Miss Aunaly was dressed, nor, . was my own chief point of interest—what was the colour of Rosamond’s eyes. Whereas Aunt Judy, in charm- e “ing position after position, is shown to have expressed all her _ pure evangelical principles with the prettiest of lips ; and to have had her gown, though puritanically plain, made by one of the best modistes in London. _ + 8. Nevertheless, the book is wholesome and useful; and the nicest story in it, as far as I recollect, is an inquiry into the _ subject which is our present business, ‘What is a weed ?’—in _ which, by many pleasant devices, Aunt Judy leads her little _ brothers and sisters to discern that a weed is ‘a plant in the wrong place.’ _. ‘Vegetable ’ in the wrong place, by the way, I think Aunt _ Judy says, being a precisely scientific little aunt. But I can’t 4 keep it out of my own less scientific head that ‘vegetable’ _ means only something going to be boiled, I like ‘ plant’ bet- ter for general sense, besides that it’s shorter. Whatever we call them, Aunt Judy is perfectly right about _ them as far as she has gone ; but, as happens often even to the _ best of evangelical instructresses, she has stopped just short _ of the gist of the whole matter. Itis entirely true that a weed _ is a plant that has got into a wrong place ; but it never seems os have oceurred to Aunt Judy that some plants never do / ' Who ever saw a wood anemone or a heath blossom in the q ; wrong place ? Who ever saw netile or hemlock in a right one? And yet, the difference between flower and weed, (I use, for convenience sake, these words in their fainiliar oppo- _ sition,) certainly does not consist merely in the flowers being innocent, and the weed stinging and venomous. We do not _ eall the nightshade a weed in our hedges, nor the scarlet agarie “in our woods, But we do the corncockle in our fields. _ 4, Had the thoughtful little tutoress gone but one thought Bi PROSERPINA. pe farther, and instead of “a vegetable in a wrong place ,” (which it may happen to the innocentest vegetable sometimes to be, without turning into a weed, therefore,) said, “A vegetable which has an innate disposition to get into the wrong place,” she would have greatly furthered the matter for us; but then she perhaps would have felt herself to be uncharitably divid- ing with vegetables her own little evangelical sa see of origitial sin. 5. This, you will find, nevertheless, to be the very essence of weed character—in plants, as in men. If you glance through your botanical books, you will see often added cer- tain names—‘ a troublesome weed.” It is not its being veno- mous, or ugly, but its being impertinent—thrusting itself where it has no business, and hinders other people’s business —that makes a weed of it. The most accursed of all vege- tables, the one that has destroyed for the present even the possibility of European civilization, is only called a weed in the slang of its votaries;* but in the finest and truest English we call so the plant which has come to us by chance from the same country, the type of mere senseless prolific activity, the American water-plant, choking our streams till the very fish that leap out of them cannot fall back, but die on the clogged surface ; and indeed, for this unrestrainable, wn- conquerable insolence of uselessness, what name can be enough dishonourable ? M 6. I pass to vegetation of nobler rank. You remember, I was obliged in the last chapter to leave — my poppy, for the present, without an English specifie name, because I don’t like Gerarde’s ‘ corn-rose,’ and can’t yet think of another. Nevertheless, I would have used Gerarde’s name, if the corn-rose were as much a rose as the corn-flag is a — flag. But it isn’t. The rose and lily have quite different re-— lations to the corn. ‘The lily is grass mM loveliness, as the corn is grass in use; and both grow together in peace—gladiolus in the wheat, and narcissus in the pasture. But the rose is of * And I have too harshly called our English Vines, ‘ wicked weeds of Kent,’ in Fors Clavigera, xxvii., vol. i, p. 877. Much may be said for Ale, when we brew it for our people honestly THE PARABLE OF JOASH. 79 i and higher order than the corn, and you never saw a cornfield overrun with sweetbrier or apple-blossom. _ They have no mind, they, to get into the wrong place. _ © What is it, then, this temper in some plants—malicious as it _ seems—intrusive, at all events, or erring,—which brings them a ‘oe sege, places—thrusts them where they thivart us and % eh Deimasily, it is mere hardihood and coarseness of make. be A plant that can live anywhere, will often live where it is not _ wanted. _ But the delicate and tender ones keep at home. You have no trouble in ‘keeping down’ the spring gentian. It _ rejoices in its own Alpine home, and makes the earth as like _ heayen as it can, but yields as softly as the air, if you want it _ to give place. Here in England, it will only grow on the - loneliest moors, above the high force of Tees ; its Latin name, - for us (I may as well tell you at once) is to be ‘Lucia verna ;’ - and its English one, Lucy of Teesdale. _ 8, But a plant may be hardy, and coarse of make, and able to live anywhere, and-yet be no weed. The coltsfoot, so far as I knoy, is the first of large-leaved plants to grow afresh on ground that has been disturbed : fall of Alpine débris, ruin of railroad embankment, waste of drifted slime by flood, it seeks to heal and redeem ; but it does not offend us in our gardens, nor impoverish us in our fields. px: _ Nevertheless, mere coarseness of structure, indiscriminate _ hardihood, is at least a point of some unworthiness in a plant. P That it should have no choice of home, no love of native land, is ungentle ; much more if such discrimination as it has, be immodest, and incline it, seemingly, to open and much-tra- versed places, where it may be continually seen of strangers. 3 “The tormeniilla gleams in showers along the mountain turf; her delicate crosslets are separate, though constellate, as ‘the rubied daisy. But the king-cup—(blessing be upon it ways no less)—crowds itself sometimes into too burnished flame of inevitable gold. I don’t know if there was anything n the darkness of this last spring to make it brighter in resist- nce; but I never saw any spaces of full warm yellow, in val colour, so intense as the meadows between Reading 80 PROSERPINA. pales 228 and the Thames ; nor did I know perfectly what purple and gold meant, till I saw a field of park land embroidered a foot deep with king-cup and clover—while I was correcting my last notes on the spring colours of the Royal NE te age. bury. 9. And there are two other questions of exteenii wabilety connected with this main one. What shall we say of the plants whose. entire destiny is parasitice—which are not only sometimes, and impertinently, but always, and pertinently, out of place; not only out of the right place, but out of any place of their own? When is mistletoe, for instance, in the right place, young ladies, think you? On an apple tree, or on a ceiling? When is ivy in the right place ?—when wall- flower? The ivy has been torn down from the towers of Ken- ilworth ; the weeds from the arches of the Coliseum, and from - the steps of the Araceli, irreverently, vilely, and in vain ; but how are we to separate the creatures whose office it is to abate the grief of ruin by their gentleness, Listirant “ wafting wallflower scents From out the crumbling ruins of fallen pride, And chambers of transgression, now forlorn,” from those which truly resists the toil of men, and conspire against their fame ; which are cunning to consume, and pro- lifie to encumber; and of whose perverse and unweleome sowing we know, ‘end can say assuredly, ‘‘ An — hath done this.” ny i 10. Again. The character of strength which gitieey peeve! lence over others to any common plant, is more or less con- sistently dependent on woody fibre in the leaves: giving them strong ribs and great expanding extent; or spinous nee and mitinkled or gathered extent. a Get clearly into your mind the nature of these two con. ditions. When a leaf is to be spread wide, like the Burdock, it is supported by a framework of extending ribs like a . roof. The supporting function of these is geometrical ; every _ one is constructed like the girders of a bridge, or beams of floor, with all manner of science in the distribution of thei | THR PARABLE OF JOASH. Si ~ subs ry section, for narrow and deep streneth ; and somge shiadke are mostly hollow. But when the extending space _ ofa leaf is to be enriched with fulness of folds, and become _ beautiful in wrinkles, this*may be done either by pure undu- _ lation as of « liquid current along the leaf edge, or by sharp _ ‘drawing ’—or ‘gathering’ I believe ladies would call it—and stitching of the edges together. And this stitching together, a peta very strongly, is done round a bit bb: stick, as a ' ‘sail is reefed round a mast; and this bit of stick needs to be bs , not geometrically strong ; its function is essentially “gravity ; but to stick the edges out, stiffly, in a crimped frill. beautiful work of this kind, which we are meant to the stays of the leaf—or stay-bones—are finished off very sharply and exquisitely at the points; and indeed so ; sieecdlon| Ahad: they. prick our fingers when we touch them ; _ for they are not at all meant to be touched, but admired. with extreme respect for their endurance and orderliness. _ Among flowers that pass away, and leaves that shake as with ~ague, or shrink like bad cloth,—these, in their sturdy growth ee life, we are bound to honour; and, under the _-green holly, remember how much softer frionddhip was failing, and how much of other loving, folly. And yet—you are ct f pvadatan the thistle with the cedar that is in Lebanon ; nor _ to forget—if the spinous nature of it become too cruel to _ provoke and offend—the parable of Joash to Amaziah, and its fulfilment: “There passed by a wild beast that was in Leba- non, and trode down the thistle.” 12. Then, lastly, if this rudeness and insensitiveness of ature be gifted with no redeeming beauty ; if the boss of ne thistle lose its purple, and the star of the Lion’s tooth, ‘its light ; and, much more, if service be perverted as beauty “is 3 lost, and the honied tube, and medicinal leaf, change into mere swollen emptiness, and salt brown membrane, swayed “im nerveless languor by the idle sea,—at last the separation en the two natures is as great as between the fruitful h and fruitless ocean ; and between the living hands that 4 “that of starch,——not to hold the lent up off the ground against 11. To be admired,—with qualification, indeed, always, but 82. PROSERPINA. tend the Garden of Herbs where Love is, and those perm that toss with tangle and with shells. ; %* * Xe % * | sf : 13. I had a long bit in my hedd, that I wanted iashesaet about St. George of the Seaweed, but I’ve no time to do it; and those few words of Tennyson’s are enough, if one thinks of them : only I see, in correcting press, that Pve partly mis- applied the idea of ‘ gathering’ in the leaf edge. It would be more accurate to say it was gathered at the central rib; but there is nothing in needlework that will represent the actual excess by lateral growth at the edge, giving three or four inches of edge for one of centre. But the stiffening of the fold by the thorn which holds it out is very like the action of a ship’s spars on its sails; and absolutely in many eases like that of the spines in a fish’s fin, passing into the various con- ditions of serpentine and dracontic crest, connected with all the terrors and adversities of nature ; not to be dealt —— in a chapter on weeds. ~ 14. Here isa sketch of a crested leaf of less adverse temper, which may as well be given, together with Plate IIL, in this number, these two engravings being meant for examples of — two different methods of drawing, both useful according to character of subject. Plate ILL is sketched first with a finely-— pointed pen, and common ink, on white paper; then washed rapidly with colour, and retouched with the pen to give sharp- — ness and completion. This method is used because the thistle — leaves are full of complex and sharp sinuosities, and set with — intensely sharp spines passing into hairs, which require many — kinds of execution with the fine point to imitate at all. In the — drawing there was more look of the bloom or woolliness on the stems, but it was useless to try for this in the mezzotint, — and I desired Mr. Allen to leave his work at the stage where it expressed as much form as I wanted. The leaves are of the common marsh thistle, of which more anon; and the two long lateral ones are only two different views of the same leaf, while the central figure is a young leaf just opening. It beat me, in its delicate bossing, and I had to leave it, ee edly enough. ib PLATE III.—AcAnTHOID LEAVES. NORTHERN ATTIC TYPE. Re eegmmaamg OF JOASH. 83 better work, being of an easier subject, Bie rendered by perfectly simple means. . a eeiealert and membranous surface to rep- mn with definite outlines, and merely undulating folds ; is) is sufficiently done by a careful and firm pen outline : ey paper, with a slight wash of colour afterwards, rein- “fore éd in the darks; then marking the lights with white. | nethod is classic and authoritative, being used by many z the greatest’ masters, (by ‘Holbein continually ;) and it is “mut ch the best which the general student can adopt for ex- of the action and muscular power of plants. aon @ goodness or badness of such work depends absolutely on the truth c the single line. You will find a thousand bo- E which will give you a delicate and deceptive 1 _remblance of the leaf, for one that will give you the right ' xity in its backbone, the right perspective of its peaks reshorten, or the right relation of depth i in the Sit lbts/atmplee. On which, in leaves as in faces, no ression of temper depends. atime we have yet to consider somewhat more touch- ing grand sere in next chapter. a Naaod, fey “teh get a haptics) y<: ; i Shad iting, _ CHAPTER VIL ? eukqunaie bike ied Tab etetivrc: LIvo id chow if my readers were checked, as I wished E eeen 45 be, at least for a moment, in the close of the last pter, by my talking of thistles and dandelions changing enehens by gradation of which, doubtless, Mr. Darwin us with specious and sufficient instances. But groups will not be contemplated in our Oxford sys-_ elasi ae any parental relations whatsoever. We shall, however, find some very notable relations existing n the two groups of the wild flowers of dry land, which i cienit: in the widest extent, and the distinctest opposition, e two characters of material serviceableness and unservice- THE PARABLE OF JOTHAM. 84 . PROSERPINA. ableness; the groups which in our English slaseiladiibe will be easily remembered as those of the Thyme, ond ae Daisy. ret The one, scented as with incensé+-medicindl_—aanadal in all gentle and humble ways, useful. The other, scentless—help- less for ministry to the body ; infinitely dear as the bringer of light, ruby, white and gold ; the three colours of the Day, with no hue of shade in it. Therefore I take it on the coins of St. George for the symbol of the splendour or light of heaven, which is dearest where humblest. 2. Now these great two orders—of which the types are the. : thyme and the daiiey —you are to remember generally as the © ‘Herbs’ and the ‘Sunflowers.’ You are not to call them — Lipped flowers, nor Composed flowers ; because the first is a vulgar term ; for when you once come to be able to draw a lip, or, in noble duty, to kiss one, you will know that noother — flower in earth is like that: and the second is an indefinite — term ; for a foxglove is as much a ‘composed’ flower as a — daisy; but it is composed in the shape of a spire, instead of the shape of the sun. And again a thistle, which common — botany calls a composed flower, as well as a daisy, is com- — posed in quite another shape, being on the whole, bossy in- — stead of flat ; and of another temper, or composition of mind, also, being connected in that respect with butterburs, and a — vast company of rough, knotty, half-black or brown, and gen- erally unluminous—flowers I can scarcely call them—and weeds I will not,—creatures, at all events, in nowise to be gathered under the general name ‘ Composed,’ with the stars that crown Chaucer’s Alcestis, when she returns to the day from the dead. , But the wilder and stronger blossoms of the Hawk’s-eye— — again you see I refuse for them the word weed ;—and the waste-loving Chicory, which the Venetians call ‘Sponsa solis,” _ are all to be held in one class with the Sunflowers ; but dedi- — cate,—the daisy to Alcestis alone ; others to Clytia, or the Physician Apollo himself ; but I can’t follow their mythology — yet awhile. i’ 3. Now in these two families you have typically Use op- ; oe THE PARABLE OF JOTIAM. 85 in wildness ; it is their wildness which is their virtue ;—that the thyme is sweet where it is unthought of, pee shetsnisias red, where the foot despises them: while, in P ars, wildness is their crime,—‘‘ Wherefore, when I ik t, it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild ; 2” But in all of them you must distinguish between the pure wildness of flowers and their distress. It may not be our duty to tame them ; but it must be, to relieve. 4. It chanced, as I was arranging the course of these two chapters, that I had examples given me of distressed and dness, in immediate contrast. The first, I grieve to , was in a bit of my own brushwood, left uncared-for evi- tly many a year before it became mine. I had to cut my ‘ wy into i through a mass of thorny ruin ; black, birds-nest like, entanglement of brittle spray round twisted stems of ill- * 0 bireies strangling each other, and changing half into -oots among the rock clefts; knotted stumps of never-blos- ‘soming blackthorn, and choked stragglings of holly, all laced _and twisted and tethered round with an untouchable, almost Pechewsil thatch, a foot thick, of dead. bramble and rose, er rotten ground through which the water soaked sssly, undermining it into merely unctuous clods and s, knitted together by mossy sponge. It was all Nature’s f felted, che had had her way with it to the uttermost; and clearly needed human help and interference in her busi- ness; and yet there was not one plant in the whole ruinous d deathful riot of the place, whose nature was not in itself 1olesome and lovely ; but all lost for want of discipline. 5. The other piece of wild growth was among the fallen eat of limestone under Malham Cove. Sheltered by the if Babaye, from stress of wind, the ash and hazel wood spring re in a fair and perfect freedom, without a diseased bough, . ran unwholesome shade. I do not know why mine is “all eneumbered with overgrowth, and this so lovely that scarce a branch could be gathered but with injury ;—while under- fath, the oxalis, and the two smallest geraniums (Lucidum 1 Herb-Robert). and the mossy saxifrage, and the cross- aved bed-straw, and the white pansy, wrought themselves ” - PROSERPINA, » ee into wreaths among the fallen crags, in which ‘every leaf re- joiced, and was at rest. yt 6. Now between these two states of equally natural seb irth, the point of difference that forced itself on me (and practically enough, in the work I had in my own wood), was not so much the withering and waste of the one, and the life of the other, as the thorniness and cruelty of the one, and the softness of the other. In Malham Cove, the stones of the brook were softer with moss than any silken pillow—the crowded oxalis leaves yielded to the pressure of the hand, and were not felt —the cloven leaves of the Herb-Robert and orbed clusters of its companion overflowed every rent in the rude crags with living balm ; there was scarcely a place left by the ten-. derness of the happy things, where one might not lay down one’s forehead on their warm softness, and sleep. But in the waste and distressed ground, the distress had changed itself } to cruelty. The leaves had all perished, and the bending” saplings, and the wood of trust ;—but the thorns were there, immortal, and the gnarled and sapless roots, and ‘the dusty treacheries of decay. : 7, Of which things you will find it good to consider al 0 otherwise than botanivally. For all these lower organisms: suffer and perish, or are gladdened and flourish, under condi- tions which are in utter precision symbolical, and in utte: fidelity representative, of the conditions which induce adve' sity and prosperity in the kingdoms of men: and the Eternal Demeter,—Mother, and Judge,—brings forth, as the hert yielding seed, so also the thorn and the thistle, not to herself, but fo thee. 8. You have read the words of the great Law often enough —have you ever thought enough of them to know the differ. ence between these two appointed means of Distress? Th first, the Thorn, is the type of distress caused by crime, chang ing the soft and breathing leaf into inflexible and woundin; stubbornness. ‘The second is the distress appointed to be means and herald of good,—Thou shalt see the stubborn thi tle bursting, into glossy purple, which outredden, all volu ptu- ous garden roses. [HE PARABLE OF JOTHAM. 87 that, after much hunting, I cannot find au- of the day when Scotland took the thistle for her pan. I have no space (in this chapter at least) for ; but, with whatever lightness of construing we may , the symbol, it is actually the truest that could have en for some conditions of the Scottish mind. There is flower which the Proserpina of our Northern Sicily ; te A more dearly: and scarcely any of us recognize on oug " the beautiful power of its close-set stars, and rooted radiance of ground leaves ; yet the stubbornness and ungrace- rectitude of its stem, and the besetting of its wholesome sub tance. with that fringe of offence, and the forwardness of it, and dominance,—I fear to lacess some of my dearest ' if I went on :—let them rather, with Bailie Jarvie’s true conscience, * take their Scott from the inner shelf in their t's library which all true Scotsmen give him, and trace, i the swift reading of memory, the characters of Fergus vo. , Hector M'Intyre, Mause Headrigg, Alison Wilson, Richi: “Moniplies, and Andrew Fairservice ; and then say, if . faults of all these, drawn as they are with a precision of fons ine a Corinthian sculptor’s of the acanthus leaf, can be _ found in anything like the same strength in other races, or if 80, stubbornly folded and starched moni-plies of irritating selfish friendliness, lowly conceit, and intolerable fidelity, are native to any other spot of the wild earth of the | feet globe. . . 10, Will you note also—for this is of extreme interest— - that these essential faults are all mean faults ;—what we may call” -ground-growing faults; conditions of semi-education, _ ™ Has my reader ever thought,—I never did till this moment,—now _ it perfects the exquisite character which Scott himself loved, as he in- > jvented, till he changed the form of the novel, that his habitual inter- ection should be this word ;—not but that the oath, by conscience, was pily still remaining then in Scotland, taking the place of the me- ( - dieval ‘by St. Andrew,’ we in England, long before the Scot, having ‘3 -all sense of the Puritanical appeal to private conscience, as of the ‘Catholic oath, ‘by St. George;’ and our uncanonized ‘ by George’ in ; senorous rudeness, ratifying, not now our common conscience, but our ndividual opinion, tx, SS , “yy ~. - CPS ohlth oa gy err ee i 3 “md 88 PROSERPINA. of hardly-treated homelife, or of coarsely-minded and wander: ing prosperity. How literally may we go back from the liv. ing soul symbolized, to the strangely accurate earthly symbol. in the prickly weed. For if, with its bravery of endurance, and carelessness in choice of home, we find also definite faculty and habit of migration, volant mechanism for choice- less journey, not divinely directed in pilgrimage to known shrines ; but carried at the wind’s will by a Spirit which listeth nof—it will go hard but that the plant shall become, if not dreaded, at least despised ; and, in its wandering and reckless splendour, disgrace the garden of the sluggard, and possess the jnhéritatide of the prodigal: until even its own nature seems contrary to good, and the invocation of the just — man be made to it as the executor of Judgment, “ Let thistles grow instead of wheat, and cockle instead of barley.” 11. Yet to be despised—either for men or flowers—may be no ill-fortune ; the real ill-fortune is only to be despicable. — These faults of human character, wherever found, observe, belong to it as ill-trained—incomplete ; confirm theriiselves only in the vulgar. There is no base pertinacity, no over- weening bolivait, in the Black Douglas, or Claverhouse, or Montrose ; in these we find the pure Scottish temper, of — heroic dndGranse and royal pride; but, when, in the pay, and — not deceived, but purchased, idolatry of Mammon, the Scot-— tish persistence and pride become knit and vested in the spleuchan, and your stiff Covenanter makes his covenant with Death, and your Old Mortality deciphers only the sense- less legends of the eternal gravestone,—you get your weed, earth grown, in bitter verity, and earth-devastating, in bitter — strength. 12. I have told you, elsewhere, we are always first to study — national character in the highest and purest examples. But— if our knowledge is to be complete, we have to study also the special diseases of national character. And in exact opposi- tion to the most solemn virtue of Scotland, the domestic truth and tenderness breathed in all Scottish song, you have this special disease and mortal cancer, this woody-fibriness, literally, of temper and thought : the consummation of which into pure THE PARABLE OF JOTHAM. 89 atic ll black Devil's charcoal—the sap of the birks of Aberfeldy become cinder, and the blessed juices of them, deadly gas,—you may know in its pure blackness best in the work of the greatest of these ground-growing Scotchmen, Adam Smith. 13. No man of like capacity, I believe, born of any other nation, could have deliberately, and with no momentary shadow of suspicion or question, formalized the spinous and monstrous fallacy that human commerce and policy are natur- ally founded on the desire of every man to possess his neigh- bour’s ‘goods. _ This is the ‘release unto us Barabbas,’ with a witness ; and the deliberate systematization of that ery, and choice, for perpetual repetition and fulfilment in Christian statesmanship, has been, with the strange precision of natural symbolism and retribution, signed, (as of old, by strewing of ashes on Kidron,) by strewing of ashes on the brooks “of Scotland ; waters once of life, health, music, and divine tradition ; but _ to whose festering scum you may now set fire with a candle ; and of which, round the once excelling palace of Scotland, modern sanitary science is now helplessly contending with . me poisonous exhalations. 14. I gave this chapter its heading, because I had it in my sahisa: to work out the meaning of the fable in the ninth chap- ter of Judges, from what I had seen on that thorny ground of mine, where the bramble was king over all the trees of the wood. But the thoughts are gone from me now; and as I _ re-read the chapter of Judges,—now, except in my memory, _ unread, as it chances, for many a year,—the sadness of that _ ‘story of Gideon fastens on me, and silences me. his the end ‘of his angel visions, and dream-led victories, the slaughter of all his sons but this youngest,*—and he never again heard of in anh ! _ You Scottish children of the Rock, taught through all your Gave pastoral and noble lives by many a sweet miracle of dew on fleece and ground,—once servants of mighty kings, and ** Jotham,’ *Sum perfectio eorum,’ or ‘Consummatio eorum.’ (In- zx ‘terpretation of name in Vulgate index.) Ri tan is yh et get Se Pee res oa! sae i ae call’ Saat tl ¥,. 90 PROSERPINA, keepers of sacred covenant; have you indeed dealt truly with your warrior kings, and prophet saints, or are these ruins of their homes, and shrines, dark with the fire that fell from the - curse of Jerubbaal ? CHAPTER VIII. THE STEM, 1. As Tread over again, with a fresh mind, the last chapter, Iam struck by the opposition of states which seem best to fit a weed for a weed’s work,—stubbornness, namely, and flaccid- ity. On the one hand, a sternness and a coarseness of struct- ure which changes its stem into a stake, and its leaf into a spine ; on the other, an utter flaccidity and ventosity of structure, which changes its stem into a riband, and its leaf into a bubble. And before we go farther—for we are not yet at the end of our study of these obnoxious things—we had better complete an examination of the parts of a plant in general, by ascertain- ing what a Stem proper is ; and what makes it stiffer, or hollow- er, than we like it thes to wit, the gracious and generous strength of ash differs from the spinous obstinacy of black- thorn,—and how the geometric and enduring hollowness of a stalk of wheat differs from the soft fulness of that of a mush- room. To which end, I will take up a piece of study, not a black, but white, thorn, written last spring. len hatettanaee blossom. mee I want, if I can, to find out to-day, 25th. May, 1875, what it is we like it so much for: holding these two branches of it in my hand—one full out, the other in youth, This full one is a mere mass of symmetrically balanced—snow, one was going vaguely to write, in the first impulse. But it is nothing of the sort. White,—yes, in a high degree ; and pure, totally ; but not at all dazzling in the white, nor pure in an insultingly rivalless manner, as snow would be ; yet pure somehow, cer- tainly ; and white, absolutely, in spite of what might be thought failure,—imperfection—nay, even distress and loss in it, For 3 a Te oe | THE STEM. fo ; every little rose of it has a green darkness in the centre—not even a pretty green, but a faded, yellowish, glutinous, un- accomplished green ; and round that, all over the surface of the blossom, whose shell-like petals are themselves deep sunk, : with grey shadows in the hollows of them—all above this al- | ready subdued brightness, are strewn the dark points of the dead stamens—manifest more and more, the longer one looks, as a kind of grey sand, sprinkled without sparing over what looked at first unspotted light. And in all the ways of it the lovely thing is more like the spring frock of some prudent lit- tle maid of fourteen, than a flower ;—frock with some little spotty pattern on it to keep it from showing an unintended and inadvertent spot,—if Fate should ever inflict such a thing! Undeveloped, thinks Mr. Darwin,—the poor short-coming, ill-blanched thorn blossom—going to be a Rose, some day soon ; and, what next ?—who knows ?—-perhaps a Peony ! ' 8. Then this next branch, in dawn and delight of youth, set with opening clusters of yet numerable blossom, four, and five, and seven, edged, and islanded, and ended, by the sharp leaves of freshest green, deepened under the flowers, and stud- ded round with bosses, better than pearl beads of St. Agnes’ rosary, —folded over and over, with the edges of their little __ leaves pouting, as the very softest waves do on flat sand where one meets another; then opening just enough to show the violet colour within—which yet isn’t violet colour, nor even *“meno che le rose,” but a different colour from every other lilac that one ever saw ;—faint and faded even before it sees light, as the filmy cup opens over the depth of it, then broken into purple motes of tired bloom, fading into darkness, as the _ cup extends into the perfect rose. ~ This, with all its sweet change that one would so fain stay, and : soft effulgence of bud into softly falling flower, one has watched _ —how often; but always with the feeling that the blossoms are thrown over the green depth like white clouds—never with _ any idea of so much as asking what holds the clouds there. Have each of the innumerable blossoms a separate stalk ? and, if so, how is it that one never thinks of the stalk, as one does - with currants? 92 PROSERPINA. 4, Turn the side of the branch to you ;—Nature never meant you to see it so; but now it is all stalk below, and stamens above,—the petals nothing, the stalks all tiny trees, always dividing their branches mainly into three—one in the centre short, and the two lateral, long, with an intermediate extremely. long one, if needed, to fill a gap, so contriving that the flow- ers shall all be nearly at the same level, or at least surface of ball, like a guelder rose. But the cunning with which the tree conceals its structure till the blossom is fallen, and then —for a little while, we had best look no more at it, for it is all like grape-stalks with no grapes. These, whether carrying hawthorn blossom and haw, or grape blossom and grape, or peach blossom and peach, you will simply call the ‘ stalk,’ whether of flower or fruit, A ‘stalk’ is essentially round, like a pillar ; and has, for the most part, the power of first developing, and then shaking off, flower and fruit from its extremities. You can pull the peach from its stalk, the cherry, the grape. Always-at some time of its existence, the flower-stalk lets fall something of what it sus- tained, petal or seed. In late Latin it is called ‘petiolus,’ the little foot ; because the expanding piece that holds the grape, or olive, is a little like an animal's foot. Modern botanists have misapplied the word to the /ea/-stalk, which has no resemblance to a foot at all. We must keep the word to its proper meaning, and, when we want to write Latin, call it ‘petiolus ;’ when we want to write English, call it ‘ stalk,’ meaning always fruit or flower stalk. I cannot find when the word ‘stalk’ first appears in Eng- lish :—its derivation will be given presently. 5. Gather next a hawthorn leaf. That also has a stalk ; but you can’t shake the leaf off it. It, and the leaf, are essentially one ; for the sustaining fibre runs up into every ripple or jag of the leaf’s edge : and its section is different from that of the flower-stalk ; it is no more round, but has an upper and under surface, quite different from each other. It will be better, however, to take a larger leaf to examine this structure in. Cabbage, cauliflower, or rhubarb, would any of them be good, ——-— ~- TRE sey. 93 _ but don’t grow wild in the luxuriance I want. So, if you please, we will take a leaf of burdock, (Arctium Lappa,) the principal business of that plant being clearly to grow leaves wherewith to adorn fore-grounds.* _ 6. The outline of it in Sowerby is not an intelligent one, and I haye not time to draw it but in the rudest way myself; Fig. 13, a; with perspectives of the elementary form below, b,c, andd. By help of which, if you will con- struct a burdock leaf in paper, my rude outline (a) may tell the rest of what I want you to see. Take a sheet of stout note paper, Fig. 14, A, double it sharply down the centre, by the dotted cA line, then give it the two cuts at @ and b, and double those pieces sharply back, as at B; then, opening them again, cut the whole into e the form C; and then, pulling up the corners ¢ d, stitch them together with a loose thread so d that the points ¢ and d rane shall be within half an inch of each other ; and you will have a kind of triangular scoop, or shovel, with a stem, by which _ you can sufficiently hold it, D. 7. And from this easily constructed and tenable model, you ‘may learn at once these following main facts about all leaves. ‘ > "I * - —. eo aS a * Tf you will look at the engraving, in the England and Wales series, of Turner’s Oakhampton, you will see its use. Oe ee eee ee Lee ey ee 94 PROSERPINA. [I.] That they are not flat, but, however slightly, always hollowed into craters, or raised into hills, in one or another direction ; so that any drawable outline of them does not in the least represent the real extent of their surfaces ; and until you know how to draw a cup, or a mountain, rightly, you have no chance of drawing a leaf. My simple artist readers of long ago, when I told them to draw leaves, thought they could do them by the boughful, whenever they liked. Alas, except by old WilliamHunt, and Burne Jones, I’ve not seen a leaf painted, since those burdocks of Turner’s ; far less sculptured—though ee ee ee D Fie. 14, > one would think at first that was easier ! Of which we shall have talk elsewhere ; here I must go on to note fact number two, concerning leaves. 8. [IL] The strength of their supporting stem consists not” merely in the gathering together of all the fibres, but in gathering them essentially into the profile of the letter V, which you will see your doubled paper stem has ; and of which you can feel the strength and use, in your hand, as you hold it. Gather a common plantain leaf, and look at the way it puts its round ribs together at the base, and you will under- stand the matter at once. The arrangement is modified and ; THE STEM. 8 “disguised in every possible way, according to the leaf’s need : _ in the aspen, the leaf-stalk becomes an absolute vertical plank ; _ and in the large trees is often almost rounded into the like- _ ness of a fruit-stalk ;—but, in all,* the essential structure is _ this doubled « one ; and in all, it opens at the place where the q ‘joins: the main stem, into a kind of cup, which holds next year’s bud in the hollow of it. __ 9. Now there would be no inconvenience in your simply getting into the habit of calling the round petiol of the fruit the ‘stalk,’ and the contracted channel of the leaf, ‘leaf-stalk.’ But. this way of naming them would not enforce, nor fasten in your mind, the difference between the two, so well as if you _ haye an entirely different name for the leaf-stalk. Which is _ the more desirable, because the limiting character of the leaf, _ botanically, is—(I only learned this from my botanical friend _ the other day, just in the very moment I wanted it,)—that it holds the bud of the new stem in its own hollow, but cannot _ itself grow in the hollow of anything else ;—or, in botanical language, leaves are never axillary,—don’t grow in armpits, _ but are themselves armpits ; hollows, that is to say, where they spring from the main stem. _ 10. Now there is already a received and useful botanical j word, ‘cyme’ (which we shall want in a little while,) derived from the Greek xia, a swelling or rising wave, and used to _ express a swelling cluster of foamy blossom. Connected with that word, but in a sort the reverse of it, you haye the Greek * xipBy, the hollow of a cup, or bowl; whence xipBadoy, a -eymbal,—that i is to say, a musical instrument owing its tone to its hollowness. These words become in Latin, cymba, and eymbalum ; and I think you will find it entirely convenient ‘and advantageous to cal! the leaf-stalk distinctively the ‘cymba,’ ' retaining the mingled idea of cup and boat, with respect at least to the part of it that holds the bud; and understanding that it gathers itself into a V-shaped, or even narrowly verti- ‘al, section, as a boat narrows to its bow, for Armee to sustain the leaf. _ * General assertions of this kind must always be accepted under in- _dulgence,—exceptions being made afterwards. . 7 te ee re B® ae a ae 96 PROSERPINA. With this word you may learn the Virgilian line, that shows the final use of iron—or iron-darkened—ships : ‘* Et ferrugined subvectat corpora cymba.” The “subvectat corpora” will serve to remind you of the office of the leafy cymba in carrying the bud ; and make you thankful that the said leafy vase is not of iron; and is a ship of Life instead of Death. 11. Already, not once, nor twice, I have had to use the word ‘stem,’ of the main round branch from which both stalk and cymba spring. This word you had better keep for all grow- ing, or advancing, shoots of trees, whether from the ground, or from central trunks and branches. I regret that the words’ multiply on us ; but each that I permit myself to use has its own proper thought or idea to express, as you will presently — perceive ; so that true knowledge multiplies with true words. 12. The ‘stem,’ youare to say, then, when you mean the ad- — vancing shoot,—which lengthens annually, while a stalk ends’ every year in a blossom, and acymba in a leaf. A stem is es- — sentially round,* square, or regularly polygonal ; though, asa — eymba may become exceptionally round, a stem may become exceptionally flat, or even mimic the shape of a leaf. Indeed I should have liked to write “a stem is essentially round, and constructively, on occasion, square,”—but it would have been too grand. The fact is, however, that a stem is really a roundly minded thing, throwing off its branches in circles as a trundled mop throws off drops, though it can always order the branches to fly off in what order it likes,—two at a time, opposite to each other ; or three, or five, in a spiral coil; or one here and one there, on this side and that ; but it is always twisting, in its own inner mind and force; hence it is espe- cially proper to use the word ‘stem’ of it—oréupa, a twined — wreath ; properly, twined round a staff, or sceptre: therefore, learn at once by heart these lines in the opening Iliad: 7 “ Sréuuar’ Exwv ey xepoly ExnBdrov *"AwdAAwvos, Xpvoty ava oxhrrpy’” , And recollect that a sceptre is properly a staff to lean upon } and that as acrown or diadem is first a binding thing, a * IT use ‘round’ rather than ‘ cylindrical,’ for simplicity’s sake. WASTE-THISTLE Z -) = = 3) < 4 a =< _ a RQ = = p S) is) 7 PLATE V THE STEM. 97 tr ’ is first a supporting thing, and it is in its nobleness, made of the stem of a young tree. You may just as learn also this : | Nal wa 1d8€ oxiwrpov, 7d uty odmore HUAAG Kad bCous q — Bbeei, Crecdh mpara Touhy ev bperar A€AorTEy, Ob8 dvabmAtoe:* mepl ydp pd é xadnds Erce SbAAa’ Te Kal prov’ viv adre muy vies "Axaav ’ Ey wadrduns popéovar dixaowdaot, of Te O€ucoras q ne | rr 3 TIpds duds eipvarat’ »” % “Now, by this sacred sceptre hear me swear _ | Which never more shall leaves or blossoms bear, «Which, severed from the trunk, (as I from thee,) On the bare mountains left its parent tree ; ; This sceptre, formed by tempered steel to prove— __ An ensign of the delegates of Jove, - From whom the power of laws and justice springs “(Tremendous oath, inviolate to Kings).” ger’ Sean _ 18. The supporting power in the tree itself is, I doubt not, greatly increased by this spiral action ; and the fine instinct of its being so, caused the twisted pillar to be used in the Lombardie Gothic,—at first, merely as a pleasant variety of form, but at last constructively and universally, by Giotto and all the architects of his school. Not that the spiral form actually adds to the strength of a Lombardic pillar, by imitat- _ ing contortions of wood, any more than the fluting of a _ Dorie shaft adds to its strength by imitating the canalicula- tion of a reed; but the perfect. action of the imagination, which had adopted the encircling acanthus for the capital, adopted the twining stemma for the shaft ; the pure delight _ of the eye being the first condition in either case: and it is inconceivable how much of the pleasure taken both in orna- _ ment and in natural form is founded elementarily on groups _ of spiral line. The study in our fifth plate, of the involucre ' of the waste-thistle,* is as good an example asI can give of _ the more subtle and concealed conditions of this structure. _ *Carduus Arvensis, ‘Creeping Thistle,’ in Sowerby ; why, I cannot _ orceive, for there is no more creeping in it than in a furzebush. But _ itespecially haunts foul and neglected ground; sol keep the Latin 98 | PROSERPINA. 14. Returning to our present business of nomenclature, we find the Greek word, ‘stemma,’ adopted by the Latins, be- coming the expression of a growing and hereditary race ; and the branched tree, the natural type, among all nations, of multiplied families. Hence the entire fitness of the word for our present purposes; as signifying, “‘a spiral shoot ex- tending itself by branches.” But since, unless it is spiral, it is not a stem, and unless it has branches, it is not a stem, we shall still want another word for the sustaining ‘ sceptre ’ of a foxglove, or cowslip. Before determining that, however, we must see what need there may be of one familiar to our ears until lately, although now, I understand, falling into disuse. 15. By our definition, a stem is a spirally bent, essentially living and growing, shoot of vegetation, But the branch of a tree, in which many such stems have their origin, is not, ex- cept in a very subtle and partial way, spiral ; nor, except in the shoots that spring from it, progressive forwards ; it only receives increase of thickness at its sides. Much more, what used to be called the trunk of a tree, in which many branches are united, has ceased to be, except in mere tendency and temper, spiral ; and has so far ceased from growing as to be often in a state of decay in its interior, while the external layers are still in serviceable strength. 16. If, however, a trunk were only to be defined as an ar- rested stem, or a cluster of arrested stems, we might perhaps refuse, in scientific use, the popular word. But such a defini- tion does not touch the main idea. Branches usually begin to assert themselves at a height above the ground approxi- mately fixed for each species of tree,—low in an oak, high in a stone pine; but, in both, marked as a point of structural change in the direction of growing force, like the spring of a name, translating ‘ Waste-Thistle.’ I could not show the variety of the curves of the involucre without enlarging ; and if, on this much in- creased scale, I had tried to draw the flower, it would have taken Mr. Allen and me a good month’s more work. And I had no more a month — than a life, to spare: so the action only of the spreading flower is indi- cated, but the involucre drawn with precision. a eames and as the tree grows old, some of its branches getting torn away by winds or falling under the weight of their own fruit, or load of snow, or by natural decay, there remains literally a ‘truncated’ mass of timber, still bearing irregular branches here and there, but inevitably sug- gestive of resemblance to a human body, after the loss of pos of its limbs. And to prepare trees for their practical service, what age sae ia only do partially, the first rough process of human art does completely. The branches are lopped away, leaving literally the ‘truncus’ as the part of the tree out of which log and rafter can be cut. And in many trees, it would ap- pear to be the chief end of their being to produce this part of their body on a grand scale, and of noble substance ; so that, while in thinking of vegetable life without reference to its use to men or animals, we should rightly say that the essence of it was in leaf and flower—not in trunk or fruit; yet for the sake of animals, we find that some plants, like the vine, are apparently meant chiefly to produce fruit; others, like laurels, chiefly to produce leaves ; others chiefly to produce flowers ; and others to produce permanently serviceable and sculptural wood; or, in some cases, merely picturesque and ‘monumental masses of vegetable rock, ‘“ intertwisted fibres ‘serpentine,”—of far nobler and more pathetic use in their places, and their enduring age, than ever they could be for material purpose in human habitation. For this central mass of the vegetable organism, then, the English word ‘trunk’ and French ‘tronc’ are always in accurate scholarship to be retained—meaning the part of a tree which remains when its ‘branches are lopped away. - 17. We have now got distinct ideas of four different kinds ‘of stem, and simple names for them in Latin and English,— ‘Petiolus, Cymba, Stemma, and Truncus; Stalk, Leaf-stalk, ‘Stem, and Trunk; and these are all that we shall commonly need. There is, however, one more that will be sometimes ne- -cessary, though it is ugly and difficult to pronounce, and must be as little used as we can. _ And here I must ask you to learn with me a little piece of 100 PROSERPINA. Roman history. I say, to learn with me, because I don’t know any Roman history except the two first books of Livy, and little bits here and there of the following six or seven. I only just know enough about it to be able to make out the bearings and meaning of any fact that I now learn. The —_ greater number of modern historians know, (if honest enough even for that,) the facts, or something that may possibly be like the facts, but haven’t the least notion of the meaning of them. So that, though I have to find out everything | want in Smith’s dictionary, like any schoolboy, I can usually tell you the significance of what I so find, better than perhaps even Mr. Smith himself could. 18. In the 586th page of Mr. Smith’s volume, you have it written that ‘Calvus,’ bald-head, was the name of a family of the Licinia gens ; that the man of whom we hear earliest, as so named, was the first plebeian elected to military tribune- ship in p.c. 400; and that the fourth of whom we hear, was surnamed ‘Stolo,’ because he was so particular in pruning away the Stolons (stolones), or useless young shoots, of his vines. We must keep this word ‘stolon,’ therefore, for these: young suckers springing from an old root. Its derivation is uncer- tain ; but the main idea meant by it is one of uselessness,— sprouting without occasion or fruit ; and the words ‘stolidus’ and ‘stolid’ are really its derivatives, though we have lost their sense in English by partly confusing them with ‘solid’ which they have nothing to do with. A ‘stolid’ person is essentially a ‘useless sucker’ of society ; frequently very leafy and graceful, but with no good in him. 19. Nevertheless, I won’t allow our vegetable ‘ stolons’ to be despised. Some of quite the most beautiful forms of leafage belong to them ;—even the foliage of the olive itself is never seen to the same perfection on the upper branches as in the young ground-rods in which the dual groups of leaves crowd themselves in their haste into clusters of three. But, for our point of Latin history, remember always thatin 400 z.c., just a year before the death of Socrates at Athens, this family of Stolid persons manifested themselves. at Rome, THE STEM. 101 ieking, wp from plebeian roots into places where they had no business; and preparing the way for the degradation of the entire Roman race under the Empire ; their success be- ing owed, remember also, to the faults of the patricians, for one of the laws passed by _ Calvus Stolo was that the Sibylline books should be in custody of ten men, of whom _ five should be plebeian, “that no falsifica- tions might be introduced in favour of the _ patricians.” 20. All this time, however, we have got no name for the prettiest of all stems,—that of annual flowers growing high from among their ground leaves, like lilies of the valley, and saxifrages, and the tall primulas—of _ which this pretty type, Fig. 15, was cut for me by Mr. Burgess years ago ; admirable in its light outline of the foamy globe of flowers, ‘supported and balanced in the meadow breezes on that elastic rod of slenderest life. _ . What shall we call it? We had better rest from our study of terms a little, and do a piece of needful classifying, before we try to name it. 21. My younger readers will find it easy to learn, and con- -yenient to remember, for a beginning of their science, the names of twelve great families of cinquefoiled flowers,* of which the first group of three, is for the most part golden, the second, blue, the third, purple, and the fourth, red. And their names, by simple lips, can be pleasantly said, or sung, in this order, the two first only being a little difficult _to get over. Fie. 15. * The florets gathered in the daisy are cinquefoils, examined closely. No system founded on colour can be very general or unexceptionable : ‘but the splendid purples of the pansy, and thistle, which will be made one of the lower composite groups under Margarita, may justify the general assertion of this order’s being purple. 103°. PROSERPINA. 1 a OR Ses ta Roof-foil, Lucy, Pea, Pink, Rock-foil, Blue-bell, Pansy, Peach, Primrose. Bindweed. Daisy. Rose. Which even in their Latin magniloquence will not be too ter rible, namely,— 1 2 3 4 Stella, Lucia, Alata, Clarissa, — Francesca, Campanula, _ Viola, Persica, Primula. Convoluta, Margarita. Rosa. | 22. I do not care much to assert or debate my reasons for the changes of nomenclature made in this list. The most gratuitous is that of ‘Lucy’ for ‘Gentian,’ because the King of Macedon, from whom the flower has been so long named, was by no means a person deserving of so consecrated memory. I conceive no excuse needed for rejecting Caryophyll, one of the crudest and absurdest words ever coined by unscholarly men of science ; or Papilionaces, which is unendurably long for pease ; and when we are now writing Latin, in a senti- | mental temper, and wish to say that we gathered a daisy, we shall not any more be compelled to write that we apie a ‘ Bellidem perennem,’ or, an ‘Oculum Diei.’ I take the pure Latin form, Margarita, instead of Margar- eta, in memory of Margherita of Cortona, * as well as of the great saint: also the tiny scatterings and sparklings of the daisy on the turf may remind us of the old use of the word ‘Margarite,’ for the minute particles of the Host sprinkled on the patina—“ Has particulas pepidas voeat Huchologium, papyapiras Liturgia Chrysostomi.” + My young German readers will, I hope, call the flower Gretschen,—unless they would up- root the daisies of the Rhine, lest French girls should also * See Miss Yonge’s exhaustive account of the Name, ‘History of Christian Names,’ vol. _i., p. 265. + (Du Cange.) The word. Margarete’ is given as heraldic English for pearl, by Lady Juliana Berners, in the book of St. Albans. 4 THE STEM. 103 ¢ count th eir ir love-lots by the Marguerite. I must be so ungra- cious” my fair young readers, however, as to warn them that this trial of their lovers is a very favourable one, for, in nine blossoms out of ten, the leaves of the Marguerite are odd, so that, if they are only gracious enough to begin with the supposition that he loves them, they must needs end in the conviction of it. 23. Tam concerned, however, for the present, only with my first or golden order, of which the Roof-foil, or house-leek, is called in present botany, Sedum, ‘the squatter,’ because of its way of fastening itself down on stones, or roof, as close as it ae But I think this.an ungraceful notion of its behaviour ; and as its blossoms are, of all flowers, the most sharply and distinctly star-shaped, I shall call it ‘ Stella’ (providing other- wise, in due time, for the poor little chickweeds ;) and the common stonecrop will therefore be ‘ Stella domestica.’ “The second tribe, (at present saxifraga,) growing for the most part wild on rocks, may, I trust, even in Protestant bot- any, be named Francesca, after St. Francis of Assisi ; not only for its modesty, and love of mountain ground, and poverty of colour and leaf ; but also because the chief element of its dec- oration, seen close, will be found in its spots, or stigmata. ‘In the nomenclature of the third order I make no change. 24. Now all this group of golden-blossoming plants agree in general character of having a rich cluster of radical leaves, from which they throw up a single stalk bearing clustered blossoms ; for which stalk, when éntirely leafless, I intend al- ways to keep the term ‘ virgula,’ the ‘little rod ’"—not painfully caring about it, but being able thus to define it with precision, if required. And these are connected with the stems of branch- _ ing shrubs through infinite varieties of structure, in which the _ first steps of transition are made by carrying the cluster of radical leaves up, and letting them expire gradually from the rising stem: the changes of form in the leaves as they rise _ higher from the ground being one of quite the most interest- _ _ ing specific studies in every plant. I had set myself once, in a 2 bye-study for foreground drawing, hard on this point ; and a began, with Mr. Burgess, a complete analysis of the foliation 104 PROSERPINA. of annual stems ; of which Line-studies IL, TIT, and IV. are ex- amples ; nodneed copies, all, from the heautifal Flora Danica. But after giving two whole lovely long summer days, under the Giesbach, to the blue scabious, (‘ Devil's bit,’) and getting in that time, only half-way up it, I gave in; and must leave the work to happier and younger souls. 25. For these flowering stems, therefore, possessing nearly all the complex organization of a tree, but not its permanence, we will keep the word ‘virga ;’ and ‘ virgula’ for those that have no leaves. I believe, when we come to the study of leaf- order, it will be best to begin with these annual virge, in which the leaf has nothing to do with preparation for a next year’s branch. And now the remaining terms commonly ap- plied to stems may be for the most part dispensed with ; but several are interesting, and must be examined before dis- missal. 26. Indeed, in the first place, the word we have to use so often, ‘stalk,’ has not been got to the roots of, yet. It comes from the Greek oréAexos, (stelechos,) the ‘holding part’ of a tree, that which is like a handle to all its branches ; ‘ stock’ is another form in which it has come down to us: with some notion of its being the mother of branches: thus, when Athe- na’s olive was burnt by the Persians, two days after, a shoot a cubit long had sprung from the ‘ stelechos,’ of it. 27. Secondly. Few words are more interesting to the mod- ern scholarly and professorial mind than ‘stipend.’ (I have twice a year at present to consider whether I am worth mine, sent with compliments from the Curators of the University chest).—Now, this word comes from ‘stips,’ small pay, which itself comes from ‘stipo,’ to press together, with the idea of small coin heaped up in little towers or piles. But with the idea of lateral pressing together, instead of downward, we get ‘stipes,’ a solid log; in Greek, with the same sense, orvros, (stupos,) whence, gradually, with help from another word meaning to beat, (and a side-glance at beating of hemp,) we — get our ‘stupid,’ the German stumph, the Scottish sumph, and the plain English ‘stump.’ Refining on the more delicate sound of stipes, the Latins q THE STEM. 105 got ‘stipula,’ the thin stem of straw : which rustles and rip- ples daintily in verse, associated with spica and spiculum, used _of the sharp pointed ear of corn, and its fine pfocesses of fairy shafts. — } | q 28. There are yet two more names of stalk to be studied, _ though, except for particular plants, not needing to be used, : —namely, the Latin cau-dex, and cau-lis, both connected with the Greek kavdds, properly meaning a solid stalk like a handle, passing into the sense of the hilt of a sword, or quill -of apen. Then, in Latin, caudex passes into the sense of log, and ‘0, of cut plank or tablet of wood; thus finally be- _ coming the classical ‘codex’ of writings engraved on such wooden tablets, and therefore generally used for authoritative ‘manuscripts. __. Lastly, ‘ caulis,’ retained accurately i in our cauliflower, con- ; tracted in ‘colewort,’ and refined in ‘ kail,’ softens itself into , _the French ‘chou,’,meaning properly the whole family of _ thick-stalked eatable salads with spreading heads ; but these _ being distinguished explicitly by Pliny as ‘Capitati,’ ‘ salads _ with a head,’ or ‘Captain salads,’ the medieval French soft- _ _ened the ‘caulis capitatus’ into ‘chou cabus ;’—or, to sepa- _ rate the round or apple-like mass of leaves from the flowery ny foam, ‘cabus’ simply, by us at last enriched and emphasized ~ into ‘cabbage.’ _ 29. I believe we have now got through the stiffest piece of _ _ etymology we shall have to master in the course of our botany ; _ but Iam certain that young readers will find patient work, in this kind, well rewarded by the groups of connected __ thoughts which will thus attach themselves to familiar names; and their grasp of every language they learn must only be esteemed by them secure when they recognize its deriva- tives in these homely associations, and are as much at ease __ with the Latin or French syllables of a word as with the Eng- lish ones; this familiarity being above all things needful to cure our young students of their present ludicrous. impres- sion that what is simple, in English, is knowing, in Greek ; and that terms constructed out "ot a’ dead language will ex- 2 plain difficulties which remained insoluble in a living one ed « 7 RTP ETS yaa eo Se eR Se x ‘: uae 106 PROSERPINA. But Greek is not yet dead : while if we carry our unscholarly nomenclature much further, English soon will be ; and then doubtless botanical gentlemen at Athens will for some time think it fine to describe what we used to call caryopuyanee, as the édAndides. 30. For indeed we are all of us yet but school-boys, clum- sily using alike our lips and brains ; and with all our mastery of instruments and patience of attention, but few have reached, and those dimly, the first level of science,—wonder. For the first instinct of the stem,—unnamed by us yet— unthought of,—the instinct of seeking light, as of the root to seek darkness,—what words can enough speak the wonder of it. Look. Here is the little thing, Line-study V. (A), in its first birth to us: the stem of stems; the one of which we pray that it may bear our daily bread. ‘The seed has fallen in the ground with the springing germ of it downwards ; with heavenly cunning the taught stem curls round, and seeks the never-seen light. Veritable ‘conversion,’ miraculous, called of God. And here is the oat germ, (B)—after the wheat, most vital of divine gifts; and assuredly, in days to “come, fated to grow on many a naked rock in hitherto lifeless lands, over which the glancing sheaves of it will shake shies treasure of innocent gold. And who shall tell us how they grow ; and the fashion’ of their rustling pillars—bent, and again erect, at every breeze, Fluted shaft or clustered pier, how poor of art, beside this grass-shaft—built, first to sustain the food of men, — to be strewn under their feet ! | We must not stay to think of it, yet, or we shall evbais fore ther till harvest has come and gone again. And having our names of stems now determined enough, we must in next chapter try a little to understand the different kinds of them. The following notes, among many kindly sent me on the subject of Scottish Heraldry, seem to be the nod worthy : ; ‘The earliest known mention of the thistle as the national badge of Scotland is in the inventory of the effects of James IIL, who probabl adopted it as an appropriate illustration of the royal motto, In defence. f OUTSIDE AND IN. 107, Toa co on the coins of James IV., Mary, James V., and and on those of James VI. they are for the first ‘tine by the motto, Nemo me impune lacessit. q ‘of thistles appears on the gold bonnet-pieces of James V. b of ootiiie the royal ensigns, as depicted in Sir David Lindsay's armorial register of 1542, are surrounded by a collar formed entirely of with an oval badge attached. _ . = collar, however, was a mere device until the institution, or, as it fue nerally but inaccurately called, the revival, of the order of the pony 4 came VII. (IL. of England), which took place on May 29, a ie WDate-of James IIL.’s reign 1460—1488. biseteew J $7 CHAPTER IX. OUTSIDE AND IN. Ly Tae Mehinkxcy study of methods of growth, given in _ the following chapter, has been many years written, (the greater part soon after the fourth volume of ‘Modern Paint- ers’); and ought now to be rewritten entirely ; but having no time to do this, I leave it with only a word or two of mona. - cation, because some truth and clearness of incipient notion _ will be conveyed by it to young readers, from which I can afterwards lop the errors, and into which I can graft the finer facts, better than if I had a less blunt embryo to begin with. _ 2. A stem, then, broadly speaking, (I had thus began the _ old chapter,) is the channel of communication between the leaf and root; and if the leaf can grow directly from the root there is no stem: so that it is well first to conceive of all _ plants as consisting of leaves and roots only, with the condi- _ tion that each leaf must have its own quite particular root* - somewhere. Let a b c, Fig. 16, be three leaves, each, as you see, with its _ own root, and by no means dependent on other leaves for its - * Recent botanical research makes this statement more than dubitable. _ Nevertheless, on no other supposition can the forms and action of tree- branches, so far as at present known to me, be yet clearly accounted for. 108 PROSERPINA. daily bread ; and let the horizontal line be the surface of the ground. Then the plant has no stem, or an underground one. But if the three leaves rise above the ground, as in Fig. 17, they must reach their roots by elongating their stalks, and this elongation is the stem of the plant. If the outside leaves grow last, and are therefore youngest, the plant is said to grow from the outside. You know that ‘ex’ means out, and that ‘gen’ is the first syllable of Genesis (or creation), there- fore the old botanists, putting an o between the two syllables, called the plants whose outside leaves grew last, Ex-o-gens. If the inside leaf grows last, and is youngest, the plant was said to grow from the inside, and from the Greek Endon, within, called an ‘Endo-gen.’ If these names are persisted in, the c c ee a 2 tat sd b Fie, 16, Fie. 17, Greek botanists, to return the compliment, will of course call Endogens “IvoedBopvides, and Exogens “OvroedBopvides. In the Oxford school, they will be called simply Inlaid and Out- laid. 3. You see that if the outside leaves are to grow last, they may conveniently grow two at atime ; which they accordingly — do, and exogens always start with two little leaves from their roots, and may therefore conveniently be called two-leaved ; which, if you please, we will for our parts call them. The ~ botanists call them ‘ two-suckered,’ and can't be content to call them that in English ; but drag in a long Greek word, mean- ing the fleshy sucker of the sea-devil,—‘ cotyledon,’ which, however, I find is practically getting shortened into ‘cot,’ and that they will have to end by calling endogens, monocots, and P Eee Se - 2 ve : OUTSIDE AND IN. 109 exogens, bicots. I mean steadily to call them one-leaved and two-leaved, for this further reason, that they differ not merely in the single or dual springing of first leaves from the seed ; but in the distinctly single or dual ar- rangement of leaves afterwards on the stem ; so that, through all the complexity obtained by alternate and spiral placing, every bicot or two-leaved flower or tree is in reality composed of dual groups of leaves, sep- arated by a given length of stem ; as, most charac- teristically in this pure mountain type of the Ragged Robin (Clarissa laciniosa), Fig. 18 ; and compare A, and B, Lines-tudy I.; while, on the other hand, the monocot plants are by close analysis, I think, always resolvable into successively climbing leaves, sessile on one another, and sending their roots, or processes, for nourishment, down through one another, as in Fig. 19. 4. Not that I am yet clear, at all, my- self ; but I do think it’s more the botan- ists’ fault than mine, what ‘ cotyledonous’ structure there may be at the outer base of each successive bud ; and still less, how the intervenient length of stem, in the ‘'* bicots, is related to their power, or law, of branching. For not only the two-leaved tree is outlaid, and the one-leaved inlaid, but the two-leaved tree is branched, and the one-leaved tree is not branched. This is a most vital and important distinction, which I state to you in very bold terms, for though there are some apparent exceptions to the law, there are, I believe, no real ones, if we define a branch rightly. Thus, the head of a palm tree is merely a cluster of large leaves ; and the spike of a grass, a clustered blossom. The stem, in both, is unbranched ; and we should be able in this respect to classify plants very simply in- Fic. 18. deed, but for a provoking species of intermediate creatures whose branching is always in the manner of corals, or sponges, or arborescent minerals, irregular and accidental, 110 _ PROSERPINA, and essentially, therefore, distinguished from the systematic anatomy of a truly branched tree. Of these presently; we must go on by very short steps: and I find no step can be taken without check from existing generalizations. Sowerby’s definition of Monocotyledons, in his ninth volume, begins thus: “Herbs, (or rarely, and only in exotic genera,) trees, in which the wood, pith, and bark are indistinguishable.” Nowif there be one plant more than another in which the pith is defined, it isthe common Rush ; while the nobler families of true herbs derive their principal character from being pithless altogether ! We cannot advance too slowly. 5. In the families of one-leaved plants in which the young leaves grow directly out of the old ones, it be- comes a grave question for them whether the old ones are to lie flat or edgeways, and whether they must therefore grow out of their faces or their edges. And we must at once understand the way they contrive it, in either case. " Among the many forms taken by the Arethusan leaf, one of the commonest is long and gradually tapering,—much broader at the "has than the point. We will take such an one for examination, and suppose that it is growing on the ground as in Fig. 20, with a root to its every fibre. Cut out a piece of strong paper roughly into the shape of this Arethusan leaf, a, Fig. 21. Now suppose the next young leaf has to spring out of the front of this one, at about the middle of its height. Give it two nicks with the scissors at b b; then / roll up the lower part into a cylinder, (it will Fis, 20. overlap a good deal at the bottom,) and tie it fast with a fine thread : so, you will get the form at ce. Then bend the top of it back, so that, seen sideways, it appears as at d, and you see you have made quite a little flower-pot to plant your new leaf in, and perhaps it may occur to you 1 that you have seen something like this before. Now make another, # little less wide, but with the part for the cylinder twice as long, roll it up in the same way, and slin it inside the other, Ae Danny Rs MN KE REY ite ee OUTSIDE AND IN. 111 with the flat part turned the other way, e. Surely this re- minds you now of something you have seen? Or must I draw the something (Fig. 22) ? 6. All grasses are thus constructed, and have their leaves set thus, opposite, on the sides of their tubular stems, alter- nately, as they ascend. But in most of them there is also a peculiar construction, by which, at the base of the sheath, or enclosing tube, each leaf articulates itself with the rest of the stem at a ringed knot, or joint. Reed td a c da a Fre. 21. Before examining these, remember there are mainly two sorts of joints in the framework of the bodies of animals. One is that in which the bone is thick at the joints and thin between them, (see the bone of the next chicken leg you eat), | the other is that of animals that have shells or horny coats, in | which characteristically the shell is thin at the joints, and thick between them (look at the next lobster’s claw you can see, without eating). You know, also, that though the crus- 4 taceous are titled only from their crusts, the name ‘insect* 112 PROSERPINA. is given to the whole insect tribe, because they are farther jointed almost into sections: it is easily remembered, ; sO, that the projecting joint means strength and elasticity i in the creature, and that all its limbs are useful to it, and. cannot conveniently be parted with; and that the incised, sectional, or insectile joint means more or less weakness,* and necklace-like laxity or license in the creature’s make ; and an ignoble power of shaking off its legs or arms on occasion, coupled also with modes of growth involving occasionally quite astonishing transformations, and beginnings of new life under new circumstances ; so that, until very lately, no mortal knew what a crab was like in its youth, the very €xistence of the creature, as well as its legs, being jointed, as it were, and made i separate pieces with the narrowest possible thread of con- nection between them; and its principal, or stomachic, period of life, connected with its senti- mental period by as thin a thread as a or stomach is with its thorax. 7. Now in plants, as in animals, there are just the same opposed aspects of joint, with this special- ty of difference in function, that the animal’s limb bends at the joints, but the vegetable limb 1G TR And when the articulation projects, as in the of a cane, it means not only that the stren ‘al the plant is well carried through the junction, but is carried farther and more safely than it could be without it : a cane isstronger, and can stand higher than it could otherwise, because of its joints. Also, this structure implies that the plant has a will of its own, and a position which on the whole it will keep, how- ever it may now and then be bent out of it ; and that it has a — continual battle, of a healthy and humanlike kind, to wage with surrounding elements. Fia, 22. * Not always in muscular power ; but the framework on which strong muscles are to act, as that of an insect’s wing, or its jaw, is mever in- sectile, =" . OUTSIDE AND IN. 113 - But the crabby, or insect-like, joint, which you get in sea- _ weeds and cacti, means either that the plant is to be dragged _ and wagged here and there at the will of waves, and to have no spring nor mind of its own ; or else that it has at least no springy intention and elasticity of purpose, but only a knobby, knotty, prickly, malignant stubbornness, and incoherent opin- iativeness ; crawling about, and coggling, and grovelling, and | aggregating anyhow, like the minds of so many people whom eeaiknors | _ 8. Returning then to our grasses, in which the real rooting © and junction of the leaves with each othér is at these joints ; _ we find that therefore every leaf of grass may be thought of as consisting of two main parts, for which we shall want two separate names. ‘The lowest part, which wraps itself round _ to become strong, we will call the ‘staff,’ and for the free- floating outer part we will take specially the name given at present carelessly to a large number of the plants themselves, ‘flag.’ This will give a more clear meaning to the words ‘rod’ (virga), and ‘staff’ (baculus), when they occur together, as in the 23rd Psalm ; and remember the distinction is that a rod bends like a switch, but a staff is stiff I keep the well- known name ‘blade’ for grass-leaves in their fresh green state. 9. You felt, as you were bending down the paper into the form d, Fig. 21, the difficulty and awkwardness of the transi- tion from the tubular form of the staff to the flat one of the flag. The mode in which this change is effected is one of the most interesting features in plants, for you will find presently that the leaf-stalk in ordinary leaves is only a means of accom- _ plishing the same change from round to flat. But you know I said just now that some leaves were not flat, but set upright, edgeways. It is not a common position in two-leaved trees; Jutif you can run out and look at an arbor vite, it may interest _ you to see its hatchet-shaped vertically crested cluster of _ leaves transforming themselves gradually downwards into _ branches ; and in one-leaved trees the vertically edged group is of great importance. _ 10. Cut cut another piece of paper like a in Fig. 21, but e. Jeera PROSERPINA. now, Sictaaa of merely giving it nicks at a, b, cut it into the shape A, Fig. 23. Roll the lower part up as before, but in- stead of pilliig the upper part down, pinch its back at the jotted line, and bring the two. points, a and b, forward, so ‘hat they may touch each other. B shows the look of the thing half-done, before the points a and b have quite met. Pinch them close, and stitch the two edges neatly together, all the way from a to the point c; then roll and tie up the lower part as before. You will find then that the back or spinal line of the whole leaf is bent forward, as at B. Now go out to the garden and gather the green leaf of a fleur-de- lys, and look at it and your piece of disciplined paper together; and I fancy you will probably find out several things for yourself that I want you to know. 11. You see, for one thing, at once, how strong the fleur-de-lys leaf is, and that it is just twice as strong as 4 blade of grass, for it is the substance of the staff, with its sides flattened A B together, while the grass blade is a “— staff cut open and flattened out. And you see that as a grass blade necessarily flaps down, the fleur- de-lys leaf as necessarily curves up, owing to that: inevitable — bend in its back. And you see, with its keen edge, and long — curve, and sharp point, how like a sword it is. The botanists © would for once have given a really good and right name to the — plants which have this kind of leaf, ‘Ensate,’ from the Latin ‘ensis,’ a sword ; if only sata had been properly formed from sis. We can’t let the rude Latin stand, but you may remem- ber that the fleur-de-lys, which is the flower of chivalry, has a sword for its leaf, and a lily for its heart. 12. In case you cannot gather a fleur-de-lys leaf, I 1th drawn for you, in Plate VL, a cluster of such leaves, which are ‘as pretty as any, and so small that, missing the points of a ¢c OUTSIDE AND IN. ~~ he _ few, I can draw them of their actual size. You see the pretty _ alternate interlacing at the bottom, and if you can draw at all, and will try to outline their curves, you will find what subtle _ lines they are. I did not know this name for the strong- edged grass leaves when I wrote the pieces about shield and __ sword leaves in ‘Modern Painters’; I wish I had chanced in _ those passages on some other similitude, but I can’t alter _ them now, and my trustful pupils may avoid all confusion of . thought by putting gladius for ensis, and translating it by _ the word ‘scymitar,’ which is also more accurate in expressing _ the curvature blade. So we will call the ensate, instead, _. €gladiolee,’ translating, ‘seymitar-grasses,’ And haying now got at some clear idea of the distinction between outlaid and inlaid growth in the stem, the reader will find the elementary analy- sis of forms resulting from outlaid growth in ‘ Modern Paint- ers’ ; and I mean to republish it in the sequel of this book, _ but must go on to other matters here. The growth of the inlaid stem we will follow as far as we need, for English planta, in dion the grasses. FLORENCE, 11th September, 1874. “hs I correct this chapter for press, I find it is too imperfect _ to be let go without a word or two more. In the first place, I have not enough, in distinguishing the nature of the living _ yearly shoot, with its cluster of fresh leafage, from that of the _ accumulated mass of perennial trees, taken notice of the _ similar power even of the anuual shoot, to obtain some man- __ ner of. immortality for itself, or at least of usefulness, after _ death, A Tuscan woman stopped me on the path up to Fie- - sole last night, to beg me to buy her plaited straw. I wonder _ how long straw lasts, if one takes care of it? A Leghorn bonnet, (if now such things are,) carefully put away,—even _ properly taken care of when it is worn, —how long will it last, young ladies ? | Ihave just been reading the fifth chapter of II. Esdras, and a m fain to say, with less discomfort than otherwise I might have felt, (the example being set me by the archangel Uriel, ) _ “Iam not sent to tell thee, for I do not know.” How old is 116 PROSERPINA. | the oldest straw known? the oldest linen? the oldest hemp ? We have mummy wheat,—cloth of papyrus, which is a kind of straw. The paper reeds by the brooks, the flax-flower in the field, leave such imperishable frame behind them. And Ponte-della-Paglia, in Venice ; and Straw Street, of Paris, re- membered in Heaven,—there is no occasion to change their names, as one may have to change ‘ Waterloo Bridge,’ or the ‘Rue de l’Impératrice.’ Poor Empress! Had she but known that her true dominion was in the straw streets of her fields; not in the stone streets of her cities ! But think how wonderful this imperishableness of the stem of many plants is, even in their annual work : how much more in their perennial work! The noble stability between death and life, of a piece of perfect wood? It cannot grow, but will not decay ; keeps record of its years of life, but surren- ders them to become a constantly serviceable thing: which may be sailed in, on the sea, built with, on the land, carved by Donatello, painted on by Fra Angelico. And it is not the wood’s fault, but the fault of Florence in not taking proper care of it, that the panel of Sandro Botticelli’s loveliest pict- ure has cracked, (not with heat, I believe, but blighting frost), a quarter of an inch wide through the Madonna’s face. But what is this strange state of undecaying wood? What sort of latent life has it, which it only finally parts with when it rots ? Nay, what is the law by which its natural life is measured? — What makes a tree ‘old’? One sees the Spanish-chestnut trunks among the Apennines growing into caves, instead of logs. Vast hollows, confused among the recessed darknesses of the marble crags, surrounded by meré laths of living stem, each with its coronal of glorious green leaves. "Why can’t the tree go on, and on,—hollowing itself into a Fairy—no—a Dryad, Ring,—till it becomes a perfect Stonehenge of a tree? Truly “Iam not sent to tell thee, for I do not know.” ‘ The worst of it is, however, that I don’t know one thing which I ought very thoroughly to have known at least a . years ago, namely, the true difference in the way of buildi the trunk in outlaid and inlaid wood. TI have an idea that OUTSIDE AND IN. 117 ten ‘of a palm- Beak only a heap of leaf-roots built up like a tov wer of bricks, year by year, and that the palm-tree really grows on the top of it, like a bunch of fern; but I've no books here, and no time to read them if I had. If only I were a stronge giant, instead of a thin old gentleman of fifty-five, how I should like to pull up one of those little palm-trees by the roots—(by the way, what are the roots of a palm like? and, how does it stand in sand, where it is wanted to stand, mostly ? Fancy, not knowing that, at fifty-five !)—that, grow all along the Riviera ; and snap its stem in two, and cut it down the middle. But I suppose there are sections enough now in our grand botanical collections, and you can find it all out for yourself. That you should be able to ask a question clearly, i is two-thirds of the way to getting it answered ; and I think this chapter of mine will at least enable you to ask some questions about the stem, though what a stem is, truly, “T am not sent to tell thee, for I do not know.” ee ee ee Te a ee . eee rere) — | ~~ KNARESBOROUGH, 30th April, 1876. * ‘Isee ‘by the date of last paragraph that this chapter has been in my good Aylesbury printer’s type for more than a year and a half. At this rate, Proserpina has a distant chance of being finished in the spirit-land, with more accurate infor- mation derived from the archangel Uriel himself, (not that he is likely to know much about the matter, if he keeps on let- ting himself be prevented from ever seeing foliage in spring- _ time by the black demon-winds,) about the year 2000. In the _ meantime, feeling that perhaps I am sent to tell my readers a _ little more than is above told, I have had recourse to my bo- _ tanical friend, good Mr. Oliver of Kew, who has taught me, first, of palms, that they actually stitch themselves into the _ ground, with a long dipping loop, up and down, of the root _ fibres, concerning which sempstress work I shall have a _ month’s puzzlement before I can report on it; secondly, that ' all the increment of tree stem is, by division and multiplica- tion of the cells of the wood, a process not in the least to be | described as ‘ sending down roots from the leaf to the ground.’ | Isuspected as much in beginning to revise this chapter ; but PR EO hip CEE OLMEDO BIR SS Sk SOS Sk rr ak. ae 1. Ae Jute = ’ a ¢ ie = 2, ae 'e. Oh fal ey > | : . Ret). ue Oe 118 | PROSERPLNA, hold to my judgment i in not cancelling it. For this multipli- cation of the cells is at least compelled by an influence which passes from the leaf to the ground, and vice versa ; and which is at present best conceivable to me by imagining the contin- ual and invisible descent of lightning from electric cloud by a conducting rod, endowed. with the power of softly splitting the rod into two rods, each as thick as the original one. Studying microscopically, we should then see the molecules of copper, as we see the cells of the wood, dividing and in- creasing, each one of them into two. But the visible result, and mechanical conditions of growth, would still be the same as if the leaf actually sent down a new root fibre ; and, more than this, the currents of accumulating substance, marked by the grain of the wood, are, I think, quite plainly and abso- lutely those of streams flowing only from the leaves down- wards ; never from the root up, nor of mere lateral increase. ll look over all my drawings again, and at tree stems again, with more separate study of the bark and pith in those museum sections, before I can assert this ; but there will be no real difficulty in the investigation. If the increase of the wood is lateral only, the currents round the knots will be compressed at the sides, and open above and below; but if downwards, compressed above the knot and open below ih The nature of the force itself, and the manner of its ordi- nances in direction, remain, and must for ever remain, inscru-— table as our own passions, in the hand of the God of all Spirits, and of all Flesh. “* Drunk is each ridge, of thy cup drinking, Each clod relenteth at thy dressing, Thy cloud-borne waters inly sinking, fod Fair spring sproutes forth, blest with thy blessing; The fertile year is with thy bounty crouned, j And where thou go’st, thy goings fat the ground, Plenty bedews the desert places, A hedge of mirth the hills encloseth, The fields with flockes have hid their faces, A robe of corn the valleys clotheth. Deserts and hills and fields and valleys all, Rejoice, shout, sing, aud on thy name do call.” ting ithe Qguihict lier: boetiwiteer ty: Eas gi we eae tise Shiek 5 CHAPTER X. THE BARK. 8 are continually collecting instances, like our oss critic of Virgil, of the beauty of finished the origin of unfinished, in the imitation of nat- ~ But such collections give an entirely false idea wer of language, unless they are balanced by an st of the words which signally fail of any such imi- 2, and whose sound, if one dwelt upon it, is de- f their meaning. . Bhinesid ace. Few sounds are more distinct in their “ino i, or one ,would think more likely to be vocally reproduced 2 wor poles Ren St them, than that of a swift rent in strong en cloth ; and the English words ‘rag’ and rag- re mie he Greek / puyveps, do indeed i in a measure recall the ormentin, ng effect, upon the ear. But it is curious that the his meant to express the actual origination of rags, hyn me with two words entirely musica! and peaceful— deed, which I always reserve for final resource in pas whic 4 want to be soothing as well as pretty,—‘ fair,’ ;’ while, i in its orthography, it is identical with the representing the bodily sign of tenderest passion, and 8 srouped with a multitude of others. * 3 in which the mere inser- or n of a consonant makes such wide difference of sentiment etween ‘dear’ and ‘drear,’ or ‘pear’ and ‘spear.’ The - td < root, on the other hand, has persisted in retaining some ves stige of. its excellent dissonance, even where it has Danka 1 the last vestige of the idea it was meant to convey; and when 1 Burns did his best,—and his best. was above most men’s ‘ * It is one of the three cadences, (the others being of the words rhym- g to ‘mind’ and ‘ way,’) used by Sir Philip Sidney in his marvellous aphrase of the 55th Psalm. 120 PROSERPINA. —to gather pleasant liquid and labial syllabling, round gen- tle meaning, in ** Bonnie lassie, will ye go, Will ye go, will ye go, Bonnie lassie, will ye go, To the birks of Aberfeldy ?” he certainly had little thought that the delicately crisp final k, in birk, was the remnant of a magnificent Greek effort to ex- press the rending of the earth by earthquake, in the wars of the giants. In the middle of that word ‘esmaragése,’ we get our own beggar’s ‘rag’ for a pure root, which afterwards, through — the Latin frango, softens into our ‘ break,’ and ‘ bark,’ —the ‘broken thing’; that idea of its rending around the tree’s — _ stem having been, in the very earliest human efforts at botani- cal description, attached to it by the pure Aryan race, watch- — ing the strips of rosy satin break from the birch stems, in the . Aberfeldys of Tmaus. 3. That this tree should have been the only one which ‘‘the Aryans, coming as conquerors from the North, were able to recognize in Hindostan,” * and should therefore also be “ the oily one whose name is common to Sanskrit, and to the lan- guages of Europe,” delighted me greatly, for two reasons: the — first, for its proof that in spite of the development of species, . the sweet gleaming of birch stem has never changed its argent and sable for any unchequered heraldry ; and the second, that it gave proof of aamuch more important fact, the keenly accu- rate observation of Aryan foresters at that early date; for the fact is that the breaking of the thin-beaten silver of the birch — trunk is so delicate, and its smoothness so graceful, that until” I painted it with care, I was not altogether clear-headed my- 3 self about the way in which the chequering was done: nor — until Fors to-day brought me to the house of one of my father’s friends at Carshalton, and gave me three birch stems to look at just outside the window, did T perceive it to be a primal — question about them, what it is that blanches that dainty — * Lectures on the Families of Speech, by the Rev, F. Farrer, Long — man, 1870. Page 81. i | THE BARK. ee of theirs, or, anticipatorily, weaves. What difference is _ between the making of the corky excrescence of other and of this almost transparent fine white linen? I per- hat the older it is, within limits, the finer and whiter ; hoary tissue, instead of hoary hair—honouring the tree’s aged Fhod; ‘the outer sprays have no silvery light on their youth. Does the membrane thin itself into whiteness merely by , or produce an outer film of new substance ? * ; nd secondly, this investiture, why is it transverse to the trun ‘—swathing it, as it were, in bands? Above all,—when it bre why does it break round the tree instead of down? A Mother bark breaks as anything would, naturally, round a . ‘rod, but this, as if the stem were growing longer; ’ — fsdotal it reaches farthest heroic old age, when the ag oN away again, and the rending is like that of other trees, downwards. So that, as it were in a changing ng a age, we have the great botanical fact twice taught us, by y ‘tree of Eden, that the skins of trees differ from the skins a the higher animals in that, for the most part, they won't etch, and must be worn torn. So that in fact the most popular arrangement of vegetative 3 ( ult: costume is Irish ; a normal investiture in honourable ; and doclibnthess of tattering, as of a banner borne in slendid ruin through storms of war. 5. Now therefore, if we think of it, we have five distinct orders of investiture for organic creatures ; first, mere secre- tion of mineral substance, chiefly lime, into a hard shell, which, if broken, can only be mended, like china—by stick- ing it together ; secondly, organic substance of armour which ‘grows into its proper shape at once for good and all, and can’t be mended at ali, if broken, (as of insects) ; thirdly, organic ubstance of skin, which stretches, as the creature grows, by ucking, over a fresh skin which is supplied beneath it, as in of trees ; fourthly, organic substance of skin cracked mmetrically into plates or scales which can increase all . ‘* I only profess, you will please to observe, to ask questions in Pro- serpina. Never to answer any. But of course this chapter is to intro- duce some further inquiry in another place. 198 ate PROSERPINA. | iad their edges, and are connected by softer pide Delon as in fish and reptiles, (divided with exquisite lustre and flexi- bility, in feathers of birds); and lastly, true elastic skin, ex- tended in soft unison with the creature’s growth,—blushing with its blood, fading withits fear; breathing with its breath, and guarding its life with sentinel beneficence-of pain. | 6. It is notable, in this higher and lower range of organic beauty, that the decoration, by pattern and colour, which is almost universal in the protective coverings of the middle ranks of animals, should be reserved in vegetables for the most living part of them, the flower only: and that among animals, few but the malignant and senseless are permitted, in the corrugation of their armour, to resemble the half-dead trunk of the tree, as they float beside it in the tropical river. I must, however, leave the scale patterns of the palms and other inlaid tropical stems for after-examination,—eontent, at present, with the general idea of the bark of an outlaid tree as the successive accumulation of the annual protecting film, rent into ravines of slowly increasing depth, and coloured, like the rock, whose stability it begins to emulate, - hee grey or gold of clinging lichen and WERE er ‘moss. sai | Vio CHAPTER XL GENEALOGY. 1. Rerurnina, after more than a year’s sorrowful inter to my Sicilian fields,—not incognisant, now, of some of t darker realms of Proserpina ; and with feebler heart, and, i may be, feebler wits, for wandering in her brighter ones,— I find what I had written by way of sequel to the last. cha somewhat difficult, and extremely tiresome. Not the after giving fair notice of the difficulty, and asking due p for the tiresomeness, I am minded to let it stand; to end, with it, once for all, investigations of the kind. B in finishing this first volume of my School Botany, I must. to give the reader some notion of the plan of the book, asi PLATE VI,—RADICAL INSERTION OF LEAVES OF ENSATZ. Tris GERMANICA. iy ttertime for thinking over it which illness left ; arranged in my mind, within limits of pos~ Siow tqaaanton And this the rather, because I wish also to state, somewhat more gravely than I have yet done, the uw n which I venture here to reject many of the re- cei tiames of plants ; and to substitute others for them, re« lating to entirely different attributes from those on which eked nomenclature is confusedly edified. 4 teat some measure given the reasons for this eh ;* but I feel that, for the sake of those among my scho rho have laboriously learned the accepted names, I ought now also to explain its method more completely. i 4 Teall the present system of nomenclature confusedly edi- fied, because it introduces,—without, apparently, any con- péhottsaries a the inconsistency, and certainly with no apology - s founded sometimes on the history of plants, sometimes 0 on their qualities, sometimes on their forms, some- ee and sometimes on their poetical as- Om thir Mistry ‘Gentian’ from King Gentius, and a from Dr. Funk. 4 ‘On their qualities—as ‘ Scrophularia’ from its (quite uncer- tified) use in scrofula. On their forms—as the ‘ Caryophylls’ from having petals like husks of nuts. : 7 On their products—as ‘Cocos nucifera’ from its nuts. _ And on their poetical associations,—as the Star of Bethle- hem from its imagined resemblance to the light of that seen 3. Now, this variety of grounds for nomenclature might iently, and even with advantage, be permitted, provided the grounds themselves were separately firm, and the inconsis- ney of method advisedly allowed, and, in each case, justi- ied. If the histories of King Gentius and Dr. Funk are leec ee. branches of human knowledge ;—if the phu! e do indeed cure King’s Evil ;—if pinks be t described in their likeness to nuts ;—and the Star of en i * See Introduction, pp. 9-12. ee es Ot 124 PROSERPINA, Bethlehem verily remind us of Christ’s Nativity,—by all means let these and other such names be evermore retained. But if Dr. Funk be not a person in any special manner need- ing either stellification or florifieation ; if neither herb nor flower can avail, more than the touch of monarchs, against hereditary pain ; if it be no better account of a pink to say it is nut-leaved, than of a nut to say it is pink-leaved ; and if the modern mind, incurious respecting the journeys of wise men, has already confused, in its Bradshaw’s Bible, the station of Bethlehem with that of Bethel,* it is certainly time to take some order with the partly false, partly useless, and partly for-_ gotten literature of the Fields ; and, before we bow our chil- dren’s memories to.the nandea, of it, ensure that there shell be matter worth carriage in the load. | 4, And farther, in attempting such a change, we pene, bas clear in our own minds whether we wish our nomenclature to tell us something about the plant itself, or only to tell us the place it holds in relation to other plants: as, for instance, in the Herb-Robert, would it be well to christen it, shortly, ‘Rob Roy,’ because it is pre-eminently red, and so have done with it ;—or rather to dwell on its family connections, and oat it ‘ Macgregoraceous ’? ; 5. Before we can wisely decide this point, we must renohadl whether our botany is intended mainly to be useful to the vulgar, or satisfactory to the scientific élite. For if we give names characterizing individuals, the circle of plants which any country possesses may be easily made kriown to the chil- dren who live in it: but if we give names founded on the connexion between these and others at the Antipodes, parish school-master will certainly have double work ; and it may be doubted greatly whether the parish schpol-boy, at end of the lecture, will have half as many ideas. r 6. Nevertheless, when the features of any great order plants are constant, and, on the whole, represented with gr clearness both in cold and warm climates, it may be desira to express this their citizenship of the world in definite clature. But my own method, so far as hitherto develo * See Sowerby’s nomenclature of the flower, vol. ix., plate 1703. — PURPLE WREATH-WoRT. PLATE VII.—ContTortTA PURPUREA. pas | 2 yin fastening the thoughts | of the pupil on the special character of the plant, in the place where he is likely to see it ; and therefore, in expressing the power - of its race and order in the wider world, rather by refer- ence to ce associations than to botanical struct- E wibeatwins fi ered | eae ieiant ned, Plate VI. represents, of its real size, an or- _ dinary spring flower in our English mountain fields. It is an 3 average example,—not one of rare size under rare conditions, _ —rather smaller than the average, indeed, that I might get it well into my plate. It is one of the flowers whose: names I think good to change ; but I look carefully through the exist- ing titles belonging to it and its fellows, that I may keep all _ I expediently can. I find, in the first place, that Linnzus called one group of its relations, Ophryds, from Ophrys,— 3 Greek for the eyebrow,—on account of their resemblance to _ the brow ofan animal frowning, or to the overshadowing - easque of a helmet. I perceive this to be really a very general _ aspect of the flower ; and therefore, no less than in respect to -Linneus, I adopt this for the total name of the order, and call them ‘ Ophrydz,’ or, shortly, ‘Ophryds.’ _. 8. Secondly: so far as I know these flowers myself, I per- _ ceive them to fall practically into three divisions,—one, grow- - ing in English meadows and Alpine pastures, and always add- ‘ing to their beauty ; another, growing in all sorts of places, very ugly itself, and adding to the ugliness of its indiscrimi- _ nated haunts; and a third, growing mostly up in the air, with as little root as possible, and of gracefully fantastic forms, such as thiskind of nativity and habitation might presuppose. For the present, I am satisfied to give names to these three groups only. There may be plenty of others which I do not _know, and which other people may name, according to their Knowledge. But in all these three kinds known to me, I per- -¢eive one constant characteristic to be some manner of distor- tion ; and I desire that fact,—marking aspiritual (in my sense of the word) character of extreme mystery,—to be the first enforced on the mind of the young learner. It isexhibited to English child, primarily, in the form of the stalk of each 1296 PROSERPINA. flower, attaching it to the central virga. This stall: is always twisted once and a half round, as if somebody had been try- ing to wring the blossom off; and the name of the family, i Proserpina, will therefore be ‘Contorta’* in oe we ‘ Wreathe-wort’ in English. Farther: the beautiful power of the one I have incu in its spring life, is in the opposition of its dark purple to the primrose in England, and the pale yellow anemone in the Alps. And its individual name will be, therefore, ier as: purpurea ’— Purple Wreathe-wort. Aud in drawing it, I take care to dwell on this siiaiana of its colour, and to | shin thoroughly that it is a dark blossom, f before I trouble myself about its minor characters, 9. The second group of this kind of flowers live; as I said, in all sorts of places; but mostly, I think, in disagreeable ones,—torn and irregular ground, under alternations of wn- wholesome heat and shade, and among swarms of nasty in- sects. I cannot yet venture on any bold general statement about them, but I think that is mostly their way; and at all events, they themselves are in the habit of dressing in livid and unpleasant colours; and are distinguished from all other flowers by twisting, not only their stalks, but one of their — petals, not once and a half only, but two or three times round, and putting it far out at the same time, as a foul jester would put out his tongue : while also the singular power of grotesque mimicry, which, though strong also in the other growps of- their race, seems in the others more or less playful, is, ins these, definitely degraded, and, in aspect, malicious. 10. Now I find the Latin name ‘ Satyrium’ attached altendy to one sort of these flowers ; and we cannot possibly have a — better one for all of them. It is true that, in its first Greek form, Dioscorides attaches it to a white, not a livid, flower ; and I dare say there are some white ones of the breed : but, in its full sense, the term is exactly right for the entire he j * Linneus used this term for the oleanders ; but evidently with, lem accuracy than usual. + **tv0n moppuvpoedi” says Dioscorides, of the race generally, but | “ Gv0n 8 dwordppupa ” of this particular one, GENEALOGY. 127 ihmagty Banden of which the characteristic is the spiral curve and protraction of their central petal : and every other form Co ne oe ee Oe ee of Satyric ugliness which I find among the Ophryds, whatever its colour, will be grouped with them. And I make them _ central, because this humour runs through the whole order, and is, indeed, their distinguishing sign. » 11. Then the third group, living actually in the air, and only holding fast by, without nourishing itself from, the ground, rock, or tree-trunk on which it is rooted, may of course most naturally and accurately be called ‘ Aeria,’ as it has long been popularly known in English by the name of Air-plant. . Thus we have one general riame for all these creatures, *Ophryd’; and three family or group names, Contorta, Saty- rium, and Aeria,—every one of these titles containing as much accurate fact about the thing named as I can possibly get packed imto their syllables; and I will trouble my young readers with no more divisions of the order. And if their parents, tutors, or governors, after this fair warning, choose to make them learn, instead, the seventy-seven different names _ with which botanist-heraldries have beautifully ennobled the family,—all I can say is, let them at least begin by learning them themselves. They will be found in due order in pages ; -1084, 1085 of Loudon’s Cyclopzedia.* 12. But now, farther: the student will observe that the siamo of the total order is Greek; while the three family are ones Latin, although the central one is originally Greek I adopt this as far as possible for a law through my whole _ -plant nomenclature. B pats _ *I offer a sample of two dozen for good papas and mammas to begin Angraecum. Corallorrhiza. Ornithidium. Prescotia. Anisopetalum. Cryptarrhena. Ornithocephalus. Renanthera, _.. Brassavola. Eulophia. Platanthera. Rodriguezia. ~ Brassia. Gymnadenia. Pleurothallis. Stenorhyncus. Caelogyne. Microstylis. Pogonia. Trizeuxis. -— Calopogon. Octomeria. Polystachya. Xylobium. 128 PROSERPINA. 13. Farther: the terminations of the Latin family names will be, for the most part, of the masculine, feminine, and neuter forms, us, a, um, with these following attached condi tions. (1.) Those terminating in ‘us,’ though often ot feminine words, as the central Arbor, will indicate either real masculine — strength (quercus, laurus), or conditions of dominant majesty (cedrus), of stubbornness and enduring force (crataegus), or of peasant-like commonalty and hardship (juncus) ; softened, as it may sometimes happen, into Lapeer: and beneficence (thymus). The occasional forms in ‘er’ and ‘il’ wes similar power (acer, basil). (m.) Names with the feminine termination ‘a,’ if they are real names cf girls, will always mean flowers that are perfectly pretty and perfectly good (Lucia, Viola, Margarita, Clarissa). Names terminating in ‘a’ which are not also accepted names of girls, may sometimes be none the less honourable, (Pri- mula, Campanula,) but for the most part will signify either plants that are only good and worthy in a nursy sort of way, (Salvia,) or that are good without being pretty, (Lavandula, ) or pretty without being good, (Kalmia), But no name ter- minating in ‘a’ will be attached to a plant that is velithon good nor pretty. (u1.) The neuter names terminating in ‘ um’ will sdwayhi in- dicate some power either of active or suggestive evil, (Conium. Solanum, Satyrium,) or a relation, more or less definite, to death ; but this relation to death may sometimes be noble, or pathetic,—“ which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, ”—Lilium. But the leading position of these neuters in the plant’s double name must be noticed by students unacquainted with Latin, in order to distinguish them from plural genitives, which will always, of course, be the second word, (Francesca Fontium, Francesca of the Springs.) “4 14. "Names terminating in ‘is’ and ‘e,’ if definitely names — of women, (Iris, Amaryllis, Alcestis, Daphne,) will always — signify flowers of great beauty, and noble historic association. — If not definitely names of women, they will yet indicate GENEALOGY. 129 of sensitiveness, or association with legend . (Barheria, Clematin No neuters in ‘e’ will be admitted. - 15. Participial terminations (Impatiens), with neuters in *en’ (Cyclamen), will always be descriptive of some special quality or form,—leaving it indeterminate if good or bad, | . until explained. It will be manifestly i to limit these neuters, or the feminines in ‘is’ to Latin forms; but we shall always know by their termination that they can- not be generic names, if we are strict in forming these last on a given method. ~ 16. How little method there is in our present formation of thém, I am myself more and more surprised as I consider. A child is shown a rosé, and told that he is to call every flower like that, ‘Rosaceous’;* he is next shown a lily, and told that he is to call every flower like that, ‘ Liliaceous’ ;—so far well; but he is next shown a daisy, and is not at all allowed to call every flower like that ‘Daisaceous,’ but he must call it, _ like the fifth order of architecture, ‘Composite’; and being _ next shown a pink, he is not allowed to call other pinks _ *Pinkaceous,’ but ‘Nut-leafed’; and being next shown a pease-blossom, he is not allowed to call other pease-blos- soms ‘Peasaceous,’ but, in a brilliant burst of botanical imagination, he is incited to call it by two names instead of one, ‘ Butterfly-aceous’ from its flower, and ‘Pod-aceous’ from its seed ;—the inconsistency of the terms thus enforced _ upon him being perfected in their inaccuracy, for a daisy is not one whit more composite than Queen of the meadow, or _ dura Jacinth ;+ and ‘legumen’ is not Latin for a pod, but _ *siliqua,—so that no good scholar could remember Virgil's _ *siliqua quassante legumen,’ without overthrowing all his Pisan nomenclature. - 17. Farther. If we ground our names of the higher orders on the distinctive characters of form in plants, these are so many, and so subtle, that we are at once involved in more -inyestigations than a young learner has ever time to follow successfully, and they must be at all times liable to disloca- * Compare Chapter V., § 7. # * Jacinthus Jurae,”’ changed from ‘“‘ Hyacinthus Comosus.” 130 | PROSERPINA. a ta ae tions and rearrangements on the discovery of any new link in the infinitely entangled chain. But if we found our higher nomenclature at once on historic fact, and relative conditions of climate and character, rather than of form, we may at once distribute our flora into unalterable groups, to which we may add at our pleasure, but which will never need dis- turbance ; far less, reconstruction. 18. For instance,—and to begin,—it is an historical. fact that for many centuries the English nation believed that the Founder of its religion, spiritually, by the mouth of the King who spake of all herbs, had likened himself to two flowers,—the Rose of Sharon, and Lily of the Valley. The fact of this belief is one of the most important in the history of England, —that is to say, of the mind or heart of England : and it is connected solemnly with the heart of — also, by the closing cantos of the Paradiso. I think it well therefore that our two first gine, or at least commandant, names heading the out-laid and in-laid — divisions of plants, should be of the rose and lily, with such meaning in them as may remind us of this fact in the history of human mind. It is also historical that the personal appearing of this Master of our religion was spoken of by our chief religious teacher in these terms: “The Grace of God, that bringeth salvation, hath appeared unto all men.” And it is a constant fact that this ‘grace’ or ‘ favor’ of God is spoken of as “ giv- ing us to eat of the Tree of Life.” | 19. Now, comparing the botanical facts I have to express, with these historical ones, I find that the rose tribe has been formed among flowers, not in distant and monstrous geologic eras, but in the human epoch ;—that its ‘grace’ or favor has been in all countries so felt as to cause its acceptance every- where for the most perfect physical type of womanhood ;— and that the characteristic fruit of the tribe is so sweet, that it has become symbolic at once of the subtlest temptation, and the kindest ministry to the earthly passion of the human race. ‘‘ Comfort me with apples, for I am sick of love.” 20. Therefore { shall call thé entire order of these flowers ie GENEALOGY. 131 ind sChhaites? (Graces), and there will be divided into these five genera, Rosa, Persica, Pomum, Rubra, and Fragaria. Which sequence of names I do not think the young learner will have difficulty in remembering ; nor in understanding the central group by the fruit instead of the flower. And if he once clearly master the structure and relations of these five genera, he will have no difficulty in attaching to them, in a satellitic or subordinate manner, such inferior groups as that of the Silver-weed, or the Tor- mentilla ; but all he will have to learn by heart and rote, will P bes thene: six names; the Greek Master-name, Charites, and the five generic names, in each case belonging to plants, as he will soon find, of extreme personal interest to him. 21. I have used the word ‘Order’ as the name of our widest groups, in preference to ‘Class,’ because these widest groups will not always include flowers like each other in form, or equal to each other in vegetative rank ; but they will be ‘ Orders,’ literally like those of any religious or chivalric association, having some common link rather intellectual than — national,—the Charites, for instance, linked by their kind- ness,—the Oreiades, by their mountain seclusion, as Sisters _ of Charity or Monks of the Chartreuse, irrespective of ties of relationship. Then beneath these orders will come, what may be rightly called, either as above in Greek derivation, ‘Genera,’ or in Latin, ‘Gentes,’ for which, however, I choose the Latin word, because Genus is disagreeably liable to be confused on the ear with ‘genius’; but Gens, never; and also ‘nomen gentile’ is a clearer and better expression than *nomen generosum,’ and I will not coin the barbarous one, *Genericum.’ The name of the Gens, (as ‘ Lucia,’) with an _ attached epithet, as ‘ Verna,’ will, in most cases, be enough to _ characterize the individual fiower ; but if farther subdivision _ be necessary, the third order will be that of Families, indi- _ cated by a ‘nomen familiare’ added in the third place of nomenclature, as Lucia Verna,—Borealis; and no farther subdivision will ever be admitted. I avoid the word ‘species’ _ —originally a bad one, and lately vulgarized beyond endur- _ ance—altogether. And varieties belonging to narrow locali- 132 PROSERPINA. ties, or induced by horticulture, may be named as they please by the people living near the spot, or by the gardener who — grows them ; but will not be acknowledged by Proserpina. Nevertheless, the arbitrary reduction under Ordines, Gentes, and Familiz, is always to be remembered as one of massive practical convenience only; and the more subtle arbores- cence of the infinitely varying structures may be followed, like ahuman genealogy, as far as we please, afterwards ; when once we have got our common plants clearly arranged and intelligibly named. = 22. But now we find ourselves in the presence of anew — difficulty, the greatest we have to deal with in the ite ; matter. One new nomenclature, to be thoroughly good, must Ks acceptable to scholars in the five great languages, Greek, Latin, French, Italian, and English ; and it must be aecepta- ble by them in teaching the native children of each country. I shall not be satisfied, unless I can feel that the little maids who gather their first violets under the Acropolis rock, may _ receive for them Aischylean words again with joy. I shall — not be content, unless the mothers watching their children at — play in the Ceramicus of Paris, under the scarred ruins of her Kings’ palace, may yet teach them there to know the flowers — which the Maid of Orleans gathered at Domremy. I shall — not be satisfied unless every word I ask from the lips of the — children of Florence and Rome, may enable them better to praise the flowers that are chosen by the hand of — and bloom around the tomb of Virgil. 23. Now in this first example of nomenclature, the Master- name, being pure Greek, may easily be accepted by Greek — children, remembering that certain also of their own poets, if — they did not call the flower a Graee itself, at least thought of it as giving gladness to the Three in their dances.+ But for French children the word ‘Grace’ has been doubly and trebly — corrupted ; first, by entirely false theological et ee * “Cantando, e scegliendo fior di fiore Onde era picta tutta la sua via.” —Purg., xxviii. BD. i : + ‘Kot Oeotor repavd.” ree ie .. GENEALOGY. — 133 the ‘Favor’ or Grace done by God to good men, for the ‘Misericordia,” or mercy, shown by Him to bad ones ; and so, in practical life, finally substituting ‘Grice’ as a word _ of extreme and mortal prayer, for ‘ Merci,’ and of late using _ ‘Merci’ in a totally ridiculous and perverted power, for the giving of thanks (or refusal of offered good): while the liter- ally derived word ‘ Charite’ has become, in the modern mind, _ a gift, whether from God or man, only to the wretched, never to the happy: and lastly, ‘Grice’ in its physical sense has been perverted, by their social vulgarity, into an idea, whether with respect to form or motion, commending itself rather to the ballet-master than either to the painter or the priest. . For these reasons, the Master name of this family, for my French pupils, must be simply ‘Rhodiades,’ which will bring, for them, the entire group of names into easily remembered symmetry ; and the English form of the same name, Rhodiad, is to be used by English scholars also for all tribes of this _group except.the five principal ones. » 24. Farther, in every gens of plants, one will be chosen as the representative, which, if any, will be that examined and described in the course of this work, if I have opportunity of doing RO iad ’ This representative flower will always be a wild one, and of the simplest form which completely expresses the character of the plant ; existing divinely and unchangeably from age to age, ungrieved by man’s neglect, and inflexible by his power. _ And this divine character will be expressed by the epithet ‘Sacred,’ taking the sense in which we attach it to a dominant and christened majesty, when it belongs to the central type of any forceful order ;—‘ Quercus sacra,’ ‘ Laurus sacra,’ etc., _ —the word ‘ Benedicta,’ or ‘ Benedictus,’ being used instead, _ if the plant be too humble to bear, without some discrepancy and unbecomingness, the higher title; as ‘Carduus Bene- _ dictus,’ Holy Thistle. 25. Among the gentes of flowers bearing girls’ names, the dominant one will be simply called the Queen, ‘ Rose Regina,’ ‘Rose the Queen ’ (the English wild rose) ; ‘Clarissa Regina,’ ‘Clarissa the Queen’ (Mountain Pink); ‘Lucia Regina,’ f 134 PROSERPINA., ‘Lucy the Queen’ (Spring Gentian), or in simpler English, ‘Lucy of Teesdale,’ as‘ Harry of Monmouth.’ The ruling flowers of groups which bear names not yet accepted for names of girls, will be called simply ‘Domina,’ or shortly ‘Donna.’ ‘Rubra domina’ (wild raspberry): the wild straw- berry, because of her use in heraldry, will bear a name of her own, exceptional, ‘ Cora coronalis. 26. These main points being understood, and concessions: made, we may first arrange the greater orders of land plants in a group of twelve, easily remembered, and with very little forcing. There must be some forcing always to get things into quite easily tenable form, for Nature always has her ins and outs. But it is curious how fitly and frequently the num- ber of twelve may be used for memoria technica; and in this instance the Greek derivative names fall at once into harmony with the most beautiful parts of Greek mythology, leading on to early Christian tradition. 27. Their series will be, therefore, as follows: the princi pal subordinate groups being at once placed under each of the great ones. The reasons for occasional appearance of’ inconsistency will be afterwards explained, and the English and French forms given in each case are the terms which would be used in answering the rapid question, ‘Of what order is this flower?’ the answer being, It is a ‘Cyllenid,’ a ‘ Pleiad,’ or a ‘ Vestal,’ as one would answer of a person, he is a Knight of St. John or Monk of St. Benedict ; while to the question, of what gens, we answer, a Stella or an Erica, as one would answer of a person, a Stuart or Plantagenet. . 1. CHARITES. Ene. CHARIS. Fr. RHODIADE, Rosa. Persica. Pomum. Rubra. Fragaria. tm. URANIDES. Enea, URANID. Fr. URANIDE. Lucia. Campanula. Convoluta. i GENEALOGY, 135 Silio inde. | mt. CYLLENIDES. ~ Ena. CYLLENID. Fr. NEPHELIDE, Sapiainagcaes “Stella.” ‘Francesca, Primula. ore P pmabatawinn.! ay. OREIADES. )) eo 94) Eye. OREIAD. Fr. OREADE, iid Soiga irs v2 « ‘Erica. Myrtilla. Aurora, Seep tebe. i 6: ope fen ¥ PLELADES. PHATE crvore: _ Eva. PLELAD. Fr. PLEIADE. Silvia. Anemone, apa i: i "WE? sa 9a acest” Sa. VESTALES. bye. VESTAL. FR. VESTALE. Mania. Mein ‘Basil. Salvia. Lavandula. Thymus. peice fants vit. CYTHERIDES. sii. ENG. CYTHERTD. Fr. CYTHERIDE. dgtl waits "Viola. | Veronica. Giulietta. pantetions Tey tha peperitualiy. ; rx. HELIADES. ENG. ALCESTID. Fr. HELIADE. 4 3¢ a. Margarita Alcestis. Falconia. Carduus. bat, YOl “tt ES Bee v: it ca ES ses ij MES DELPHIDES. Bs! ENG. DELPHID. Fr. DELPHIDE. peienirngs Laurus. Granata. Myrtus. ress | Biv? SS : BEL OS mae xt. HESPERIDES. Ena: HESPERID. Fr. HESPERIDE. bal) pain Aurantia. Aglee. mk PTO ej ae OTK id XIi.. ATHENAIDES. < _.... Ene. ATHENAID. Fr. ATHENAIDE i Olea. Fraxinus. 136 PROSERPINA. T will shortly note the changes of name in their twelve orders, and the reasons for them. : 1. Cuarrres.—The only change made in the conpinblitare of this order is the slight one of ‘rubra’ for ‘rubus’: partly to express true sisterhood with the other Charites ; partly to enforce the idea of redness, as characteristic of the race, both in the lovely purple and russet of their winter leafage, and in the exquisite bloom of scarlet on the stems in strong young shoots. They have every right to be placed among the Charites, first because the raspberry is really a more impor- tant fruit in domestic economy than the strawberry ; and, secondly, because the wild bramble is often in its wandering sprays even more graceful than the rose; and in blossom and fruit the best aigfaiiiial gift that English Nature has appointed for her village children. n. Unanrs —Not merely because they are all of the color of the sky, but also sacred to Urania in their divine purity. *Convoluta’ instead of ‘ convolvulus,’ chiefly for the sake of euphony ; but also because pervinea is to be included in group. m. Cy~ientmes.—Named from Mount Cyllene in Arcadia, because the three races included in the order alike delight in rocky ground, and in the cold or moist air of mountain- clouds. 1v. Oretapes.—Described in next chapter, j v. Pxetapes.—From the habit of the flowers belonging to this order to get into bright local clusters, Silvia, for th wood-sorrel, will, I hope, be an acceptable — to my gi readers. q : vi. Arremiprs.—Dedicate to Artemis for their expression of energy, no less than purity. This character was rightly felt in them by whoever gave the name ‘Dianthus’ to thei leading race ; a name which I should have retained if it had not been bad Greek. I wish them, by their name ‘Clarissa to recall the memory of St. Clare, as ‘ Francesca’ that of 5 Francis.* The ‘issa,’ not without honour to the greatest ¢ * The four races of this order are more naturally distinct than bot: ists have recognized, In Clarissa, the petal is cloven into a fringe @ GENEALOGY. 137 3 “our Baylish moral story-tellers, is added for the practical - reason, that Tthink the sound will fasten in the minds of chil- dren the essential characteristic of the race, the cutting of the : outer edge of the petal as if with scissors. Ai vi ‘Vesrates.—I allow this Latin form, because Hestiades have been confused with Heliades. The order is as the hearth,’ from its manifold domestic use, and im: , ae, © ps cline inna: fidwers, * In English, Alcestid, in honor to Chaucer and the Daisy. x Derpames.—Sacred to Apollo, Granata, changed from “Paiea, § in honor to Granada and the Moors. ' xt Huspermes.—Already a name given to the order. Aegle, te and more classic than Limonia, includes the idea of = ST as in the blossom. xm, Arwenarpes.—I take Fraxinus into this group, because ‘the mountain ash, in its hawthorn-scented flower, scarletest of , and exquisitely formed and finished leafage, belongs ‘to the floral decoration of our native rocks, and is asso- Ais with their human interests, though lightly, not less peal than the olive with the mind of Greece. 28. The remaining groupsare in great part natural ; but I “_—— a ea 2 aa a at ine a tered the main one, will be often useful. But at first let the student keep steadily to his conception of the two constant parts, husk and seed, reserving the idea of shells end Kernels a one group of plants only. . It will not be always without difficulty that a sniajeicts ae Sdineiion. when the tree pretends to have changed it. Thus, in the chestnut, the inner coat of the husk becomes brown, adheres to the seed, and seems part of it; and we naturally call only the thick, green, prickly coat, the husk, But this is only one of the deceiving tricks of Nature, to com- pel our attention more closely. The real place of separation, to her mind, is between the mahogany-coloured shell and the nut itself, and that more or less silky and flossy coating with- in the brown shell is the true lining of the entire ‘ husk.’ The paler brown skin, following the rugosities of the nut, is the true sack or skin of the seed. Similarly in the walnut and almond. 9. But, in the apple, two new tricks are played us. First, in the brown skin of the ripe pip, we might imagine we saw the part correspondent to the mahogany skin of the chestnut, and therefore the inner coat of the husk. But it is not so. The brown skin of the pips belongs to them properly, and is all their own. It is the true skin or sack of the seed. The inner coat of the husk is the smooth, white, scaly part - the core that holds them. Then,—for trick number two. We should as naturally imagine the skin of the apple, which we peel off, to be corre- spondent to the skin of the peach ; and therefore, to be the outer part of the husk. But not at all. The outer part of the husk in the apple is melted away into the fruity mass of it, and the red skin outside is the skin of its stalk, not of its seed-vessel at all ! 10. Isay ‘of its stalk,—that is to say, of the part of the stalk immediately sustaining the seed, commonly called the torus, and expanding into the calyx. In the apple, this torus incorporates itself with the husk completely ; then refines its own external skin, and colours that variously and beautifully, like the true skin of the husk in the peach, while the withered leaves of the calyx remain in the ‘eye’ of the apple. ee THE SEED AND HUSK. 155 But in the ‘hip’ of the rose, the incorporation with the husk of the seed does not take place. The torus, or,—as in _ this flower from its peculiar form it is called,—the tube of the _ ealyx, alone forms the frutescent part of the hip; and the complete seeds, husk and all, (the firm triangular husk enclos- ing an almond-shaped kernel,) are grouped closely in its in- terior cavity, while the calyx remains on the top in a large and searcely withering star. In the nut, the calyx remains green and beautiful, forming what we call the husk of a fil- bert ; and again we find Nature amusing herself by trying to make us think that this strict envelope, almost closing over _ the single seed, is the same thing to the nut that its green shell is to a walnut ! 11. With still more capricious masquing, she varies and _ hides the structure of her ‘berries.’ _ ~The strawberry is a hip turned inside-out, the frutescent _ receptacle changed into a scarlet ball, or cone, of crystalline - and delicious coral, in the outside of which the separate seeds, husk and all, are imbedded. In the raspberry and blackberry, the interior mound remains sapless ; and the rubied translu- _ eency of dulcet substance is formed round each separate seed, } upon its husk ; not a part of the husk, but now an entirely in- _ dependent and added portion of the plant’s bodily form. _ 12. What is thus done for each seed, on the outside of the 2 receptacle, i in the raspberry, is done for each seed, inside the ‘calyx, in a pomegranate ; which is a hip in which the seeds have become surrounded with a radiant juice, richer than ‘claret wine ; while the seed itself, within the generous jewel, - is succulent also, and spoken of by Tournefort as a“ baie sue- ‘eulente.” The tube of the calyx, brown-russet like a large hip, externally, is yet otherwise divided, and separated wholly from _ the cinque-foiled, and cinque-celled rose, both in number of _ petal and division of treasuries ; the calyx has eight points, and nine cells. 13. Lastly, in the orange, the fount of fragrant juice is in- -terposed between the seed and the husk. It is wholly inde- ‘pendent of both ; the Aurantine rind, with its white lining and ‘divided compartments, is the true husk ; the orange pips are Oe ee ee x 4 sal ie a —_——y eer 156 PROSERPINA. the true seeds ; and the eatable part of the fruit is formed be- tween them, in clusters of delicate little flasks, as if a fairy’s store of scented wine had been laid up by her in the hollow of achestnut shell, between the nut and rind; and hen the green changed to gold. 14. I have said ‘lastly ’—of the orange, for fous of the reader’s weariness only ; not as having yet represented, far less exhausted, the variety of frutescent form. But these are the most important types of it; and before I can explain the re- lation between these, and another, too often confounded with them—the granular form of the seed of grasses,—I must give some account of what, to man, is far more important than the form—the gift to him in fruit-food ; and trial, I ia tion. CHAPTER XIV. THE FRUIT GIFT. 1. In the course of the preceding chapter, I hope that the reader has obtained, or may by a little patience both obtain and secure, the idea of a great natural Ordinance, which, in the protection given to the part of plants necessary to prolong their race, provides, for happier living creatures, food delight- ful to their taste, and forms either amusing or beautiful to their eyes. Whether in receptacle, calyx, or true husk,—in the cup of the acorn, the fringe of the filbert, the down of the — apricot, or bloom of the plum, the powers of Nature consult — quite other ends than the mere continuance of oaks and plum | trees on the earth ; and must be regarded always with grati-— tude more deep than wonder, when they are indeed seen with — human eyes and human intellect. 2. But in one family of plants, the contents also of the seed | not the envelope of it merely, are prepared for the support of — the higher animal life; and their grain, filled with the sub-— stance which, for universally understood name, may best keep — the Latin one of Farina,—becoming in French, ‘ Farine,’ and | THE FRUIT GIFT. 157 "in English, 168 PROSERPINA. better ; one is only afraid of their tearing or puffing them- selves into something worse. Nay, even the quite natural and simple conditions of inferior vegetable do not in the least suggest, to the unbitten or unblighted human intellect, the notion of development into anything other than their like : one does not expect a mushroom to translate itself into a pineapple, nor a betony to moralize itself into a lily, nora snapdragon to soften himself into a lilae. 8. It is very possible, indeed, that the recent phatiaay for the investigation of digestive and reproductive operations in | plants may by this time have furnished the microscopic mal- ice of botanists with providentially disgusting reasons, or demoniacally nasty necessities, for every possible spur, spike, jag, sting, rent, blotch, flaw, freckle, filth, or venom, which can be detected in the construction, or distilled from the dis- solution, of vegetable organism. But with these obscene processes and prurient apparitions the gentle and happy scholar of flowers has nothing whatever to do. I am amazed and saddened, more than I care to say, by finding how much that is abominable may be discovered by an ill-taught curi- osity, in the purest things that earth is allowed to produce for us ;—perhaps if we were less reprobate in our own ways, the grass which is our type might conduct itself better, even though i has no hope but of being cast into the oven ; in the meantime, healthy human eyes and thoughts are to be set on the lovely laws of its growth and habitation, and not on the mean mysteries of its birth. 9. I relieve, therefore, our presently inquiring ovale frona any farther care as to the reason for a violet’s spur,—or for the extremely ugly arrangements of its stamens and style, invisible unless by vexatious and vicious peeping. You are to think of a violet only in its green leaves, and purple or golden petals ;—you are to know the varieties of form in both, proper to common species ; and in what kind of places they all most fondly live, and most deeply glow. “ And the recreation of the minde which is taken heereby — cannot be but verie good and honest, for they admonish and — stir up a man to that which is comely and honest. For — | q , VIOLA, 169 F ihiee through their beautie, varietie of colour, and exquisite forme, do bring to a liberali and gentle manly minde the re- -membrance of honestie, comeliness, and all kinds of vertues. For it would be an unseemely and filthie thing, as a certain wise man saith, for him that doth looke upon and handle faire and beautiful things, and who frequenteth and is conversant in faire and beautiful places, to have his mind not faire, but filthie and deformed.” _ 10, Thus Gerarde, in the close of his introductory notice of the violet,—speaking of things, (honesty, comeliness, and the like,) scarcely now recognized as desirable in the realm of England ; but having previously observed that violets are useful for the making of garlands for the head, and posies to smell to ;—in which last function I observe they are still pleasing to the British public : and I found the children here, only the other day, munching a confection of candied violet leaves. What pleasure the flower can still give us, uncan- died, and unbound, but in its own place and life, I will try to trace through some of its constant laws. _ 11. And first, let us be clear that the native colour of the violet is violet ; and that the white and yellow kinds, though pretty in their place and way, are not to be thought of in generally meditating the flower’s quality or power. A white violet is to black ones what a black man is to white ones ; and the yellow varieties are, I believe, properly pansies, and be- long also to wild districts for the most part ; but the true violet, which I have just now called ‘black,’ with Gerarde, “the blacke or purple violet, hath a great prerogative above others,” and all the nobler species of the pansy itself are of full purple, inclining, however, in the ordinary wild violet to blue. In the ‘Laws of Fésole,’ chap. vii., §§ 20, 21, I have made this dark pansy the representative of purple pure ; the viola odorata, of the link between that full purple and blue ; and the heath-blossom of the link between that full purple and red. The reader will do well, as much as may be pos- sible to him, to associate his study of botany, as indeed all other studies of visible things, with that of painting: but he _ must remember that he cannot know what violet colour 170 PROSERPINA. -veally is, unless he watch the flower in its early growth, — It becomes dim in age, and dark when it is gathered—at least, when it is tied in bunches ;—but I-am under the’impression that the colour actually deadens also,—at all events, no other single flower of the same quiet colour lights up the ground near it as a violet will. The bright hounds tongue looks merely like a spot of bright paint ; but a young wr Glows | like painted glass, 12. Which, when you have once well noticed, the two hice of Milton and Shakspeare which seem opposed, will both be- come clear to you. The said lines are dragged from hand to hand along their pages of pilfered quotations by the hack botanists,—who probably never saw them, nor anything: else, in Shakspeare or Milton in their lives,—till even in reading them where they rightly come, you can scarcely recover their fresh meaning: but none of the botanists ever think of asking why Perdita calls the violet ‘dim,’ and Milton ‘glowing.’ Perdita, indeed, calls it dim, at’ that moment, in thinking of her own love, and the hidden passion of it, unspeakable ; nor is Milton without some purpose of using it as an emblem of love, mourning,—but, in both cases, the subdued and quiet hue of the flower as an actual tint of colour, and the strange force and life of it as a part of light, are felt vy — uttermost. .) And observe, also, that both of the poets contrast the siolet, in its softness, with the intense marking of the — ‘Mil- ton makes the opposition directly— ‘* the pansy, freaked with jet ws “weodla The glowing violet.” : Shakspeare shows yet stronger sense of the difference, in : the “purple with Love’s wound” of the pansy, while the Hott is sweet with Love’s hidden life, and sweeter than the lids of | Juno's eyes. 4 . Whereupon, we may perhaps consider with outiidives a little what the difference is between a violet and a pansy ? Od ahi 13. Is, I say, and was, and is to come,—in spite of florists; | who try to make pansies round, instead of pentagonal ; and — ee 171 F gnats pial aiittying people, who say that violets and pansies are the same thing—and that neither of them are of much interest! As, for instance, Dr. Lindley in his ‘Ladies’ Bot- an ee snack Violets, and Pansies, or Heartsease, repre- sent a smail family, with the structure of which you should - be familiar ; more, however, for the sake of its singularity than for its extent or importance, for the family is a very small one, and there are but few species belonging to it in which much interest is taken, As the parts of the Heartsease are larger than those of the violet, let us select the former in preference for the subject of our study.” Whereupon we plunge instantly into the usual account of things with horns and tails. ‘The stamens are five in number—two of them, which are in front of the others, are hidden within the horn of the front petal,” ete., ete., ete. (Note in passing, by the ‘ horn of the front’ petal he means the ‘spur of the bottom’ one, which indeed does stand in front of the rest,—but if therefore it is to be called the front petal—which is the back one ?) You may find in the next paragraph description of a “ singu- lar conformation,” and the interesting conclusion that “no one has yet discovered for what purpose this singular con- formation was provided.” But you will not, in the entire article, find the least attempt to tell you the difference be- tween a violet and a pansy !—except in one statement—and that false! ‘The sweet violet will have no rival among flow- ers, if we merely seek for delicate fragrance ; but her sister, the heartsease, who is destitute of all sweetness, far surpasses _. her in rich dresses and gaudy!!! colours.” The heartsease is — not without sweetness. There are sweet pansies scented, and dog pansies unscented—as there are sweet violets scented, and dog violets unscented. What is the real difference? _ 14. I turn to another scientific gentleman—more scientific in form indeed, Mr. Grindon,—and find, for another interest- ing phenomenon in the violet, that it sometimes produces flowers without any petals! and in the pansy, that ‘the flow- ers turn towards the sun, and when many are open at once, present a droll appearance, looking like a number of faces all 172 | PROSERPINA. on the ‘qui vive.” But nothing of the difference between them, except something about ‘stipules,’ of which “it is im- portant to observe that the leaves should be taken from the middle of the stem—those above and below being variable.” I observe, however, that Mr. Grindon has arrranged his violets under the letter A, and his pansies under the letter B, and that something may be really made out of him, with an hour or two’s work. I am content, however, at present, with his simplifying assurance that of violet and pansy to- gether, “six species grow wild in Britain—or, as some be- lieve, only four—while the analysts run the number up to fifteen.” 15. Next I try Loudon’s Cyclopedia, which, through all its 700 pages, is equally silent on the business; and next, Mr. Baxter’s “British Flowering Plants,’ in the index of which I find neither Pansy nor Heartsease, and only the ‘Calathian’ Violet, (where on earth is Calathia?) which proves, on turning it up, to be a Gentian. 16. At last, I take my Figuier, (but what should I do if I only knew English ?) and find this much of clue to the mat- ter :-— “Qu’est ce que c’est que la Pensée? Cette jolie plante ap- partient aussi au genre Viola, mais 4 un section de ce genre. En effet, dans les Pensées, les pétales supérieurs et lateraux sont dirigés en haut, linférieur seul est dirigé en bas: et de plus, le stigmate est urcéole, globuleux.” And farther, this general description of the whole violet tribe, which I translate, that we may have its full value :— “The violet is a plant without a stem (tige),—(see vol. i., p. 108,)—whose height does not surpass one or two deci- metres. Its leaves, radical, or carried on stolons, (vol. i., p. 111,) are sharp, or oval, crenulate, or heart-shape. Its stipules are oval-acuminate, or lanceolate. Its flowers, of sweet scent, of a dark violet or a reddish blue, are carried each on a slen- der peduncle, which bends down at the summit. Such is, for the botanist, the Violet, of which the poets would i as- suredly another description.” . 17. Perhaps; or even the painters! or even an adapoeat VIOLA. 173 ‘unbotanieal human creature ! I must set about my business, . at any rate, in my own way, now, as I best can, looking first at things themselves, and then putting this and that together, out of these botanical persons, which they can’t put together out of themselves. And first, I go down into my kitchen garden, where the path to the lake has a border of pansies on both sides all the way down, with clusters of narcissus behind _ them. And pulling up a handful of pansies by the roots, I find them “without stems,” indeed, if a stem means a wooden thing; but I should say, for a low-growing flower, quite lankily and disagreeably stalky! And, thinking over what I vemember about wild pansies, I find an impression on my mind of their being rather more stalky, always, than is quite graceful ; and, for all their fine flowers, having rather a weedy and littery look, and getting into places where they have no business. See, again, vol. i., chap. vi, § 5. now, going up into my flower and fruit garden, I find (June 2nd, 1881, half-past six, morning,) among the wild saxifrages, which are allowed to grow wherever they like, and the rock strawberries, and Francescas, which are coaxed to grow wherever there is a bit of rough ground for them, a bunch or two of pale pansies, or violets, 1 don’t know well which, by the flower; but the entire company of them has a tagged, jagged, unpurpose-like look ; extremely,—I should say,—demoralizing to all the little blanie’ in their neighbour hood : and on gathering a flower, I find it is a nasty big thing, all of a feeble blue, and with two things like horns, or thorns, sticking out where its ears would be, if the pansy’s frequently monkey face were underneath them. Which I find to be two of the leaves of its calyx ‘out of place,’ and, at all events, for their part, therefore, weedy, and insolent. 19. I perceive, farther, that this disorderly flower is lifted on a lanky, awkward, springless, and yet stiff flower-stalk ; which is not round, as a flower-stalk ought to be, (vol.i., p. 235,) but obstinately square, and fluted, with projecting _ edges, like a pillar run thin out of an iron-foundry for a cheap railway station. I perceive also that it has set on it, just be- _ fore turning down to carry the flower, two little jaggy and im 174° PROSERPINA. definable leaves,—their colour a little more violet than oe blossom. These, and such undeveloping leaves, heen daly oceur, are called ‘ bracts’ by botanists, a good word, from the Latin ‘bractea,’ meaning a piece of metal plate, so thin as to crackle. They seem always a little stiff, like bad parchment, —born to come to nothing—a sort of infinitesimal fairy-law- yer’s deed. They ought to have been in my index at p. 237, under the head of leaves, and are frequent in flower structure, —never, as far as one can see, of the smallest use. They are constant, however, in the flower-stalk of the whole violet tribe. 20. I perceive, farther, that this lanky fowtensatell bend- ing a little in a crabbed, broken way, like an obstinate person tired, pushes itself up out of a still more stubborn, nondescript, hollow angular, dogs-eared gaspipe of a stalk, with a section something like this, Mord but no bigger than Ww with a quantity of ill-made and ill-hemmed leaves on it, of no. describable leaf-cloth or texture,—not cressic, (though the thing does altogether look a good deal like a quite uneatable old watercress) ; not salvian, for there’s no look of warmth or comfort in them ; not cauline, for there’s no juice in them ; not dryad, for there’s no strength in them, nor apparent use : they seem only there, as far as I can make out, to spoil the flower, and take the good out of my garden bed. Nobody in the world could draw them, they are so mixed up together, and crumpled and hacked about, as if some ill-natured child had snipped them with blunt scissors, and an ill-natured cow chewed them ‘a little afterwards and left them, proving far too tough or too bitter. 21. Having now sufficiently observed, it seems to me, this incongruous plant, I proceed to ask myself, over it, M. Figuier’s question, ‘ Qu’est-ce c’est qu'un Pensée?’ Is thisa violet—or a pansy—or a bad imitation of both ? Whereupon I try if it has any scent : and to my much sur- prise, find it has a full and soft one—which I suppose is what my gardener keeps it for! According to Dr. Lindley, then, — eis ce, kee Mee slayctads 83 ES i. oe : 175 . peivest eat But according to M. Figuier,—let me see, do its middle petals bend up, or down ? _ Ithink Tll go and ask the gardener what he calls it. _ 22. My gardener, on appeal to him, telis me it is the ‘Viola Cornuta,’ but that he does not know himself if it is violet or pansy. Itake my Loudon again, and find there were fifty- three species of violets, known in his days, of which, as it chances, Cornuta is exactly the last. ‘Horned violet’: I said the green things were /ike horns! bait what i is one to say of, or to do to, étiawtifie people, who first call the spur of the violet’s petal, horn, and then its _ calyx points, horns, and never define a ‘horn’ all the while! | Viola Cornuta, however, let it be ; for the name does mean something, and is not false Latin. But whether violet or _ pansy, I must look farther to find out. _ 23. I take the Flora Danica, in which I at least am sure of finding whatever is done at all, done as well as honesty and care can ; and look what species of violets it gives. _ Nine, in the first ten volumes of it; four in their modern sequel (that I know of,—I have had no time to examine the last issues). Namely, in alphabetical order, with their pres- ent Latin, or tentative Latin, names ; and in plain English, the senses intended by the hapless scientific people, in “gueh Serpent Latin :— deoite “3 (1) Viol Arvensis Field (Violet) . . ss « No. 1748 (2) > Biflora. Two-flowered . . 2... 46 8) ~ Canina. Ddgitifnes 1453 (38) “ Canina. Var. Multicaulis (eigiapeptiiiensid), avery singular sort of violet—if it were +> so! Its real difference from our dog- _ violet isin being pale — and having a Sieoldeni centre... ©.) i feredtis. 2646 (4) “ Hirta. Pairy io. warmlie. ante 618 5) “ Mirabilis. © Marvellous. . . . . . . 1045 (6) “Montana. Mountain. ». ... . . ~~ 1329 (7) * Odorata. Odorbuginiiay. 4.41608 said 309 ee eniameginint. Marshy. . ... . saiwit’. 83 7 176 PROSERPINA. (9) Viola Tricolor. Three-coloured . . . . . 623 (98) “ Tricolor. Var. Arenaria, Pong Three- coloured . «ig Be 2647 (10) ‘“ Elatior. Taller Siar f 68 (11) “ Epipsila. (Heaven knows er it it Greek, not Latin, and looks as if it meant something between a bishop and a short. lettér't). thiol gtigery A en I next run down this list, noting what names we can keep, and what we can’t; and what aren’t worth keeping, if we could : passing over the varieties, however, for the — a (1) Arvensis. Field-violet. Good. (2) Biflora. A good epithet, but in false Latin. It is to ye our Viola aurea, golden pansy. (3) Canina. Dog. Not pretty, but intelligible, and by common use now classical. Must stay. (4) Hirta. Late Latin slang for hirsuta, and sisi used of nasty places or nasty people; it shall not stay. The species shall be our Viola Seclusa,—Monk’s violet-—meaning the kind of monk who leads a rough life like Elijah’s, or the Baptist’s, or Esau’s—_ in another kind. This violet is one of the loveliest that grows. (5) Mirabilis. Stays so; marvellous enough, truly: not more so than all violets; but I am very glad to hear of scientific people capable of admiring anything. (6) Montana. Stays so. (7) Odorata. Not distinctive ;—nearly classical, however. It is to be our Viola Regina, else I should not have altered it. (8) Palustris. Stays so. (9) Tricolor. True, but intolerable. The flower is the qu of the true pansies: to be our Viola Psyche. (10) Elatior. Only a variety of our already accepted Cor nuta. ©] 1) The last is, I believe, also only a variety of Palustris. Tts leaves, I am informed in the text, are either __ * pubescent-reticulate-venose-subreniform,” or “ lato- -—s gordate-repando-crenate ;” and its stipules are “ei - “ ovate-acuminate-fimbrio-denticulate.”. I do not _ + wish to pursue the inquiry farther. - caine : 24. These ‘hits species will include, noting Sebi and there a local variety, all the forms which are familiar to us in North- ern Europe, except only two ;— these, as it singularly chances, being the Viola Alpium, noblest of all the wild pansies in the world, so far as I have seen or heard of them,—oi which, con- sequently, I find no picture, nor notice, in any botanical work whatsoever ; and the other, the rock-violet of our own York- _ We have therefore, ourselves, finally then, twelve following species to study. I give them now all in their accepted - names and proper order,—the reasons for occasional differ- - ence between the Latin and English name will be presently ay Viola dositeia’ Queen violet. (2) “ Psyche. Ophelia’s pansy. (3). “ Alpium. — Freneli’s pansy. (4) “ Aurea. Golden violet. (5) “ Montana. Mountain violet. (6) “ Mirabilis. Marvellous violet. (7) “ Arvensis. — Field violet. (8) “ Palustris. Marsh violet. (9) ‘“ Seclusa. © Monk's violet. (10) “ Canina. Dog violet. (11) “ Cornuta. Cow violet. ~~» (12) “ =Rupestris. Crag violet. _ 25. We will try, presently, what is to be found out of use- ful, or pretty, concerning all these twelve violets; but must _ first find out how we are to know which are violets indeed, _ and which, pansies. 178 PROSERPINA. - se * Yesterday, after finishing my list, I went out again to ex- — amine Viola Cornuta a little closer, and pulled up a full grip of it by the roots, and put it in water in a wash-hand basin, which it filled like a truss of green hay. 109 Pulling out two or three separate plants, I find each to con- sist mainly of a jointed stalk of a kind I have not yet de- scribed,—roughly, some two feet long altogether ; (accurate- | ly, one 1 ft. 105 in. ; another, 1 ft. 10 in. ; another, 1 ft. 9 in. —but all these measures taken without straightening, and: therefore about an inch short of the truth), and divided into. seven or eight lengths by clumsy joints where the mangled leafage is knotted on it ; but broken a little out of the way at each joint, like a rheumatic elbow that won’t come straight, or bend farther ; and—which is the most curious point of alk in it—it is thickest in the middle, like a viper, and gets quite: thin to the root and thin towards the flower ; also the lengths between the joints are longest in the middle: here I give: them in inches, from the root upwards, in a stalk — at random. nf eiite 1st (nearest root) ‘ : : , 02 2nd . . . . . be Als 02 t) 3rd ‘ ’ < ‘ : , 1d, ©) 4th ein pers . ‘ a 2 a Bee) 5th . . . . . . 28 (f} 6th és ° ‘ . : > we Te 7th jah ‘ . : ». taBbyny 8th : : . : ° oo wi8diey 9th > palais a vtotbae aBbeay 10th . . : > ithe 1} ; 1 ft. 94 in, But the thickness of the joints and length of terminal flower stalk bring the total to two feet and about an inch over. I dare not pull it straight, or should break it, but it overlaps my two-foot rule considerably, and there are two inches be- sides of root, which are merely underground stem, very thin — and wretched, as the rest of it is merely root aboye ground, ee a UL petal bE We ne pee )VBIORADAS 179 bloated. (I begin actually to be a little awed ane as I should be by a green snake—only the snake would be prettier.) The flowers also, I perceive, have not their two horns regularly set in, but the five spiky ealyx-ends stick out the petals—sometimes. three, sometimes four, it may _ be all five up and down—and produce variously fanged) or forked. effects, feebly ophidian or diabolic. On the whole, a plant entirely ‘mismanaging itself,—reprehensible and awk- Ward, with taints of worse than awkarduess ; and clearly, no true ‘ species,’ but) only a link.* And it really is, as you will find presently, a link in two directions ; it is half violet, half pansy, a ‘cur’ among the Dogs, and a thoughtless thingamong the thoughtful. And being so, it ieadsbachols between the entire violet tribe and the Runners—pease, strawberries, and the like, whose glory is in their speed ; but a violet has no business whatever to run anywhere, being appointed to stay where it was born, in extremely contented (if not secluded) places. “‘ Half-hidden from the eye?”—no ; but desiring at- _ tention, or extension, or corpulence, or connection be any- _ body else’s family, still less. » 26. \ And if, at the time you read this, you can run out and gather a érue violet, and its leaf, you will find that the flower grows: from the very ground, out of a cluster of heart- shaped leaves, becoming here a little rounder, there a litle sharper, but on the whole heart-shaped, and that is the _ proper and essential form of the violet leaf. You will find also _ that the flower has five petals; and being held down by the bent stalk, two of them bend back and up, as if resisting it ; two expand at the sides; and one, the principal, grows ean wards, with its attached spur behind. ‘So that the front view of the flower must be some modification of this typical ar- rangement, Fig. m, (for middle form). Now the statement above quoted from Figuier, § 16, means, if he had been able to express himself, that the two lateral petals in the violet are directed downwards, Fig. 11. 4, and in the pansy upwards, ‘Big. 11..c. And that, in the main, is true, and to be fixed well and clearly in your mind. But in the real orders, one .» * See ‘Deucalion,’ vol. ii., chap. i., p. 13, § 18. - 180 PROSERPINA. flower passes into the other through all kinds of intermediate positions of petal, and the plurality of species are of the me dle type, Fig. m. 3.* 27. Next, if you will gather a real pansy leaf, you will find c Fie. 1. it—not heart-shape in the least, but sharp oval or spear-shape, with two deep cloven lateral flakes at its springing from the stalk, which, in ordinary aspect, give the plant the hagegled and draggled look I-have been vilifying it for. These, and such as these, “leaflets at the base of other leaves” (Balfour's Glossary), are called by bot- anists ‘stipules.’ I have not allowed the word yet, and am doubtful of allowing it, because it entirely confuses the student’s sense of the Latin ‘stipula’ (see above, vol. i, chap. viii, § 27) doubly and trebly important in its connection with ‘stipulor,’ not noticed in that paragraph, but readable in your large Johnson ; we shall have more to say of it when we come to ‘straw’ itself. 28. In the meantime, one may think of these things as stipulations for leaves, not fulfilled, or ‘stumps’ or ‘sumphs’ of leaves! But I think I can do better for them. We have already got the idea of crested leaves, (see vol. i., plate) ; now, on each side of a knight's crest, from earliest Etruscan times down to those of the Scalas, the fashion of ar- mour held, among the nations who wished to make themselves terrible in aspect, of putting cut plates or ‘ bracts’ of metal, like dragons’ wings, on each side of the crest. I believe the cus- tom never became Norman or English ; it is essentially Greek, Etruscan, or Italian,—the Norman and Dane always wearing a practical cone (see the coins of Canute), and the Frank or English knights the severely plain beavered helmet ; the Black Prince’s at Canterbury, and Henry V.’s at Westminster, are kept hitherto by the great fates for us to see. But the South- ern knights constantly wore these lateral dragon’s wings; *T am ashamed to give so rude outlines; but every moment now is valuable to me: careful outline of a dog-violet is given in Plate X. - a _—— | ee PLATE X.—Viona CANINA. STRUCTURAL DETAILS er aan 6 te eee a Pall its . _" 7 eee VIOLA. . 181 Facies dik thet special name, it may perhaps be substi- tuted with advantage for ‘ stipule’; but I have not wit enough by me just now to invent a term. _ 29. Whatever we call them, the things themselves are, throughout all the species of violets, developed in the run- weedy varieties, and much subdued in the beautiful 3 and generally the pansies have them large, with spear- Jeaves; and the violets small, with heart- for more effective decoration of the ground. I igi at) eos Resins. Queen Violet. Sweet Violet. ‘Viola -Odorata,’ L., ‘Flora Danica, and Sowerby. The latter draws it with golden centre and white base of lower petal ; the Flora ‘Danica, all purple. It is sometimes altogether white. It is one most perfectly for setting off its colour, in group with ,—and most losierian tly: so far as I know, in hollows ‘the Savoy limestones, associated with the pervenche, which _embroiders and illumines them all over. I believe it is the earliest of its race, sometimes called ‘ Martia,’ March violet. Tn Greoee and South Italy even a flower of the winter. _ “*The Spring is come, the violet’s gone, _. The first-born child of the early sun. woah ‘With us, she is but a winter’s flower; The snow on the hills cannot blast her bower, And she lifts up her dewy eye of blue - To the youngest sky of the selfsame hue. And when the Spring comes, with her host Of flowers, that flower beloved the most Shrinks from the crowd that may confuse Her heavenly odour, and virgin hues. Pluck the others, but still remember Their herald out of dim December,— The morning star of all the flowers, The pledge of daylight’s lengthened hours, Nor, midst the roses. eer forget The virgin, virgin violet.” * - * A eareless bit of Byron's, (the last song but one in the ‘ Deformed _ Transformed ’); but Byron’s most careless work is better, by its innate 182 PROSERPINA. - 81. It is the queen, not only of the violet tribe, but of all fow-growing flowers, in sweetness of scent—variously appli-— cable and pervicailea in domestic economy :—the scent of the lily of the valley seems less capable of preservation, or use, 1 But, respecting these perpetual beneficences and benignities — of the sacred, as opposed to the malignant, herbs, whose poisonous power is for the most part restrained in them, dur rg ing their life, to their juices or dust, and not allowed sensibly - . to pollute the air, I should like the scholar to re-read pp. 240, — 241 of vol. i, and then to consider with himself what a gro-— tesquely warped and gnarled thing the modern scientific” mind is, which fiercely busies itself in yenomous chemistries — that blast every leaf from the forests ten miles round ; and yet cannot tell us, nor even think of tellmg us, nor does even one of its pupils think of asking it all the while, howa violet throws off her perfume !—far less, whether it might not be. more wholesome to ‘treat’ the air which men are to breathe in masses, by administration of yale-lilies and violets, Anata oh charcoal and sulphur ! afaheanl The closing sentence of the first volume just now ss to—p. 943.--should also be re-read ; it was the sum of a chap- ter I had in hand at that time on the Substances and Essences of Plants—which never got finished ;—and in trying to put it into small space, it has become obscure: thé terms “logi- cally inexplicable” meaning that no words or process of com- parison will define scents, nor do, any traceable modes of se- quence or relation connect them ; each is an independent power, and gives a separate impression to the senses. Above all, there is no logic of pleasure, nor any assignable reason for the difference, betweot loathsome and delightful scent, which makes the fungus foul and the vervain sacred : but one prac- tical conclusion I (who am in all final ways the most prosaie¢ and practical of human creatures) do very solemnly beg my readers to meditate ; namely, that although not recognized by energy, than other people’s most laboured. I suppress, in some doubty about my ‘digamma,’ notes on the Greek violet and the Ion of Euripides ;— which the reader will perhaps be good peicg seni ; serious loss to him, and supply for himself, Secartd VIOLA. 183 act of scent, there is no space of neglected E- land which is not in some way modifying the atmosphere of } all the world,—it may be, beneficently, as heath and pine,—it may be, malignantly, as Pontine marsh or Brazilian jungle ; but, in one way or another, for good and evil constantly, by ; day and night, the various powers of life and death in the _ plants of the desert are poured into the air, as vials of con- tinual angels: and that no words, no thoughts can measure, _ nor imagination follow, the possible change for good which _ energetic and tender care of the wild herbs of the field and _ trees of the wood might bring, in time, to the bodily pleasure and mental power of Man. - $2. IL Viowa Psycue. Ophelia’s Pansy. _ The wild heart’s-ease of Europe ; its proper colour an ex- 7 quisitely clear purple in the upper petals, gradated into deep _ blue in the lower ones ; the centre, gold. Not larger than a - violet, but perfectly formed, and firmly set in allits petals. _ Able to live im the driest ground ; beautiful in the coast sand- hills of Cumberland, following the wild geranium and burnet rose: and distinguished thus by its power of life, in waste and _ dry places, from the violet, which needs kindly earth and _ Quite one of the most lovely things that Heaven has made, _ and only degraded and distorted by any human interference ; _ the swollen varieties of it produced by cultivation being all _ gross in outline and coarse in colour by comparison. It is badly drawn even in the ‘ Flora Danica,’ No. 623, con- _ sidered there apparently as a species escaped from gardens ; _ the description of it being as follows :— _ | Viola tricolor hortensis repens, flore purpureo et cceruleo, PO; P., 199.” (1 don’t know what C. B. P. means.) “< Pas- sim, ecite villas.” _ “Viola tricolor, caule triquetro diffuso, foliis oblongis in- _ isis, stipulis pinnatifidis,” Linn. Systema Nature, 185. _ 33. “Near the country farms ”—does the Danish botanist _ mean?—the more luxuriant weedy character probably ac- quired by it only in such neighbourhood ; and, I suppose, _ various confusion and degeneration possible to it beyond other 184 PROSERPINA. plants when once it leaves its wild home. It is given by Sib- thorpe from the Trojan Olympus, with an exquisitely delicate leaf; the flower described as “triste et pajlide violaceus,” but coloured in his plate full purple ; and as he does not say whether he went up Olympus to gather it himself, or only saw it brought down by the assistant whose lovely drawings are yet at Oxford, I take leave to doubt his epithets. That this should be the only Violet described in a ‘Flora Greca’ ex- tending to ten folio volumes, is a fact in modern scientific his- tory which I must leave the Professor of Botany and the Dean of Christ Church to explain. 34, The English varieties seem often to be yellow in the lower petals, (see Sowerby’s plate, 1287 of the old edition) ; crossed, I imagine, with Viola Aurea, (but see under Viola Rupestris, No. 12) ; the names, also, varying between tricolor and bicolor—with no note anywhere of the three colours, or two colours, intended! The old English names are many.—‘ Love in idleness,'— making Lysander, as Titania, much wandering in mind, and for a time mere ‘Kits run the street’ (or run the wood ?)— “Call me to you” (Gerarde, ch. 299, Sowerby, No. 178), with ‘Herb Trinity,’ from its three colours, blue, purple, and gold, variously blended in different countries? ‘Three faces under a hood’ describes the English variety only. Said to be the ancestress of all the florists’ pansies, but this I much doubt, the next following species being far nearer the forms most chiefly sought for. 35. TIL Viora Avprya. ‘Freneli’s Pansy’—my own name for it, from Gotthelf’s Freneli, in ‘ Ulric the Farmer’ ; the en- tirely pure and noble type of the Bernese maid, wife, and mother. The pansy of the Wengern Alp in specialty, and of the higher, but still rich, Alpine pastures, Full dark-purple ; at least an inch across the expanded petals ; I believe, the ‘ Mater Violarum’ of Gerarde ; and true black violet of Virgil, remain- _ ing in Italian ‘ Viola Mammola ’ (Gerarde, ch. 298). 86. IV. Vrora Aurea, Golden Violet. Biflora usually ; but — its brilliant yellow is a much more definite characteristic ; and ¥ ee es Se ee ee he ‘VIOEAPA 185 q heeds insisting on, because there is a ‘Viola lutea’ which is not yellow at all ; named so by the garden-florists. My Viola aurea ‘is the Rock-violet of the Alps; one of the bravest, Db and dearest of little flowers. The following notes upon it, with its summer companions, a little corrected from _ my diary of 1877, will enough characterize it. _ | “ June Tth—The cultivated meadows now grow only dan- - delions—in frightful quantity too ; but, for wild ones, primula, ; bell gentian, golden pansy, and anemone,—Primula farinosa in mass, the pansy pointing and vivifying in a petulant sweet _ way, and the bell gentian here and there deepening all,—as if _ indeed the sound of a deep bell among lighter music. “Counted in order, I find the effectively constant flowers are eight ;* namely, _ . 4, The golden anemone, with richly cut large leaf ; prim- _ rose colour, and in masses like primrose, studded through 1 them with bell gentian, and dark purple orchis. _. 2. The dark purple orchis, with bell gentian in equal : auutitity; say six of each in square yard, broken by sparklings _ of the white orchis and the white grass flower; the richest _ piece of colour I ever saw, touched with gold by the geum. _- “3 and 4. These will be white orchis and the grass flower.t _ “5, Geum—eyerywhere, in deep, but pure, gold, like pieces of Greek mosaic. — _ 6, Soldanella, in the lower meadows, delicate, but not _ here in masses. “7. Primula Alpina, divine in the rock clefts, and on the _ ledges changing the grey to purple,—set in the dripping caves with _ 8. Viola (pertinax—pert) ; I want a Latin word for various studies—failures all—to express its saucy little stuck-up way, | * Nine : I see that I missed count of P. farinosa, the most abundant S ofall.’ 4 **A feeble little quatrefoil—growing one on the stem, like a Par- nassia, and looking like a Parnassia that had dropped a leaf. I think it drops one of its own four, mostly, and lives as three-fourths of itself, for _ most of its time. Stamens pale gold. Root-leaves, three or four, grass- “like ; growing among the moist moss chiefly.” eee lee ag EE a ee et 186 PROSERPINA. and exquisitely trim peltate leaf. I never saw such a lovely perspective line as the pure front leaf profile. Impossible also to get the least of the spirit of its lovely dark brown fibre markings. Intensely golden these dark fibres, just browning the petal a little between them.” And again in the defile of Gondo, I find “ Viola (saxatilis 2) name yet wanted ;—in the most delicate studding of its round leaves, like a small fern more than violet, and bright sparkle of small flowers in the dark dripping hollows. Assuredly de- lights in shade and distilling moisture of rocks.” I found afterwards a much larger yellow pansy on the Yorkshire high limestones; with vigorously black Fenton marking on the lateral petals. 37. V. Viota Montana. Mountain Violet. Flora Danica, 1329. Linnzus, No. 13, “ Caulibus: erectis, foliis cordato-lanceolatis, floribus serioribus apetalis,” i.e., on erect stems, with leaves long heart-shape, and its later flowers without petals—not a word said of its earlier flowers which have got those unimportant appendages! In the plate of the Flora it is a very perfect transitional form between violet and | pansy, with beautifully firm and well-curved leaves, but the colour of blossom very pale. ‘In subalpinis Norvegise pas- sim,” all that we are told of it, means I suppose, in the lower Alpine pastures of Norway ; in the Flora Suecica, p. 306, hab- itat in Lapponica, juxta Alpes. 38. VI. Viora Mrrasmuis. Flora Danica, 1045, A small and — exquisitely formed flower in the balanced cinquefoil inter- — mediate between violet and pansy, but with large and superbly curved and pointed leaves, It is a mountain violet, but be- longing rather to the mountain woods than meadows. “In sylvaticis in Toten, Norvegiz.” Loudon, 3056, “‘ Broad-leaved : Germany. Linneus, Flora Suecica, 789, says that the flowers of it which have perfect corolla and full scent often bear no seed, but that the later ‘cauline’ blossoms, without petals, are fertile. ‘“‘Caulini vero apetali fertiles sunt, et seriores. Habitat pas sim Upsalize.” ” I find this, and a plurality of other species, indicated by ; j VIOLA. 187 3 Tinea vn triangular stalks, “caule triquetro,” mean- the kind sketched in Figure 1 above. 4 o Viora Arvensts. Field Violet. Flora Danica, 1748. Peretti ‘running weed; nearly like Viola Cornuta, but feebly lilac and yellow in edtows Te dry fields, and with corn. __ Flora Suecica, 791 ; under titles of Viola ‘tricolor’ and ‘bi- _ color arvensis,’ and Herba Trinitatis. Habitat ubique in sferi- _ libus arvis: “Planta vix datur in qua evidentius perspicitur generationis opus, quam in hujus cavo apertoque stigmate.” It is quite undeterminable, among present botanical in- _ structors, how far this plant is only a rampant and over-in- _ dulged condition of the true pansy (Viola Psyche) ; but my _ own scholars are to remember that the true pansy is full purple and blue with golden centre ; and that the disorderly _ field varieties of it, if indeed not scientifically distinguishable, are entirely separate from the wild flower by their scattered _ form and faded or altered colour. I follow the Flora Danica 3 in giving them as a distinct species. 40. VIL Vrota Pacvsrris. Marsh Violet. Flora Darien: 3 83. As there drawn, the most finished and delicate in form of all the violet tribe ; warm white, streaked with red ; and as _ pure in outline as an oxalis, both in flower and leaf ; it is like a violet imitating oxalis and anagallis. _ In the Flora Suecica, the petal-markings are said to be black ; in ‘ Viola lactea’ a connected species, (Sowerby, 45,) _ purple. Sowerby’s plate of it under the name ‘palustris’ is pale purple veined with darker; and the spur is said to be _ *honey-bearing,’ which is the first mention I find of honey in _ the violet. The habitat given, sandy and turfy heaths. It is said to’ grow plentifully near Croydon. _ Probably, therefore, a violet belonging to the chalk, on which nearly all herbs that grow wild—from the grass to the bluebell—are singularly sweet and pure. I hope some of my botanical scholars will take up this question of the effect of different rocks on vegetation, not so much in bearing different species of plants, as different characters of each species.* _ “The great work of Lecoq, ‘Geographie Botanique,’ is of priceless _ value ; but treats all on too vast a scale for our purposes, 5 oy Py Pre ej 188 PROSERPINA. | ’ 41. IX. Vora Svowvsa. Monk’s Violet. “Hirta,” Flora Danica, 618, ‘In fruticetis raro.” A true wood violet, full but dim in purple. Sowerby, 894, makes it paler. The leaves very pure and severe in the Danish one ;—longer in the English. “‘Clothed on both sides with short, dense, hoary hairs.” Also belongs to chalk or limestone only (Sowerby). X. Viora Caniva. Dog Violet. I have taken it for analysis in my two plates, because its grace of form is too much de- spised, and we owe much more of the beauty of spring to it, in English mountain ground, than to the Regina. XL Vrora Cornura. Cow Violet. Enough described already. XII. Viora Rupesrris. Crag Violet. On the high limestone moors of Yorkshire, perhaps only an English form of Viola Aurea, but so much larger, and so different in habit—growing on dry breezy downs, instead of in dripping caves—that I allow it, for the present, separate name and number.* 42. ‘For the present,’ I say all this work in ‘Proserpina’ being merely tentative, much to be modified by future students, and therefore quite different from that of ‘ Deucalion,’ which is authoritative as far as it reaches, and will stand out like a quartz dyke, as the sandy speculations of modern gossiping geologists get washed away. But in the meantime, I must again solemnly warn my girl- readers against all study of floral genesis and digestion. How far flowers invite, or require, flies to interfere in their family affairs—which of them are carnivorous—and what forms of pestilence or infection are most favourable te some vegetable and animal growths,—let them leave the people to settle who like, as Toinette says of the Doctor in the ‘ Malade Imaginaire’ — —‘y mettre le nez.” I observe a paper in the last ‘Contempo- rary Review,’ announcing for a discovery patent to all mankind that the colours of flowers were made ‘to attract insects”! } — * It is, I believe, Sowerby’s Viola Lutea, 721 of the old edition, there painted with purple upper petals; but he says in the text, * Petals either all yellow, or the two uppermost are of a blue purple, the rest yellow. with a blue tinge: very often the whole are purple.” + Did the wretch never hear bees in a lime tree then, or ever see one on a star gentian ? FE .. VIOLA. 139 ‘They will next hear that the rose was made for the canker. _ and the body of man for the worm. _ 43. What the colours of flowers, or of birds, or of preciows " stones, or of the sea and air, and the blue mountains, and the - eyening and the morning, and the clouds of Heaven, were given for—they only know who can see them and can feel, and who pray that the sight and the love of them may be prolonged, where cheeks will not fade, nor sunsets die. 44, And now, to close, let me give you some fuller account of the reasons for the naming of the order to which the violet belongs, ‘ Cytherides.’ - You see that the Uranides, are, as far as I could so gather them, of the pure blue of the sky ; but the Cytherides of al- tered blue ;—the first, Viola, typically purple; the second, Veronica, pale blue with a peculiar light ; the third, Giulietta, deep blue, passing strangely into a subdued green before and after the full life of the flower. _ All these three flowers have great strangenesses in them, and weaknesses ; the Veronica most wonderful in its connec- tion with the poisonous tribe of the foxgloves ; the Giulietta, alone among flowers in the action of the shielding leaves ; and the Viola, grotesque and inexplicable in its hidden structure, but the most sacred of all flowers to earthly and daily Love, both in its scent and glow. Now, therefore, let us look completely for the meaning of the two leading lines, — ** Sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes, Or Cytherea’s breath.” 45. Since, in my present writings, I hope to bring into one focus the pieces of study fragmentarily given during past life, © I may refer my readers to the first chapter of the ‘Queen of _ the Air’ for the explanation of the way in which all great myths are founded, partly on physical, partly on moral fact,— so that it is not possible for persons who neither know the aspect of nature, nor the constitution of the human soul, to understand a word of them. Naming the Greek Gods, there- fore, you have first to think of the physical power they repre- 190 PROSERPLN. A. sent. When Horace calls Vulcan ‘ Avidus,’ he thinks of him as the power of Fire ; when he speaks of Jupiter's red right hand, he thinks of hin “as the power of rain with lightning ; and when Homer speaks of Juno’s dark eyes, you have to re- member that she is the softer form of the rain power, and to think of the fringes of the rain-cloud across the light of the — horizon. Gradually the idea becomes personal and human in the “ Dove’s eyes within thy locks,” * and “ Dove's eyes ‘by the river of waters” of the Song of Solomon, = 46. ‘Or Cytherea’s breath,”—the two thoughts of: softest glance, and softest kiss, being thus together associated with the flower: but note especially that the Island of Cythera was dedicated to Venus because it was the chief, if not the only Greek island, in which the purple fishery of Tyre was estab- lished ; and in our own minds should be marked not only as the vei southern fragment of true Greece, but the virtual continuation of the chain of mountains which separate the Spartan from the Argive territories, and are the natural home of the brightest Spartan and Argive beauty — nor togeT in Helen. 47. And, lastly, in accepting for the pees this name of Cytherides, you are to remember the names of Viola and Giulietta, its two limiting families, as those of Shakspeare’s two most loving maids—the two who love simply, and to the death: as distinguished from the greater natures in whom — earthly Love has its due part, and no more; and farther still — from the greatest, in whom the earthly love is quiescent, or subdued, beneath the thoughts of duty and immortality. It may be well quickly to mark for you the levels of loving temper in Shakspeare’s maids and wives, from the greatest to | ' the least. 48. 1. Isabel. All earthly love, and the possibilities of it held in absolute subjection to the laws of God, and the judg- ments of His will. She is Shakspeare’s only ‘Saint.’ Queen Catherine, whom you might next think of, is only an ordinary * Septuagint, ‘the eyes of doves out of thy silence.” Vulgate, “the — eyes of doves, besides that which is hidden in them.” beragecanetitin : dim look of love, beyond all others in sweetness. pee of trained religious temper :—her maid of honour lsey a more Christian epitaph. _ 2. Cordelia. - The earthly love consisting in diffused com- - passion: of the universal spirit ; not in any conquering, per- fixed, feeling. eg “Mine enemy’s dog, bat 23 | rnd : he had bit me, should have stood that night my fire.” These lines are spoken in her hour of openest direct expres- speare clearly does not mean her to have been su- beautiful in person ; it is only her true lover who ‘fair’ and ‘fairest ’"—and even that, I believe, partly in courtesy, after having the instant before offered her to his subordinate duke ; and it is only Ais scorn of her which makes Mampetuly‘tare for her. ; evabrsng 0&7 , Gods, "tis strange that from their cold neglect pirgete, oul ‘My love should kindle to inflamed respect !” i i Geiss cr ipeaey ; Had did beck entirely beautiful, he would have honoured her q as a lover should, even before he saw her despised ; nor would : she ever have been so despised—or by her father, misunder- stood. Shakspeare. himself does not pretend to know where her girl-heart was,—but I should like to hear how a great actress would say the “Peace be with Burgundy !” _ 8. Portia. The maidenly passion now becoming great, and chiefly divine in its humility, is still held absolutely subordi- _ nate to duty ; no thought of disobedience to her dead father’s 4 is entertained for an instant, though the temptation is marked. as passing, for that instant, before her crystal g Instantly, i in her own peace, she thinks chiefly of her loyer’s ;—she is a perfect Christian wife in a moment, persis her husband with the gift of perfect Peace,— “ Never shall you lie by Portia’s side With an unquiet soul.” Gy is is the root of her modesty ; her ‘unlettered girl’ is like OATS eee ee ee 192 PROSERPINA. Newton’s simile of the child on the sea-shore. Her perfect — wit and stern judgment are never disturbed for an instant by her happiness: and the final key to her character is given in her silent and slow return from Venice, where she a at every wayside shrine to pray. 4. Hermione. Fortitude and Justice personified, with un- wearying affection. She is Penelope, tried by her husband's fault as well as error. 5. Virgilia. Perfect type of wife and mother, but without definiteness of character, nor quite strength of intellect enough entirely to hold her husband’s heart. Else, she had saved him : he would have left Rome in his wrath—but not her. Therefore, it is his mother only who bends him: but she can- not save. . 6. Imogen. The ideal of grace and gentleness ; but weak ; enduring too mildly, and forgiving too easily. But the piece is rather a pantomime than play, and it is impossible to judge of the feelings of St. Columba, when she must leave the stage in half a minute after mistaking the headless clown for head- less Arlecchino. 7. Desdemona, Ophelia, Rosalind. They are under differ- ent conditions from all the rest, in having entirely heroic and faultless persons to love. I can’t class them, therefore,—fate is too strong, and leaves them no free will. 8. Perdita, Miranda. Rather mythic visions of maiden beauty than mere girls. 9. Viola and Juliet. Love the ruling power in the entire character: wholly virginal and pure, but quite earthly, and — recognizing no other life than his own. Viola is, however, far the noblest. Juliet will die unless Romeo loves her: “If | he be wed, the grave is like to be my wedding bed ;” but Viola is ready to die for the happiness of the man who does not love her; faithfully doing his messages to her rival, whom she examines strictly for his sake. It is not in envy that she says, ‘‘ Excellently done,—if God did all.” The key to her character is given in the least selfish of all Jover’s songs, the — one to which the Duke bids her listen : —a Pee Ss ee a _» Mark it, Cesario,—it is old and plain, ee 4 “VIOLA. | 193 _. . “The spinsters and the knitters in the sun, And the free maids, that weave their thread with bones, Do use to chaunt it.” (They, the unconscious Fates, weaving the fair vanity of life with death) ; and the burden of it is— ‘* My part of Death, no one so true Did share it.” > 4 eae. she says, in the great first scene, “Was not this love 3 deed?” and in the less heeded closing one, her heart then happy with the knitters in the sun, da? MM z I544 - * And all those sayings will I over-swear, _ And all those swearings keep as true in soul As doth that orbed continent the Fire ‘That severs day from night.” f . } + Or, at least, did once sever day from night,—and perhaps does still in Mllyria. Old England must seek new images for her loves from gas and electric sparks,—not to say furnace fire. ~ I am obliged, by press of other work, to set down these notes in cruel shortness : and many a reader may be disposed to question utterly the standard by which the measurement is made. It will not be found, on reference to my other books, that they encourage young ladies to go into convents ; or underyalue the dignity of wives and mothers. But, as surely as the sun does sever day from night, it will be found always that the noblest and loveliest women are dutiful and religious by continual nature ; and their passions are trained to obey them ; like their dogs. Homer, indeed, loves Helen with all his heart, and restores her, after all her naughtiness, to the queenship of her household ; but he never thinks of her as _ Penelope’s equal, or Iphigenia’s. Practically, in daily life, one often sees married women as good as saints; but rarely, I _ think, unless they have a good deal to bear from their hus- bands. Sometimes also, no doubt, the husbands have some trouble in managing St. Cecilia or St. Elizabeth ; of which questions I shall be obliged to speak more seriously in another we PROSERPINA. | a place: content, at present, if English maids know better, by Proserpina’s help, what Shakspeare meant by the dim, and Milton by the glowing, violet. CHAPTER IL PINGUICULA, (Written in early June, 1881.) 1, Ow the rocks of my little stream, where it runs, or leaps, through the moorland, the common Pinguicula is now in its perféctest beauty ; and it is one of the offshoots of the violet tribe which I have to place in the minor collateral groups of Viola very soon, and must not put off looking at it till next year. There are three varieties given in Sowerby: 1. Vulgaris, 2. — Greater-flowered, and 3. Lusitanica, white, for the most. part, pink, or ‘ carnea,’ sometimes: but the proper colour of the family is violet, and the perfect form of the plant is the ‘ vul- gar’ one. The larger-flowered variety is feebler in colour, and ruder in form: the white Spanish one, however, is very lovely, as far as I can judge from Sowerby’s (old Sowerby’s) pretty drawing. The ‘ frequent ’ one (I shall usually thus translate ‘ vulgaris’), is not by any means so ‘frequent’ as the Queen violet, being — a true wild-country, and mostly Alpine, plant; and there is — also a real ‘ Pinguicula Alpina,’ which we have notin England, who might be the Regina, if the group were large enough to be reigned over: but it is better not to affect Royalty among these confused, intermediate, or dependent families. 2. In all the varieties of Pinguicula, each blossom has one stalk only, growing from the ground ; and you may pull all the leaves away from the base of it, and keep the flower only, with its bunch of short fibrous roots, half an inch long ; look- — ing as if bitten at the ends, Two flowers, characteristically, —three and four very often,—spring from the same root, in places where it grows luxuriantly; and luxuriant growth ——aeTe PINGUICULA., 195 —" clusters of some twenty or thirty stars may be seen on the surface of a square yard of boggy ground, quite watluts ‘but its real glory is in harder life, in the crannies of well-wetted rock. 8. What T have called ‘stars’ are irregular clusters of ap- proximately, or tentatively, five aloeine ground leaves, of very pale green,—they may be six or seven, or more, but always run into a rudely pentagonal arrangement, essentially first trine, with two succeeding above. Taken as a whole the plant is really a main link between violets and Droseras ; but the flower has much more violet than Drosera in the make of it,— spurred, and five-petaled,* and held down by the top of its bending stalk as a violet is ; only its upper two petals are not reverted—the calyx, of a dark soppy green, holding them down, with its three front sepals set exactly like a strong * When TI have the chance, and the time, to submit the proofs of * Proserpina ’ to friends who know more of Botany than I, or have kind- ness enough to ascertain debateable things for me, I mean in future to do so,—using the letter A to signify Amicus, generally; with acknowl- ent by name, when it is permitted, of especial help or correction. Note 1 first of this kind: I find here on this word, ‘ five-petaled,’ as ap- to Pinguicula, “Qy. two-lipped ? it is monopetalous, and mono- sepalous, the calyx and corolla being each all in one piece.” ' Yes; and I am glad to have the observation inserted. But my term, *five-petaled,’ must stand. For the question with me is always first, not how the petals are connected, but how many they are. Also I have accepted the term petal—but never the word lip=-as applied to flowers. The generic term ‘Labiate’ is cancelled in ‘ Proserpina,’ ‘ Vestales’ being substituted ; and these flowers, when I come to examine them, are to be desttibed; not as divided into two lips, but into hood, apron, and side pockets Farther, the depth to which either calyx or corolla is divided, and the firmness with which the petals are attached to the torus, may, indeed, often be an important part of the plant's description, but ought not to be elements in its definition. Three petaled and three- sepaled, four-petaled and four-sepaled, five-petaled and five-sepaled, etc., etc., are essential—with me, primal—elements of definition ; next, Whether iloadliite or stellar in their connection; next, whether round or pointed, etc. Fancy, for instance, the fatality to a rose of pointing its petals, and toa lily, of rounding them! But how deep out, or how hard holding, is quite a minor question. Farther, that all plants are petaled and sepaled, and never mere cups in saucers, is a great fact. not to be dwelt on in a note 196 PROSERPINA. trident, its two backward sepals clasping the spur. ‘There are often six sepals, four to the front, but the normal number is five. Tearing away the calyx, I find the flower to have been held by it asa lion might hold his prey by the loins if he missed its throat; the blue petals being really campanulate, and the flower best described as a dark bluebell, seized and crushed almost flat by its own calyx ina rage. Pulling away now also the upper petals, I find that what are in the violet the lateral and well-ordered fringes, are here thrown mainly on the lower (largest) petal near its origin, and opposite the point of the seizure by the calyx, spreading from this centre over the surface of the lower petals, partly like an irregular shower of fine Venetian glass broken, partly like the wild- flung Medusa-like embroidery of the white Lucia.* 4. The calyx is of a dark soppy green, I said ; like that of sugary preserved citron ; the root leaves are of green just as soppy, but pale and yellowish: as if they were half decayed ; the edges curled up and, as it were, water-shrivelled, as one’s fingers shrivel if kept too long in water. And the whole plant looks as if it had been a violet unjustly banished to a bog, and obliged to live there—not for its own sins, but for some Emperor Pansy’s, far away in the garden,—in a partly bog- gish, partly hoggish manner, drenched and desolate ; and with something of demoniac temper got into its calyx, so that it quarrels with, and bites the corolla ;—something of glutton- ous and greasy habit got into its leaves; a discomfortable sensuality, even in its desolation, Perhaps a penguin-ish life would be truer of it than a piggish, the nest of it being in- deed on the rock, or morassy rock-investiture, like a sea- bird's on her rock ledge. 5. I have hunted through seven treatises on botany, namely Loudon’s Encyclopedia, Balfour, Grindon, Oliver, Baxter of Oxford, Lindley (‘ Ladies’ Botany’), and Figuier, without being able to find the meaning of ‘ Lentibulariaces,’ to which * Our ‘ Lucia Nivea,’ ‘ Blanche Lucy ;’ in present botany, Bog bean! having no connection whatever with any manner of bean, but only a slight resemblance to bean-leaves in its own lower ones. Compare Ch, IV. § 11. PING UICULA. a 199 * ceil Pingnicula i is said by them all (except Figuier) to belong. It may perhaps be in Sowerby ;* but these above- named treatises are precisely of the kind with which the or- dinary scholar must be content: and in all of them he has to learn this long, worse than useless, word, under which he is into classing together two orders naturally quite distinct, the Butterworts and the Bladderworts. Whatever the name may mean—it is bad Latin. There is such a word as Lenticularis—there is no Lentibularis ; and it must positively trouble us no longer. t The Butterworts are a perfectly distinct group—whether small or large, always recognizable at aglance. Their proper Latin name will be Pinguicula, (plural Pinguicule,)—their - *Ttis not. (Resoluto negative from A., unsparing of time for me; and what a state of things it all signifies !) + With the following three notes, ‘A’ must become a definitely and gratefully interpreted letter. I am indebted for the first, conclusive in itself, but variously supported and confirmed by the two following, to R. J. Mann, Esq., M.D., long ago a pupil of Dr, Lindley’s, and now on the council of Whitelands College, Chelsea:—for the second, to Mr. Thomas Moore, F.L.S , the kind Keeper of the Botanic Garden at Chelsea; for the third, which will be farther on useful to us, to Miss Kemm, the botanical lecturer at Whitelands. (1) There is no explanation of Lentibulariaceew in Lindley’s ‘ Vege- table Kingdom.’ He was not great in that line. The term is, however, taken from Lenticula, the lentil, in allusion to the lentil-shaped air- bladders of the typical genus Utricularia: The change of the c into b may possibly have been made only from some euphonic fancy of the contriver of the name, who, I think, was Rich. But I somewhat incline myself to think that the tibia, a pipe or flute, may have had something to do with it. The tibia may possibly have _ been diminished into a little pipe by a stretch of licence, and have become tibula: [but tibulus is a kind of pine tree in Pliny]; when Len- _ tibula would be the lens or lentil-shaped pipe or bladder. I give you _ this only for what it is worth. The lentécula, as a derivation, is reliable and has authority. Lenticula, a lentil, a freckly eruption ; leniticularis, lentil-shaped ; so the nat. ord. ought to be (if this be right) lenticwlariacee. (2) Boranic GARDENS, CHELSEA, Feb, 14, 1882. Lentibularia is an old generic name of Tournefort's, which has been superseded by utricularia, but, oddly enough, has been retained in the 198 PROSERPINA. English, Bog-Violet, or, more familiarly, Butterwort} and ’ their French, as at present, Grassette. SEES The families to be remembered will be only five, ~ehintey, 1. Pinguicula Major, the largest of the group. As bog plants, Tréland may rightly claim the noblest of them, which certainly grow there luxuriantly, and not (I believe) with us. Their colour is, however, more broken and — sp, $3 than that of the following’ species. 2. Pinguicula Violacea : Violet-coloured Bavinwery’ Kine stead of ‘vulgaris,’) the common English and” _ _ above noticed. 3. Pinguicula Alpina: Alpine Butterwort, white ante sara smaller than either of the first two families; the spur és- pecially small, according to D. 453. Much rarer, as well.as smaller, than the other varieties in Southern Europe. ‘Ia Britain, known only upon the moors of Roschaugh, Rosshire, where the progress of cultivation seems likely soon to efface it. (Grindon.) 4. Pinguicula Pallida : Pale Butterwort. From Sowerby’ 3 drawing, (135, vol. iii.,) it would appear to be the most. deli- cate and lovely of all the group. The leaves, “like those of other species, but rather more delicate and pellucid, reticu- lated with red veins, and much involute in the margin. Tube of the corolla, yellow, streaked with red, (the streaks like those of a pansy); the petals, pale violet. It much resem- name of the order lentibularew ; but it probably eomes from Je which signifies the little root bladders, somewhat resembling oa (8) ‘Manual of Scientific Terms,’ Stormonth, p. 234. we Lentibulariacee, neuter, plural. (Lenticula, the shape of a lentil; from lens, a lentil.) The Butter- wort family, an order of plants so named from the lenticnlar shape of the air-bladders on the branches of utricularia, one of the genera, (But observe that the Butterworts have nothing of the sort, any of them.—R.) Loudon. —-‘ Floaters.” Lindley.—‘' Sometimes with whorled vesicles.” In Nuttall’s Standard (?) Pronouncing Dictionary, it is given,— Lenticularee, a nat. ord. of marsh plants, which thrive in water or marshes, PINGUICULA. 199 a les Vito, (our Minima, No. 5,) in many particulars, the hairy, and in the lower part the hairs tipped with a viseid fluid, like a sundew. But the Villosa has a slender spur ; and in this the spur is blunt and thick at the end.” (Since the hairy stem is not peculiar to Villosa, I take for her, instead, the epithet Minima, which is really definitive.) ~~ The pale one is commonly called ‘ Lusitanica,’ but I find no ‘direct notice of its Portuguese habitation. Sowerby’s plant 7 - eame from Blandford, Dorbetshire » and Grindon says it is frequent in Ireland, abundant in Arran, and extends on the western side of the British island from Cornwall to Cape Wrath. My epithet, Pallida, is secure, and simple, wherever the plant is found. &. Pinguicula Minima: Least Butterwort; in D. 1021 ealled Villosa, the scape of it being hairy. I have not yet got rid of this absurd word ‘ scape,’ meaning, in bot- anist’s Tiatin, the flower-stalk of a flower grow- ing out of a cluster of leaves on the ground. It is a bad corruption of ‘sceptre,’ and especially false and absurd, because a true sceptre is neces- sarily branched.* In ‘Proserpina,’ when it is spoken of distinctively, it is called ‘ virgula’ (see vol. i, pp. 112, 115, 116). The hairs on the virgula are in this instance so minute, that even with a lens I cannotsee them in the Danish plate : of which Fig. 8 is a rough translation into wood- cut, to show the grace and mien of the little thing. The trine leaf cluster is characteristic, and the folding up of the leaf edges. The flower, in the Danish plate, full purple. Abundant in east of Finmark (Finland ?), but always growing in marsh x moss, (Sphagnum palustre.) o\* 6. I call it ‘Minima’ only, as the least of the "1 * five here named : without putting forward any claim for it to be the smallest pinguicula that ever was or will be. In such sense _ ™ More accurately, shows the pruned roots of branches,—érei5h xpara ‘Touny ev Specot AéAoiwev. The pruning is the mythic expression of the subduing of passion by rectorial law. 200. PROSERPINA, only, the epithets minima or maxima are to be understood when used in ‘ Proserpina’: and so also, every statement and every principle is only to be understood as true or tenable, respecting the plants which the writer has seen, and which he is sure that the reader can easily see: liable to modifica- tion to any extent by wider experience ; but better first learned securely within a narrow fence, and afterwards trained or fructified, along more complex trellises. 7. And indeed my readers—at least, my newly found read- ers—must note always that the only power which I claim for any of my books, is that of being right and true as far as they reach. None of them pretend to be Kosmoses ;—none to be systems of Positivism or Negativism, on which the earth is in future to swing instead of on its old worn-out poles ;—none of them to be works of genius ;—none of them to be, more than all true work must be, pious ;—and none to be, beyond the power of common people’s eyes,* ears, and noses, ‘zesthetic.’ They tell you that the world is so big, and can’t be made bigger—that you yourself are also so big, and can’t be made bigger, however you puff or bloat yourself ; but that, on modern mental nourishment, you may very easily be made smaller. They tell you that two and two are four, that ginger is hot in the mouth, that roses are red, and smuts black. Not themselves assuming to be pious, they yet assure you that there is such a thing as piety in the world, and that it is wiser than impiety ; and not themselves pretending to be works of genius, they yet assure you that there is such a thing as genius in the world, and that it is meant for the light and delight of the world. 8. Into these repetitions of remarks on my work, often made before, I have been led by an unlucky author who has just sent me his book, advising me that it is ‘‘ neither critical nor sentimental” (he had better have said in plain English “without either judgment or feeling”), and in which nearly *The bitter sorrow with which I first recognized the extreme rarity of finely-developed organic sight is expressed enough in the lecture on the Mystery of Life, added in the large edition of ‘Sesame and Lilies.’ SO Ye ge 1 a ee. Me ee i eee soe) re ee a PINGUICULA. 201 the frst sentence I read is—‘‘ Solomon with all his acuteness was not wise enough to. . . etc., etc., etc.” (‘give the Jews the British constitution,’ I beliews the man means.) He is not a whit more conceited than Mr. Herbert Spencer, or Mr. Goldwin Smith, or Professor Tyndall,—or any lively London apprentice out on a Sunday ; but this general superciliousness with respect to Solomon, his Proverbs, and his politics, char- acteristic of the modern Cockney, Yankee, and Anglicised Scot, i is a difficult thing to deal with for us of the old school, who were well whipped when we were young ; and have been in the habit of occasionally ascertaining our own levels as we grew older, and of recognizing that, here and there, some- body stood higher, and struck harder. 9. A difficult thing to deal with, I feel more and more, hourly, even to the point of almost ceasing to write ; not only eyery feeling I have, but, of late, even every word I use, being alike inconceivable to the insolence, and unintelligible amidst the slang, of the modern London writers. Only in the last magazine I took up, I found an article by Mr. Goldwin Smith on the Jews (of which the gist—as far as it had any—was that we had better give up reading the Bible), and in the text of which I found the word ‘tribal’ repeated about ten times in every page. Now, if ‘tribe’ makes tribal,’ tube must make tubal, cube, cubal, and gibe, gibal; and I suppose we sball next hear of tubal music, cubal minerals, and gibal conversa- tion! And observe how all this bad English leads instantly to blunder in thought, prolonged indefinitely. The Jewish Tribes are not separate races, but the descendants of brothers. ‘The Roman Tribes, political divisions ; essentially Trine: and the whole force of the word Tribune vanishes, as soon as the ear is wrung into acceptance of his lazy innovation by the modern writer. Similarly, in the last elements of mineralogy I took up, the first order of crystals was called “tesseral’ ; the writer being much too fine to call them ‘four-al,’ and too much bent on distinguishing himself from all previous writers to call them cubic. 10. What simple schoolchildren, and sensible school- masters, are to do in this atmosphere of Egyptian marsh, 902 PROSERPINA., which rains fools upon them like frogs, I can no more with any hope or patience conceive ;—but this finally Trepeat, con: cerning my own books, that they are written in honest Eng- lish, of good Johnsonian lineage, touched here and there with colour of a little finer or Elizabethan quality: and that the things they tell you are comprehensible by any moderately industrious and intelligent person ; and accurate, toa degree which the accepted methods of modern science i a in my own particular fields, approach, 11. Of which accuracy, the reader may observe for imme- diate instance, my extrication for him, from among the uvu- larias, of these five species of the Butterwort ; which, being all that need be distinctly named and remembered, do need to be first carefully distinguished, and then remembered in their companionship. So alike are they, that Gerarde makes no distinction among them ; but masses them under the gen- eral type of the frequent English one, described as the second kind of his promiscuous group of ‘Sanicle,’ “which Clusius calleth Pinguicula ; not before his time remembered, hath sundry small thick leaves, fat and full of juice, being broad towards the root and sharp towards the point, of a faint green colour, and bitter in taste; out of the middest whereof sprouteth or shooteth up a naked slender stalke nine inches long, every stalke bearing one flower and no more, sometimes white, and sometimes of a bluish purple colour, fashioned like unto the common Monkshoods” (he means Larkspurs) “called Consolida Regalis, having the like spur or Lark's heel attached thereto.” Then after describing a third kind of Sanicle—(Cortusa Mathioli, a large-leaved Alpine Primula,) he goes on: “ These plants are strangers in England ; their nat- ural country is the alpish mountains of Helvetia. They grow in my garden, where they flourish exceedingly, except Butter- woort, which groweth in our English squally wet grounds,”— (‘Squally,’ I believe, here, from squalidus, though Johnson does not give this sense; but one of his quotations from Ben Jonson touches it nearly: ‘‘Take heed that their new flowers and sweetness do not as much corrupt as the others’ dryness and squalor,”—and note farther that the word ‘squall,’ in the PING UIOULA. 203 _ sense of gust, is not pure English, but the Arabic ‘Cluaul’ with an s prefixed :—the English word, a form of ‘ squeal,’ meaning a child’s cry, from Gothic ‘Squela’ and Icelandic * squilla,’ would scarcely have been made an adjective by Ger- arde),—“ and will not yield to any culturing or transplanting : it groweth especially in a field called Cragge Close, and at Crosbie Rayenswaithe, in Westmerland ; (West-mere-land you observe, not mor) upon Ingleborough Fells, twelve miles from Lancaster, and by Harwoode in the same county near to Blackburn : ten miles from Preston, in Anderness, upon the bogs and marish ground, and in the boggie meadows about Bishop’s-Hatfield, and also in the fens in the way to Wittles Meare ” (Roger Wildrake’s Squattlesea Mere ?) “from Fendon, in Huntingdonshire.” Where doubtless Cromwell ploughed it up, in his young days, pitilessly ; and in nowise pausing, as Burns beside his fallen daisy.” _ 12. Finally, however, I believe, we may accept its English name of ‘ Butterwort’ as true Yorkshire, the more enigmatic form of ‘Pigwilly’ preserving the tradition of the flowers once abounding, with softened Latin name, in Pigwilly bot- tom, close to Force bridge, by Kendal, Gerarde draws the English variety as “Pinguicula sive Sanicula Eboracensis,— Butterwort, or Yorkshire Sanicle ;”” and he adds: ‘“ The hus- bandmen’s wives of Yorkshire do use to anoint the dugs of their kine with the fat and oilous juice of the herb Butter- wort when they be bitten of any FEPMO BS WORD, OF chapped, rifted and hurt by any other means.” 13. In Lapland it is put to much more certain use; “it is called Tatgrass, and the leaves are used by the inhabitants to make their ‘tit miolk,’ a preparation of milk in common use among them. Some fresh leaves are laid upon a filter, and milk, yet warm from the reindeer, is poured over them. After pass< ing quickly through the filter, this is allowed to rest for one or two days until it becomes ascescent,* when it is found not to have separated from the whey, and yet to have attained much greater tenacity and consistence than it would have done otherwise. The Laplanders and Swedes are said to be ex. * Lat. acesco, to turn sour. 904 PROSERPINA. tremely fond of this milk, which when once made, it is not necessary to renew the use of the leaves, for we are told that a spoonful of it will turn another quantity of warm milk, and make it like the first.” * (Baxter, vol. iii, No. 209.) 14. In the same page, I find quoted Dr. Johnston’s obser- vation that “when specimens of this plant were somewhat rudely pulled up, the flower-stalk, previously erect, almost immediately began to bend itself backwards, and formed a more or less perfect segment of a circle ; and so also, if a specimen is placed in the Botanic box, you will in a short time find that the leaves have curled themselves backwards, and now conceal the root by their revolution.” I have no doubt that this elastic and -wiry action is partly connected with the plant’s more or less predatory or fly-trap character, in which these curiously degraded plants are asso- ciated with Drosera. I separate them therefore entirely from the Bladderworts, and hold them to be a link between the Violets and the Droseracez, placing them, however, with the Cytherides, as a sub-family, for their beautiful colour, and because they are indeed a grace and delight in ground whieh, but for them, would be painfully and rudely desolate. * Withering quotes this as from Linnzus, and adds on authority of a Mr. Hawkes, “This did not succeed when tried with cows’ milk.” He also gives as another name, Yorkshire Sanicle ; and says it is called earning grass in Scotland. Linnzus says the juice will curdle reindeer's milk. The name for rennet is earning, in Lincolnshire, Withering also gives this note: ‘* Pinguis, fat, from its effect in CONGEALING milk,’—{A.) Withering of course wrong: the name comes, be the reader finally assured, from the fatness of the green leaf, quite peculiar among wild plants, and fastened down for us in the French word ‘Grassette.’ I have found the flowers also difficult to dry, in the be- nighted early times when I used to think a dried plant useful! See closing paragraphs of the 4th chapter,—R. VERONICA. 205 CHAPTER IL VERONICA. 1. “Tue Corolla of the Foxglove,” says Dr. Lindley, begin- ning his account of the tribe at page 195 of the first volume of his ‘Ladies’ Botany,’ “isa large inflated body (!), with its throat spotted with rich purple, and its border divided obliquely into five very short lobes, of which the two upper are the smaller ; its four stamens are of unequal length, and its style is divided into two lobes at the upper end. A number of long hairs cover the ovary, which contains two cells and a great quantity of ovules. “This” (sc. information) “ will show you what is the usual character of the Foxglove tribe ; and you will find that all the other genera referred to it in books agree with it essentially, although they differ in subordinate points. It is chiefly (A) in the form of the corolla, (B) in the number of the stamens, (C) in the consistence of the rind of the fruit, (D) in its form, (E) in the number of the seeds it contains, and (F) in the manner in which the sepals are combined, that these differ- ences consist.” 2. The enumerative letters are of my insertion—otherwise the above sentence is, word for word, Dr. Lindley’s,—and ‘it seems to me an interesting and memorable one in the history of modern Botanical science. For it appears from the tenor of it, that in a scientific botanist’s mind, six particulars, at least, in the character of a plant, are merely ‘subordinate points,’—namely, 1. (®) The combination of its calyx, 2. (A) The shape of its corolla, 3. (B) The number of its stamens, 4. (D) The form of its fruit, 5. (C) The consistence of its shell,—and 6. (E) The number of seeds in it. Abstracting, then, from the primary description, all the six inessential points, I find the three essential ones left are, that 206 _PROSERPINA. the style is divided into two lobes at the upper end, that a number of glandular hairs cover the ovary, and that this latter contains two cells. 3. None of which particulars concern any reasonable mor- tal, looking at a Foxglove, in the smallest degree. Whether hairs which he can’t see are glandular or bristly, —whether the green knobs, which are left when the purple bells are gone, are divided into two lobes or two hundred,—and whether the style is split, like a snake’s tongue, into two lobes, or like a rogue’s, into any number—are merely matters of vulgar curiosity, which he needs a microscope to discoyer, and will lose a day of his life in discovering. But if any pretty young Proserpina, escaped from the Plutonic durance of London, and carried by the tubular process, which replaces Charon’s boat, over the Lune at Lancaster, cares to come and walk on the Coniston hills in a summer morning, when the eyebriglit is out on the high fields, she may gather, with a little help from Brantwood garden, a bouquet of the entire Foxglove _ tribe in flower, as it is at present defined, and may see what they are like, altogether. 4. She shall gather : first, the Euphrasy, which a the turf on the brow of the hill glitter as if with new-fallen manna ; then, from one of the blue clusters on the top of the garden wall, the common bright blue Speedwell; and, from the gar- den bed beneath, a dark blue spire of Veronica spicata; then, at the nearest opening into the wood, a little foxglove in its first delight of shaking out its bells ; then—what next, does the Doctor say ?—a snapdragon? we must go back into the garden for that—here is a goodly crimson one, but what the little speedwell will think of him for a relative I can’t think! —a mullein ?—that we must do without for the moment; a monkey flower ?—that we will do without, altogether ; a lady’s slipper ?—say rather a goblin’s with the gout! but, such as the flower-cobbler has made it, here is one of the kind that people praise, out of the greenhouse,—and yet a figwort we must have, too ; which I see on referring to Loudon, may be balm-leaved, hemp-leaved, tansy-leaved, nettle-leayed, wing- leaved. heart-leaved. ear-leaved, spear-leaved, or lyre-leaved. _— se VERONICA. = we Bthini Fem find a balm-leaved one, though I don’t know _ what to make of it when I’ve got it, but it’s called a ‘Scorodo- nia’ in Sowerby, and something very ugly besides ;—Ill put _ abit of Teucrium Scorodonia in, to finish: and now—how _ will my young Proserpina arrange her bouquet, and rank the family relations to their contentment ? ’ 5. She has only one kind of flowers in her hand, as botani- eal classification stands at present; and whether the system be more rational, or in any human sense more scientific, which _ puts calceolaria and speedwell together,—and foxglove and euphrasy ; and runs them on one side into the mints, and on _ the other into the nightshades ;—naming them, meanwhile, - gome from diseases, some from vermin, some from blockheads, _ and the rest anyhow :—or the method I am pleading for, which teaches us, watchful of their seasonable return and chosen abiding places, to associate in our memory the flowers which truly resemble, or fondly companion, or, in time kept by the signs of Heaven, succeed, each other; and to name them in some historical connection with the loveliest fancies and most helpful faiths of the ancestral world—Proserpina be judge; with every maid that sets flowers on brow or breast— from Thule to Sicily. 6. We will unbind our bouquet, then, and putting all the rest of its flowers aside, examine the range and nature of the little blue cluster only. And first—we have to note of it, that the plan of the blos- _ som in all the kinds is the same; an irregular quatrefoil: and irregular quatrefoils are of extreme rarity in flower form. I don’t myself know one, except the Veronica. The cruciform vegetables—the heaths, the olives, the lilacs, the little Tor- mentillas, and the poppies, are all perfectly symmetrical. Two of the petals, indeed, as a rule, are different from the other two, except in the heaths ; and thus a distinctly crosslet _ form obtained, but always an equally balanced one : while in the Veronica, as in the Violet, the blossom always refers itself _ to a supposed place on the stalk with respect to the ground - _ and the upper petal is always the largest. The supposed place is often very suppositious indeed—-for 208 PROSERPINA. clusters of the common veronicas, if luxuriant, throw their blossoms about anywhere. But the idea of an upper and lower petal is always kept in the flower’s little mind. 7. In the second place, it is a quite open and flat quatrefoil —so separating itself from the belled quadrature of the heath, and the tubed and primrose-like quadrature of the cruciferze ; and, both as a quatrefoil, and as an open one, it is separated from the foxgloves and snapdragons, which are neither qua- trefoils, nor open ; but are cinqfoils shut up! | 8. In the third place, open and flat though the flower be, it is monopetalous; all the four arms of the cross strictly be- coming one in the centre; so that, though the blue foils look no less sharply separate than those of a buttercup or a cistus ; and are so delicate that one expects them to fall from their stalk if we breathe too near,—do but lay hold of one,—and, at the touch, the entire blossom is lifted from its stalk, and may be laid, in perfect shape, on our paper before us, as easily as if it had been a nicely made-up blue bonnet, lifted off its stand by the milliner. I pause here, to consider a little ; because I find myself mixing up two characteristics which have nothing necessary in their relation ;—namely, the unity of the blossom, and its coming easily off the stalk. The separate petals of the cistus and cherry fall as easily as the foxglove drops its bells ;—on the other hand, there are monopetalous things that don’t drop, but hold on like the convoluta,* and make the rest of the tree sad for their dying. I do not see my way to any systematic noting of decadent or persistent corolla; but, in passing, we may thank the veronica for never allowing us to see how it fades,} and being always cheerful and lovely, while it is with us. *T find much more difficulty, myself, being old, in using my altered names for species than my young scholars will. In watching the bells of the purple bindweed fade at evening, let them learn the fourth verse of the prayer of Hezekiah, as it is in the Vulgate—‘ Generatio mea ablata est, et convoluta est a me, sicut tabernaculum pastoris,”"—and — they will net forget the name of the fast-fading —ever renewed—“ belle d’un jour.” + ‘It is Miss Cobbe, I think, who says, ‘ all wild flowers know how to die gracefully.’ "—A, - re | VERONICA. 209 ;. 9, And for a farther specialty, I think we should take note _ of the purity and simplicity of its floral blue, not sprinkling _ itself with unwholesome sugar like a larkspur, nor varying _ into coppery or turquoise-like hue as the forget-me-not ; but _ keeping itself as modest as a blue print, pale, in the most frequent kinds; but pure exceedingly ; and rejoicing in fel- lowship with the grey of its native rocks. The palest of all I think it will be well to remember as Veronica Clara, the Poor Clare” of Veronicas. I find this note on it in my _. £The flower of an exquisite grey-white, like lichen, or shaded hoar-frost, or dead silver ; making the long-weathered stones _ it grew upon perfect with a finished modesty of paleness, as _ if the- flower could be blue, and would not, for their sake. Laying its fine small leaves along in embroidery, like Anagal- lis tenella, —indescribable in the tender feebleness of it—after- _ wards as it grew, dropping the little blossoms from the base _ of the spire, before the buds at the top had blown. Gath- ered, it was happy beside me, with a little water under a stone, and put out one pale blossom after another, day by _ 10. Lastly, and for a high worthiness, in my estimate, note that it is wild, of the wildest, and proud in pure descent of race ; submitting itself to no follies of the cur-breeding florist. Its species, though many resembling each other, are severally constant in aspect, and easily recognizable ; and I have never _ seen it provoked to glare into any gigantic impudence at a _ flower show. Fortunately, perhaps, it is scentless, and so de- spised. 11. Before I attempt arranging its families, we must note that while the corolla itself is one of the most constant in form, and so distinct from all other blossoms that it may be always known at a glance ; the leaves and habit of growth vary so greatly in families of different climates, and those born for special situations, moist or dry, and the like, that it is quite impossible to characterize Veronic, or Veronique, vegetation in general terms. One can say, comfortably, of a strawberry, that it is a creeper, without expecting at the next moment to 14 _ 210 PROSERPINA. see a steeple of strawberry blossoms rise to contradict us ;— we can venture to say of a foxglove that it grows in a spire, without any danger of finding, farther on, a carpet of prostrate — and entangling digitalis ; and we may pronounce of a butter- cup that it grows mostly in meadows without fear of finding ourselves at the edge of the next thicket, under the shadow of a buttercup-bush growing into valuable timber. But the Veronica reclines with the lowly,* upon occasion, and aspires, with the proud ; is here the pleased companion of the ground- ivies, and there the unrebuked rival of the larkspurs : on the rocks of Coniston it effaces itself almost into the film of a © lichen ; it pierces the snows of Iceland with the gentian : and in the Falkland Islands is a white-blossomed evergreen, of which botanists are in dispute whether it be Veronica or Olive. 12. Of these many and various forms, I find the manners and customs alike inconstant ; and this of especially singular in them—that the Alpine and northern species bloom hardily in contest with the retiring snows, while with us they wait till the spring is past, and offer themselves to us only in consola- - tion for the vanished violet and primrose. As we farther ex- amine the ways of plants, I suppose we shall find some that determine upon a fixed season, and will bloom methodically in June or July, whether in Abyssinia or Greenland; and others, like the violet and crocus, which are flowers of the spring, at whatever time of the favouring or frowning year the spring returns to their country. I suppose also that botan- ists and gardeners know all these matters thoroughly : but they don’t put them into their books, and the clear notions of them only come to me now, as I think and watch. 13. Broadly, however, the families of the Veronica fall into three main divisions,—those which have round leaves lobed at the edge, like ground ivy; those which have small thyme- like leaves ; and those which have long leaves like a foxglove’s, only smaller—never more than two or two and a half inches long. I therefore take them in these connections, though without any bar between the groups; only separating the Re- * See distinction between recumbent and rampant herbs, below, under ‘ Veronica Agrestis,’ p. 212. et ee ee Se ee VERONICA. 211 gina from the other thyme-leaved ones, to give her due pre- cedence ; and the rest will then arrange themselves into twenty families, easily distinguishable and memorable. I have chosen for Veronica Regina, the brave Icelandic one, which pierces the snow in first spring, with lovely small shoots of perfectly set leaves, no larger than a grain of wheat; the Fie. 4. flowers in a lifted cluster of five or six together, not crowded, yet not loose ; large, for veronica—about the size of a silver penny, or say half an inch across—deep blue, with ruby centre. . My woodcut, Fig. 4, is outlined* from the beautiful en- * * Abstracted ’ rather, I should have said, and with perfect skill, by Mr. Collingwood (the joint translator of Xenophon’s Economics for the ‘Bibliotheca Pastorum’). So also the next following cut, Fig. 5. 219 PROSERPINA. eraving D. 342,*—there called ‘ fruticulosa,’ from the number of the young shoots. 14. Beneath the Regina, come the twenty aera distin: guished families, wnariiely $ — 1. Chamedrys. ‘Ground-oak.’ I cannot tell Siti called—its small and rounded leaves having nothing like oak leaves about them, except the serration, which is common to half, at least, of all leaves that grow. But the idea is all over Europe, apparently. Fr. ‘petit chéne:’ German and English -*Germander,’ a merely corrupt form of Chameedrys. The representative English veronica “Germander Speed- well ”—very prettily drawn in S. 986; too tall and weedlike in D. 448. 2. Hederifolia. Ivy-leaved : but more fan eymbalaria- leaved. It is the English field representative, though blue- flowered, of the Byzantine white veronica, V. Cymbalaria, very beautifully drawn in G. 9. Hederifolia well in D. 428. 3. Agrestis. Fr. ‘Rustique.’ We ought however clearly to understand whether ‘agrestis,’ used by English botanists, is meant to imply a literally field flower, or only a ‘ rustic’ one, which might as properly grow in a wood,» I shall always myself use ‘agrestis’ in the literal sense, and ‘rustica’ for ‘rustique.’ I see no reason, in the present case, for separat- ing the Polite from the Rustic flower: the agrestis, D, 449 * Of the references, henceforward necessary to the books I have used as authorities, the reader will please note the following abbreviations ;— . Curtis’s Magazine of Botany. . Flora Danica, . Figuier. . Sibthorpe’s Flora Greca. . Linneus. Systema Nature. S. Linneus’s Flora Suecica. But till we are quite used to the other letters, I print this reference in words. N. William Curtis’s Flora Londinensis. Of the exquisite plates engraved for this book by James Sowerby, note is taken in the close of next chapter. O. Sowerby’s English Wild Flowers; the old edition in thirty-two thin volumes —far the best. 8. Sowerby’s English Wild Flowers; the modern edition in ten vol umes, MH Prasya ee ee a ee ee ee ee VERONICA. 213 . ahi S. 971, seems to me not more meekly recumbent, nor _ more frankly cultureless, than the so-called Polita, S. 972: _ there seems also no French acknowledgment of its polite- id ness, nee og Greek family, G. 8, seem the rudest and wildest Quite a fla flower it is, I believe, lying Mites low on the _ ground, recumbent, but not creeping. Note this difference : _ no fastening roots are thrown out by the reposing stems of _ this Veronica ; a creeping or accurately ‘rampant’ plant roots | Heltud advancing Conf. Nos. 5, 6. 4, Arvensis. ‘We have yet to note a still finer distinction _ in epithet. ‘ Agrestis’ will properly mean a flower of the open _ ground—yet not caring whether the piece of earth be culti- _ vated or not, so long as it is under clear sky. But when agri- culture has turned the unfruitful acres into ‘ arva beata,’—if _ then the plant thrust itself between the furrows of the plough, __ it is properly called ‘ Arvensis.’ _ I don’t quite see my way to the same distinction in English, _ —perhaps I may get into the habit, as time goes on, of calling the Arvenses consistently furrow-flowers, and the Agrestes field-flowers. Furrow-veronica is a tiresomely long name, but _ must do for the present, as the best interpretation of its Latin _ character, “vulgatissima in cultis et arvis,” D. 515. The _ blossom itself is exquisitely delicate ; and we may be thankful, both here and in Denmark, for such a lovely ‘ vulgate.’ _ §&. Montana. D. 1201. The first really creeping plant we have had to notice. It throws out roots from the recumbent stems. Otherwise like agrestis, it has leaves like ground-ivy. Called a wood species in the text of D. _ ©, Persica. An eastern form, but now perfectly natural- _ ized here—D. 1982 ; S. 973. The flowers very large, and ex- tremely beautiful, but only one springing from each leaf-axil. _ Leaves and stem like Montana ; and also creeping with new roots at intervals. 7. Triphylla (not triphyllos,— —see Flora Suecica, 22). canting trifid-leaved ; but the leaf is really divided into five lobes, not Kifeecilnes S. 974, and G. 10. The palmate form of the leaf seems a mere caprice, and indicates no transi- 214 PROSERPINA. ee nip as tional form in the plant: it may be accepted as only a mo- | ‘mentary compliment of mimicry to the geraniums. The Siberian variety, ‘ multifida,’ C. 1679, divides itself almost as the submerged leaves of the water-ranunculus. The triphylla itself is widely diffused, growing alike ¢ on the sandy fields of Kent, and of Troy. In D. 627 is given an ex- tremely delicate and minute northern type, the flowers springing as in Persica, one from each leaf-axil, and at distant intervals. 8. Officinalis. D. 248, S. 294. Fr. ‘ Veronique officinale’ ; (Germ. Gebrauchlicher Ehrenpreis,) our commonest English and Welsh speedwell ; richest in cluster and frankest in road- side growth, whether on bank or rock ; but assuredly liking either a bank or a rock, and the top of a wall better than the shelter cf one. Uncountable ‘myriads, I am tempted to write, but, cautiously and literally, ‘hundred’ of blossoms— if one could count,—ranging certainly towards the thousand in some groups, all bright at once, make our Westmoreland lanes look as if they were decked for weddings, in early sum- mer. In the Danish Flora it is drawn small and poor ; its southern type being the true one: but it is difficult to explain the difference between the look of a flower which really suffers, as in this instance, by a colder climate, and becomes mean and weak, as well as dwarfed ; and one which is braced and brightened by the cold, though diminished, as if under the charge and charm of an affectionate fairy, and becomes a joy- fully patriotic inheritor of wilder scenes and skies. Medicinal, to soul and body alike, this gracious and domestic flower ; though astringent and bitter in the juice. It is the Welsh deeply honoured ‘ Fluellen.’—See final note on the myth of Veronica, see § 18. 9. Thymifolia, Thyme-leaved, G. 6. Of course the long gest possible word—serpyllifolia—is used in S$. 978. Itis a — high mountain plant, growing on the top of Crete as the snow retires ; and the Veronica minor of Gerarde; ‘the roote is — small and threddie, taking hold of the upper surface of the earth, where it spreadeth.” So also it is drawn as a creeper in © F. 492, where the flower appears to be oppressed and con — cealed by the leafage, Peas in me ae ho ee ~ VERONICA. 215 ~ 40. Minuta, called ‘hirsuta’ in §. 985: an ugly character- istic to name the lovely little thing by. The distinct blue lines in the petals might perhaps justify ‘picta’ or ‘lineata,’ rather than an epithet of size; but I suppose it is Gerarde’s Minima, and so leave it, more safely named as ‘minute’ than ‘least.’ For I think the next variety may dispute the leastness. ~ tt. Verna. D. 252. Mountains, in dry places in early spring. Up- right, and confused in the leafage, which is sharp-pointed and close set, much hiding the blossom, but of ex- treme elegance, fit for a sacred fore- ground ; as any gentle student will feel, who copies this outline from the Flora Danica, Fig. 5. - £2. Peregrina. Another extreme- ly small variety, nearly pink in colour, passing into bluish lilac and white. American ; but called, I do not see why, ‘Veronique voyageuse,’ by the French and Fremder Ebrenpreis in Germany. Given as a frequent Eng- lish weed in S. 927. 13. Alpina. Veronique des Alpes. Gebirgs Ehrenpreis. Still minute ; its scarcely distinct flowers form- ing a close head among the leaves ; round-petalled in D. 16, but sharp, as usual, in §. 980. On the Norway Alps in grassy places ; and in Scotland by the side of mountain rills ; but rare. On Ben Nevis and Lachin y Gair (S.) 14. Scutellata. From the shield-like shape of its seed-ves sels. Veronique 4 Ecusson; Schildfruchtiger Ehrenpreis. But the seed-vessels are more heart shape than shield. March Speedwell. S. 988, D. 209,—in the one pink, in the other blue ; but again in D. 1561, pink. ' Fie. 5. ue ¢ PROSERPINA. “In flooded meadows, common.” (D.) Aspoiledand seat- tered form ; the seeds too conspicuous, but the flowers very delicate, hence ‘ Gratiola minima’ in Gesner. The confused ramification of the clusters worth noting, in relation to the equally straggling fibres of root. 15. Spicata. S. 982: very prettily done, sejpredintiig. the inside of. the flower as deep blue, the outside pale. The top of the spire, all calices, the calyx being indeed, through all the veronicas, an important and persistent member. — The tendency to arrange itself in spikes is to be noted as a degradation of the veronic character; connecting it on one side with the snapdragons, on the other with the ophryds. In Veronica Ophrydea, (C. 2210,) this resemblance to the contorted tribe is carried so far that “the corolla of the ve- ronica becomes irregular, the tube gibbous, the faux (throat) | hairy, and three of the laciniz (lobes of petals) variously twisted.” The spire of blossom, violet-coloured, is then close set, and exactly resembles an ophryd, except in being sharper at the top. The engraved outline of the blossom is good, and very curious. 16. Gentianoides. This is the mostdirectly and curiously imitative among the—shall we call them—‘histrionic’ types of Veronica. It grows exactly like a clustered upright gen- tian; has the same kind of leaves at its root, and springs — with the same bright vitality among the retiring snows of the Bithynian Olympus. (G. 5.) If, however, the Caucasian flower, ©. 1002, be the same, it has lost its perfect grace in luxuriance, growing as large as an asphodel, and with root- leaves half a foot long. : The petals are much veined ; and this, of all medias has — the lower petal smallest in proportion to the three sae : “triplo aut quadruplo minori.” (G.) 17. Stagnarum. Marsh-Veronica. The last four families we have been examining vary from the typical Veronicas not only in their lance-shaped clusters, but in their lengthened, and often every way much enlarged leaves also: and the two which we now will take in association, 17 and 18, carry the change in aspect farthest of any, being both of them true VERONICA. | 217 2s ei with strong stems and thick leaves. The present - name of my Veronica Stagnarum is however V. anagallis, a _ mere insult to the little water primula, which one plant of the _ Veronica would make fifty of. This is a rank water-weed, having confused bunches of blossom and seed, like unripe - currents, dangling from the leaf-axils. So that where the _ little triphylla, (No. 7, above,) has only one blossom, daintily _ set, and well seen, this has a litter of twenty-five or thirty on _ along stalk, of which only three or four are well out as flow- _ ers, and the rest are mere knobs of bud or seed. The stalk _ is thick (half an inch round at the bottom), the leaves long and misshapen. “Frequens in fossis,” D, 203. French, _ Mouron d’Eau, but I don’t know the root or exact meaning _ of Mouron. _ An ugly Australian species, ‘labiata,’ C. 1660, has leaves two inches long, of the shape of an aloe’s, and partly aloeine 4 in texture, ‘sawed with unequal, fleshy, pointed teeth.” _. £8. Fontium. Brook-Veronica. Brook-Lime, the Anglo- | esi ‘lime’ from Latin limus, meaning the soft mud of _ streams. German ‘ Bach-bunge’ (Brook-purse ?) ridiculously _ changed by the botanists into ‘ Beccabunga,’ for a Latin name! Very beautiful in its crowded green leaves as a stream-com- panion ; rich and bright more than watercress. See notice of it at Matlock, in ‘Modern Painters,’ vol. v. #9. Clara. Veronique des rochers. Saxatilis, I suppose, in Sowerby, but am not sure of having identified that with my own favourite, for which I therefore keep the name ‘ Clara,’ _ (see above § 9) ; and the other rock variety, if indeed another, - must be remembered, together with it. 20, Glauca. G.7. And this at all events, with the Clara, _is to be remembered as closing the series of twenty families, _acknowledged by Proserpina. It is a beautiful low-growing ivy-leaved type, with flowers of subdued lilac blue. On q eran Hymettus: no other locality given in the Flora Greeca. 15. Tam sorry, and shall always be so, when the varieties _ of any flower which I have to commend to the student’s mem- _ ory, exceed ten or twelve in number ; but I am content to gratify his pride with lengthier task, if indeed he will resign 218 PROSERPINA. himself to the imperative close of the more inclusive catalogue | and be content to know the twelve, or sixteen, or twenty, ac- knowledged families, thoroughly ; and only in their iileebens tion to think of rarer forms. The object of ‘ Proserpina,’ is to make him happily cognizant of the common aspect of Greek and English flowers ; under the term ‘ English,’ comprehend- ing the Saxon, Celtic, Norman, and Danish Floras. Of the evergreen shrub alluded to in § 11 above, the Veronica De- eussata of the Pacific, which is “a bushy evergreen, with beautifully set cross-leaves, and white blossoms scented like olea fragrans,” I should like him only to read with much sur- prise, and some incredulity, in Pinkerton’ s or other entertain- ing travellers’ voyages. 16. And of the families given, he is to note fou thie:a eorn- mon simple.characteristic, that they are quatrefoils referred to a more or less elevated position on a central stem, and haying, in that relation, the lowermost petal diminished, contrary to the almost universal habit of other flowers to develop in such a position the lower petal chiefly, that it may have its full share of light. You will find nothing but blunder and em- barrassment result from any endeavour to enter into further particulars, such as “the relation of the dissepiment with re- spect to the valves of the capsule,” etc., etc., since “in the various species of Veronica almost every kind of dehiscence may be observed ” (C. under V. perfoliata, 1936, an Australian species), Sibthorpe gives the entire definition of Veronica with only one epithet added to mine, ‘Corolla quadrifida, rotata, lacinii infima angustiore, ” but I do not know. what ‘rotata’ here means, as there is no appearance of revolved action in the petals, so far as I can see. OF 17. Of the mythie or poetic significance of the veronica, there is less to be said than of its natural beauty. I have not been able to discover with what feeling, or at what time, its sacred name was originally given; and the legend of 8. Veron- ica herself is, in the substance of it, irrational, and therefore | incredible. The meaning of the term ‘rational,’ as applied to a legend or miracle, is, that there has been an intelligible need for the permission of the miracle at the time when it is re-— a _ ean reach, for the reflection of His features upon a piece of linen which could be seen by not one in a million of the dis- _ ciples to whom He might more easily, at any time, manifest _ Himself personally and perfectly. Nor, I believe, has the _ story of S. Veronica ever been asserted to be other than sym- bolic by the sincere teachers of the Church ; and, even so far as in that merely explanatory function, it became the seal of _ an extreme sorrow, it is not easy to understand how the pen- _ sive fable was associated with a flower so familiar, so bright, and so popularly of good omen, as the Speedwell. 18. Yet, the fact being actually so, and this consecration of the veronica being certainly far more ancient and earnest than the faintly romantic and extremely absurd legend of the forget- me-not; the Speedwell has assuredly the higher claim to be - given and accepted as a token of pure and faithful love, and to be trusted as a sweet sign that the innocence of afféction is indeed more frequent, and the appointed destiny of its faith more fortunate, than our inattentive hearts have hitherto dis- 19. And this the more, because the recognized virtues and _ uses of the plant are real and manifold: and the ideas of a peculiar honourableness and worth of life connected with it by the German popular name ‘ Honour-prize ’ ; while to the heart of the British race, the same thought is brought home _ by Shakespeare’s adoption of the flower’s Welsh name, for the _ faithfullest common soldier of his ideal king. As a lover's _ pledge, therefore, it does not merely mean memory ;—for, in- _ deed, why should love be thought of as such at all, if it need _ to promise not to forget ?—but the blossom is significant also _ of the lover's best virtues, patience in suffering, purity in _ thought, gaiety in courage, and serenity in truth: and there- _ fore I make it, worthily, the clasping and central flower of _ the Cytherides, VERONICA. ‘ “Sean 5 deter : and that the nature and manner of the act itself _ should be comprehensible in the scope. There was thus - quite simple need for Christ to feed the multitudes, and to _ appear to S. Paul; but no need, so far as human intelligence ; 920 PROSERPINA. CHAPTER IY. GIULIETTA. 1. Surrostna that, in early life, one had the power of living to one’s fancy,—and why should we not, if the said faney were restrained by the knowledge of the two great laws concerning our nature, that happiness is increased, not by the enlarge- ment of the possessions, but of the heart ; and days length- ened, not by the crowding of emotions, but the economy of them ?—if thus taught, we had, I repeat, the ordering of our house and estate in our own hands, I believe no manner of temperance in pleasure would be better rewarded than that of making our gardens gay only with common flowers; and leaving those which needed care for their transplanted life to be found in their native places when we travelled. So long asI had crocus and daisy in the spring, roses in the summer, and hollyhocks and pinks in the autumn, I used to be myself inde- pendent of farther horticulture,—and it is only now that I am old, and since pleasant travelling has become impossible to me, that I am thankful to have the white narcissus in my bor- ders, instead of waiting to walk through the fragrance of the meadows of Clarens ; and pleased to see the milkwort blue on my scythe-mown banks, since I cannot gather it any more on | the rocks of the Vosges, or in the divine glens of Jura. 2. Among the losses, all the more fatal in being unfelt, brought upon us by the fury and vulgarity of modern life, I count for one of the saddest, the loss of the wish to gather a — flower in travelling. The other day,—whether indeed a sign of some dawning of doubt and remorse in the publie mind, as to the perfect jubilee of railroad journey, or merely a piece of — the common daily flattery on which the power of the British press first depends, I cannot judge ;—but, for one or other of such motives, I saw lately in some illustrated paper. a pictorial comparison of old-fashioned and modern travel, representing, as the type of things passed away, the outside passengers of a a a 7 ae | eS = ey ee 9 Se Sp Fee Uy Cee oe Uddges nahn fag GIULIETTA. at | siemens fivti> Noddled iniid tailed slisktens, fret. the swirl of a winter snowstorm ; and for type of the present Ely- sian dispensation, the inside of ‘a first-class ‘saloon carriage, with a beautiful young lady in the last pattern of Parisian travelling dress, conversing, Daily news in hand, with a young officer—her fortunate vis-d-vis—on the subject of our military successes in Afghanistan and Zululand.* : 3. I will not, in presenting—it must not be called, the other side, but the supplementary, and wilfully omitted, facts, of this ideal,—oppose, as I fairly might, the discomforts of a modern cheap excursion train, to the chariot-and-four, with outriders and courier, of ancient noblesse. I will com- pare only the actual facts, in the former and in latter years, of my Own journey from Paris to Geneva. As matters are now arranged, I find myself, at half-past eight in the evening, waiting in a confused crowd with which I am presently to contend for a seat, in the dim light and cigar-stench of the great station of the Lyons line. Making slow way through the hostilities of the platform, in partly real, partly weak po- liteness, as may be, I find the corner seats of course already full of prohibitory cloaks and umbrellas; but manage to get a middle back one; the net overhead is already surcharged with a bulging extra portmanteau, so that I squeeze my desk as well as I can between my legs, and arrange what wraps I have about my knees and shoulders. Follow a couple of hours of simple patience, with nothing to entertain one’s thoughts but the steady roar of the line under the wheels, the blinking and dripping of the oil lantern, and the more or less ungainly wretchedness, and variously sullen compromises and encroachments of posture, among the five other passen- gers preparing themselves for sleep: the last arrangement for the night being to shut up both windows, in order to effect, with our six breaths, a salutary. modification of the night air. 4. The banging and bumping of the carriages over the turn- tables wakes me up as Iam beginning to doze, at Fontaine- bleau, and again at Sens; and the trilling and thrilling of the * See letter on the last results of our African campaigns, in the Morn- ing Post of April 14th, of this year. Te Fe St ee, Ee ae, ee Ee j eee ae 7 922 PROSERPINA, little beiceraph bell establishes itself. in my ears, pe oy, there, trilling me at last into a shivering, suspicious sort of sleep, which, with a few vaguely fretful shrugs and _fidgets, carries me as far as Tonnerre, where the ‘quinze minutes. d’arret’ revolutionize everything ; and I get a turn or two on the platform, and perhaps a glimpse of the stars, with promise of a clear morning ; and so generally keep awake past Mont Bard, remembering the happy walks one used to have on the terrace under Buffon’s tower, and thence watching, if per- chance, from the mouth of the high tunnel, any film of moon- light may show the far undulating masses of the hills of Citeaux. But most likely one knows the place where the great old view used to be only by the sensible quickening of the pace as the train turns down the incline, and crashes through the trenched cliffs into the confusion and high clat- tering vault of the station at Dijon. 5. And as my journey is almost always in the spring-time, the twisted spire of the cathedral usually shows itself against the first grey of dawn, as we run out again southwards ; and resolving to watch the sunrise, I fall more complacently asleep, —and the sun is really up by the time one has to change ear- ringes, and get morning coffee at Macon. And from Ambe- rieux, through the Jura valley, one is more or less feverishly happy and thankful, not so much for being in sight of Mont Blane again, as in having got through the nasty and gloomy night journey ; and then the sight of the Rhone and. the Saléve seems only like a dream, presently to end in nothing- ness ; till, covered with dust, and feeling as if one never should be fit for anything any more, one staggers down the hill to the Hotel des Bergues, and sees the dirtied Rhone, with its new iron bridge, and the smoke of a new factor y exactly dividing the line of the aiguilles of Chamouni. 6. That is the j journey as it is now,—and as, for me, it must be; except on foot, since there is now no other way of making it. But this was the way we used to manage it in old days :— Very early in Continental transits we had found out that the family travelling carriage, taking much time and ingenuity to load, needing at the least three, usually four—horses, and “GICLIETTA. (223 * Atptad iit not only jolted and lagged painfully on bad roads, but was liable in every way to more awkward dis- _ eomfitures than lighter vehicles; getting itself jammed in 4 archways, wrenched with damage out of ruts, and involved in _ yolleys of justifiable reprobation among market stalls. So __ when we knew better, my father and mother always had their Own old-fashioned light two-horse carriage to themselves, and _ Thad one made with any quantity of front and side pockets _ for books and picked uj} stones; and hung very low, with a - fixed side-step, which I could get off or on with the horses at q the trot ; and at any rise or fall of the road, relieve them, and get my own walk, without troubling the driver to think of me. 4. Thus, leaving Paris in the bright spring morning, when the Seine glittered gaily at Charenton, and the arbres de Judée were mere pyramids of purple bloom round Villeneuve- St.-Georges, one had an afternoon walk among the rocks of Fontainebleau, and next day we got early into Sens, for new lessons in its cathedral aisles, and the first saunter among the budding vines of the coteaux. -I finished my plate of the - Tower of Giotto, for the ‘Seven Lamps,’ in the old inn at Sens, which Dickens has described in his wholly matchless _ way in the last chapter of ‘Mrs. Lirriper’s Lodgings.’ The next day brought us to the oolite limestones at Mont Bard, and we always spent the Sunday at the Bell in Dijon. Mon- day, the drive of drives, through the village of Genlis, the fortress of Auxonne, and up the hill to the vine-surrounded town of Dole ; whence, behold at last the limitless ranges of _ Jura, south and north, beyond the woody plain, and above _ them the ‘ Derniers Rochers’ and the white square-set summit, worshipped ever anew. Then at Poligny, the same afternoon, we gathered the first milkwort for that year; and on Tuesday, _ at St. Laurent, the wild lily of the valley ; and on Wednesday, - at Morez, gentians. _ And on Thursday, the eighth or ninth day from Paris, days _ all spent patiently and well, one saw from the gained height of Jura, the great Alps unfold themselves in their chains and wreaths of incredible crest and cloud. 8. Unhappily, during all the earliest and usefullest years of 994 _ PROSERPINA. such travelling, I had no thought of ever taking up botany as a study ; feeling well that even geology, which was antecedent to painting with me, could not be followed out in connection with art but under strict limits, and with sore shortcomings. It has only been the later discovery of the uselessness of old scientific botany, and the abominableness of new, as an ele- ment of education for youth ;—and my certainty that a true knowledge of their native Flora was meant by Heaven to be one of the first heart-possessions of every happy boy and girl in flower-bearing lands, that have compelled me to gather into system my fading memories, and wandering thoughts. And of course in the diaries written at places of which I now want chiefly the details of the Flora, I find none ; and in this in- stance of the milkwort, whose name I was first told by the Chamouni guide, Joseph Couttet, then walking with me on the unperilous turf of the first rise of the Vosges, west of Strasburg, and rebuking me indignantly for my complaint that, being then thirty-seven years old, and not yet able to draw the great plain and distant spire, it was of no use trying in the poor remainder of life to do anything serious,—then, and there, I say, for the first time examining the strange little flower, and always associating it, since, with the limestone crags of Alsace and Burgundy,* I don’t find a single note of its preferences or antipathies in other districts, and cannot say a word about the soil it chooses, or the height it ventures, or the familiarities to which it condescends, on the Alps or Apennines. . 9. But one thing I have ascertained of it, lately at Brant- wood, that it is capricious and fastidious beyond any other little blossom Iknow of. In laying out the rock garden, most of the terrace sides were trusted to remnants of the natural slope, propped by fragments of stone, among which nearly every other wild flower that likes sun and air, is glad some- times to root itself. But at the top of all, one terrace was brought to mathematically true level of surface, and slope of * TI deliberately, not garrulously, allow more autobiography in ‘ Pro- serpina’ than is becoming, because I know not how far I may be per mitted to carry on that whivh was begun in ‘ Fors.’ GIULIETTA. 225 side, and turfed with delicately chosen and adjusted sods, - meant to be kept duly trim by the scythe. And only on this terrace does the Giulietta choose to show herself,—and even j there, not in any consistent places, but gleaming out here in one year, there in another, like little bits of unexpected sky through cloud ; and entirely refusing to allow either bank or _ terrace to be mown the least trim during her time of disport _ there, So spared and indulged, there are no more wayward _ things in all the woods or wilds ; no more elicate and per- fect things to be brought up by watch through day and night, _ than her recumbent clusters, trickling, sometimes almost gushing through the grass, and meeting in tiny pools of flaw- less blue. | 10. Iwill not attempt at present to arrange the varieties __ of the Giulietta, for I find that all the larger and presumably — _ characteristic forms belong to the Cape ; and only since Mr. _ Froude came back from his African explorings have I been able to get any clear idea of the brilliancy and associated in- finitude of the Cape flowers. If I could but write down the substance of what he has told me, in the course of a chat or _ two, which have been among the best privileges of my recent stay in London, (prolonged as it has been by recurrence of ~ illness,) it would be a better summary of what should be generally known in the natural history of southern plants than - Teould glean from fifty volumes of horticultural botany. In _ the meantime, everything being again thrown out of gear by _ the aforesaid illness, I must let this piece of ‘ Proserpina’ break off, as most of my work does—and as perhaps all of it - may soon do—leaving only suggestion for the happier re- - search of the students who trust me thus far. 11. Some essential points respecting the flower I shall note, however, before ending. There is one large and frequent q species of it of which the flowers are delicately yellow, touched _ with tawny red forming one of the chief elements of wild fore- _ ground yegetation in the healthy districts of hard Alpine lime- _ stone.* This is, I believe, the only European type of the large _ *In present Botany, Polygala Chamebuxus; C. 316: or, in English, Much Miik Ground-box. It is not, as matters usually go, a name to be a PROSERPINA. — Cape varieties, in all of which, judging from such plates as have been accessible to me, the crests or fringes of the lower petal are less conspicuous than in the smaller species; and the flower almost takes the aspect of a broom-blossom or pease-blossom. In the smaller European varieties, the white fringes of the lower petal are the most important and charac- teristic part of the flower, and they are, among European wild flowers, absolutely without any likeness of associated struct- ure. The fringes or crests which, towards the origin of petals, so often give a frosted or gemmed appearance to the centres of flowers, are here thrown to the extremity of the petal, and suggest an almost coralline structure of blossom, which in no other instance whatever has been imitated, still less carried out into its conceivable varieties of form. How many such varieties might have been produced if these fringes of the Giulietta, or those already alluded to of Lucia nivea, had been repeated and enlarged; as the type, once adopted for complex bloom in the thistle-head, is multiplied in the innumerable gradations of thistle, teasel, hawkweed, and aster! We might have had flowers edged with lace finer than was ever woven by mortal fingers, or tasselled and braided with fretwork of silver, never tarnished—or hoarfrost that grew brighter in the sun. But it was not to be, and after a few hints of what might be done in this kind, the Fate, or Folly, or, on recent — theories, the extreme fitness—and consequent survival, of the — Thistles and Dandelions, entirely drives the fringed Lucias — and blue-flushing milkworts out of common human neighbour- — hood, to live recluse lives with the memories of the abbots of Cluny, and pastors of Piedmont. 12. I have called the Giulietta ‘ blue-flushing’ because it is ill thought of, as it really contains three ideas; and the plant does, without doubt, somewhat resemble box, and grows on the ground ;—far more fitly called ‘ground-box’ than the Veronica ‘ground-oak.’ I want to find a pretty name for it in connection with Savoy or Dauphiné, where it indicates, as above stated, the healthy districts of hard lime- stone. I donot remember it as ever occurring among the dark and moist shales of the inner mountain ranges, which at once confine and pollute the air. 6s” ee ge ee eee, ee Ae. .. GIUEIRTTA; 997 one of the group of exquisite flowers which at the time of their own blossoming, breathe their colour into the surround- ing leaves and supporting stem. Very notably the Grape hyacinth and Jura hyacinth, and some of the Vestals, empur- pling all their green leaves even to the ground: a quite dis- tinct nature in the flower, observe, this possession of a power to kindle the leaf and stem with its own passion, from that of the heaths, roses, or lilies, where the determined bracts or © calices assert themselves in opposition to the blossom, as little pine-leayes, or mosses, or brown-paper packages, and the like. _ 13. The Giulietta, however, is again entirely separate from the other leaf-flushing blossoms, in that, after the two green leaves next the flower have glowed with its blue, while it lived, they do not fade or waste with it, but return to their own former green simplicity, and close over it to protect the seed. I only know this to be the case with the Giulietta Regina ; but suppose it to be (with variety of course in the colours) a con- - dition in other species,—though of course nothing is ever said of it in the botanical accounts of them. I gather, however, from Curtis’s careful drawings that the prevailing colour of the Cape species is purple, thus justifying still further my placing them among the Cytherides ; and Iam content to take the descriptive epithets at present given them, for the follow- ing five of this southern group, hoping that they may be ex- plained for me afterwards by helpful friends. 14 Bracteolata, C. 345. Oppositifolia, C. 492. Speciosa, C. 1790. These three all purple, and scarcely distinguishable from sweet pease-blossom, only smaller. _ Stipulacea, C..1715. Small, and very beautiful, lilac and _ purple, with a leaf and mode of growth like rosemary. The * Foxtail” milkwort, whose name I don’t accept, C. 1006, is intermediate between this and the next species. 15. Mixta, C. 1714. -I don’t see what mingling is meant, except that it is just like Erica tetralix in the leaf, only, ap- parently, having little four-petalled pinks for blossoms, This a . x . 3 ; nai ea PROSERPINA, = oe appearance is thus botanically explained. I do not myself understand the description, but copy it, thinking it may be of use to somebody. ‘ Theapex of the carina is expanded into a two-lobed plain petal, the lobes of which are emarginate. This appendix is of a bright rose colour, and forms the prin- cipal part of the flower.” The describer relaxes, or relapses, into common language so far as to add that ‘ this appendix’ “‘ dispersed among the green foliage in every part of the shrub, gives it a pretty lively appearance.” Perhaps this may also be worth extracting. “Carina, deeply channelled, of a saturated purple within, sides folded together, so as to include and firmly embrace the style and stamens, which, when arrived at maturity, upon- being moved, escape elastically from their confinement, and strike against the two erect petals or ale—by which the pollen is dispersed. “Stem shrubby, with long flexile branches.” (Length or height not told. I imagine like an ordinary heath’s.) The term ‘carina,’ oceurring twice in the above description, is peculiar to the structure of the pease and milkworts ; we will examine it afterwards. The European varieties of the milkwort, except the chamzebuxus, are all minute,—and, their ordinary epithets being at least inoffensive, I give them for reference till we find prettier ones ; altering only the Calcarea, because we could not have a ‘ Chalk Juliet,’ and two varieties of the Regina, changed for reason good—her name, according to the last modern refinements of grace and ease in pronutici- tion, being Eu-vulgaris, var. genuina! My readers may more happily remember her and her sister as follows :— 16. (t) Giulietta Regina. Pure Blue. The same in colour, form, and size throughout Europe. (u.) Giulietta Soror-Regine. Pale, reddish-blue or white in the flower, and smaller in the leaf, otherwise like the Regina. (m.) Giulietta Depressa. The smallest of those I can find drawings of. Flowers, blue; lilae in the fringe, and no bigger than pins’ heads; the leaves quite gem-like in minuteness and order. rg ee ee =” - GIULIETTA. 229° (1v.) Giulietta Cisterciana. Its present name ‘Cal- - earea,’ is meant, in botanic Latin, to express its growth on limestone or chalk mountains. But we might as well call the South Down sheep, Calcareous mutton. My epithet will rightly associate it with the Burgundian hills round Cluny and Citeaux. Its ground leaves are much larger than those of the Depressa ; the flower a little larger, but very pale. (v.) Giulietta Austriaca. Pink, and very lovely, with bold cluster of ground leaves, but itself minute —almost dwarf. Called ‘small bitter milkwort’ by 8S. How far distinct from the next follow- ing one, Norwegian, is not told. The above five kinds are given by Sowerby as British, but I have never found the Austriaca myself. (v1.) Giulietta Amara. Norwegian. Very quaint in blossom outline, like a little blue rabbit with long ears. D. 1169. 17. Nobody tells me why either this last or No. 5 have been called bitter ; and Gerarde’s five kinds are distinguished only by colour—blue, red, white, purple, and “the dark, of an overworn ill-favoured colour, which maketh it to differ from all others of his kind.” I find no account of this ill- favoured one elsewhere. The white is my Soror Regine ; the red must be the Austriaca ; but the purple and overworn ones are perhaps now overworn indeed. All of them must have been more common in Gerarde’s time than now, for he goes on to say ‘“‘ Milkwoort is called Ambarualis flos, so called because it doth specially flourish in the Crosse or Gang-weeke, or Rogation-weeke, of which flowers, the maidens which use in the countries to walk the procession do make themselves garlands and nosegaies, in English we may call it Crosse flower, Gang flower, Rogation flower, and Milk-woort.” 18. Above, at page 151, vol. i, in first arranging the Cytherides, I too hastily concluded that the ascription to this plant of helpfulness to nursing mothers was ‘ more than ordi- 230. -PROSERPINA, narily false’ . thinking that its rarity could never icipated it to be tain tried. If indeed true, or in any degree true, the flower has the best right of all to be classed with the Cytherides, and we might have as much of it for beauty and for service as we chose, if we only took half the pains to gar- nish our summer gardens with living and life-giving blossom, that we do to garnish our winter eluitonies with dying and useless ones. 19. I have said nothing of root, or fruit, or > ede having never had the hardness of heart to pull up a milkwort cluster—nor the chance of watching one in seed :—The pretty thing vanishes as it comes, like the blue sky of April, and leaves no sign of itself—that Jever found. ©The botanists tell me that its fruit ‘“ dehisces loculicidally,” which I suppose is botanic for ‘‘ splits like boxes,” (but boxes shouldn't split, and didn’t, as we used to make and handle them before rail- ways). Out of the split boxes fall seeds—too few; and, as aforesaid, the plant never seems to grow again in the same spot. I should thankfully receive any notes from friends happy enough to live near milkwort banks, on the manner of its nativity. 20. Meanwhile, the Thistle, and the Nettle, and in Dock, and the Dandelion are cared for in their generations by the finest arts of—Providence, shall we say? or of the spirits appointed to punish our own want of Providence? May I ask the reader to look back to the seventh chapter of the first volume, for it contains suggestions of thoughts which came to me at a time of very earnest and faithful inquiry, set down, I now see too shortly, under the press of reading they involved, but intelligible enough if they are read-as slowly as — they were written, and especially note the paragraph of sum- mary of p. 86 on the power of the Earth Mother, as Mother, and as Judge ; watching and rewarding the conditions which induce adversity and prosperity in the kingdoms of men: comparing with it carefully the close of the fourth chapter, p. 63,* which contains, for the now recklessly multiplying classes * Which, with the following page, is the summary of many chapters of ‘ Modern Painters:’ and of the aims kept in view throughout ‘Mu PT) i ae a eer) ae GI ULIETTA, 231 . Bsc ond colonists ; truths essential to their skill, and _ inexorable upon their labour. _ 21. The ‘pen-drawing facsimiled by Mr. Allen with more than. his) nsual, care. in the frontispiece to this number of a $ ina,’ was one of many executed during the investiga- tion of the schools of Gothic (German, and later French), which founded their minor ornamentation on the serration of the thistle leaf, as the Greeks on that of the Acanthus, but _ witha consequent, and often morbid, love of thorny points, and insistance upon jagged or knotted intricacies of stubborn vegetation, which is connected in a deeply mysterious way with the gloomier forms of Catholic asceticism. * 22. ‘But also, in beginning ‘ Proserpina,’ I intended to give many illustrations of the light and shade of foreground leaves belonging to the nobler groups of thistles, because I thought _ they had been neglected by ordinary botanical draughtsmen ; not knowing at that time either the original drawings at Oxford - for the ‘Flora Greea,’ or the nobly engraved plates executed in the close of the last century for the ‘ Flora Danica’ and ‘ Flora Londinensis.’. The latter is in the most difficult portraiture _ of the larger plants, even the more wonderful of the two ; and had I seen the miracles of skill, patience, and faithful study which are collected in the first and second volumes, published in 1777 and 1798, I believe my own work would never have been undertaken.+ Such as it is, however, [ may still, health _ being granted me, persevere in it; for my own leaf and branch studies express conditions of shade which even these most ex- nera Pulveris.’ The three kinds of Desert specified—of Reed, Sand, and Rock—should be kept in mind as exhaustively including the states of the earth neglected by man. For instance of a Reed desert, produced merely by his neglect, see Sir Samuel Baker's account of the choking up of the bed of the White Nile. Of the sand desert, Sir F. Palgrave’s journey from the Djowf to Hayel, vol. i, p. 92. * This subject is first entered on in the ‘Seven Lamps,’ and carried) _ forward in the final chapters of ‘Modern Painters,’ to the point where _ I hope to take it up for conclusion, in the sections of ‘ Our Fathers have _ told us’ devoted to the history of the fourteenth century. ' + See in the first volume, the plates of Sonchus Arvensis and Tussi- _ lago Petasites ; 1n the second, Carduus tomentosus and Picris Echioides. 932° PROSERPINA. quisite botanical plates ignore; and exemplify uses of the pen and pencil which cannot be learned from the inimitable fine- ness of line engraving. The frontispiece to this number, for instance, (a seeding head of the commonest field-thistle of our London suburbs,) copied with a steel pen on smooth grey paper, and the drawing softly touched with white on the nearer thorns, may well surpass the effect of the pr i 23. In the following number of ‘Proserpina’ I have been tempted to follow, with more minute notice than usual, the ‘conditions of adversity’ which, as they fret the thistle tribe into jagged malice, have humbled the beauty of the great do- mestic group of the Vestals into confused likenesses of the Dragonweed and Nettle: but I feel every hour more and more the necessity of separating the treatment of subjects in ‘Pro- serpina’ from the microscopie curiosities of recent botanic illustration, nor shall this work close, if my strength hold, without fulfilling in some sort, the effort begun long ago in ‘Modern Painters,’ to interpret the grace of the larger blos- soming trees, and the mysteries of leafy form which clothe the Swiss precipice with gentleness, and colour with softest azure the rich horizons of England and Italy. ee INDEX I. DESCRIPTIVE NOMENCLATURE. Pxants in perfect form are said, at page 22, to consist of four principal parts: root, stem, leaf, and flower. (Compare Chapter V., § 2.) The reader may have been surprised at the omission of the fruit from this list. But a plant which has borne fruit is no longer of ‘ perfect’ form. Its flower is dead. And, observe; it is further said, at page 49, (and compare Chapter IIL, § 2,) that the use of the fruit is to produce the flower: not of the flower to produce the fruit. Therefore, - the plant in perfect blossom, is itself perfect. Nevertheless, the formation of the fruit, practically, is included in the flower, and so spoken of in the fifteenth line of the same Each of these four main parts of a plant consist normally of a certain series of minor parts, to which it is well to attach easily remembered names. In this section of my index I will not admit the confusion of idea involved by alphabetical ar- rangement of these names, but will sacrifice facility of refer- ence to clearness of explanation, and taking the four great parts of the plant in succession, I will give the list of the ~ minor and constituent parts, with their names as determined in Proserpina, and reference to the pages where the reasons for such determination are given, endeavouring to supply, at the same time, any deficiencies which I find in the body of the text. I. THE Roor, PAGE Origin of the word Root...... oy ts REE voce see Dekteeweube! wo The offices of the root are threefold: “namely, Tenure, Nourish- ment, and Animation «1. aims cy > pauls «ee ve viewed) SOLO The essential parts of a Root are two: the Linshs and Fibres...... 27 I. Tne Limp is the gathered mass of fibres, or at ‘eal of fibrous substance, which extends itself in search of nourishment... 26 IL Tue Frere is the organ by which the nourishment is re- ceived ......... Sia, A hans k eeoube vidi ae pene snk hou POOLE: The inessential or accidental parts of roots, which are attached to the roots of some plants, but not to those of others, (and are, indeed, for the most part absent,) are three: namely, Store- Houses, Refuges, and Ruins.......... Spent teeter eee eee 27 III. SrorE-Hovuses contain the food of the future plant...... vs 27 IV. ReEFUvGES shelter the future plant itself for a time. . tenses -. 8 V. Rvrvs form a basis for the growth of the future piant in ite [ proporende® aise ped i. vhesins wad } Baldivis dé sig Ree , Root-Stocks, the accumulation of such ruins in a vital order’. et, 30 General questions relating to the office and chemical power of nea B1 The nomenclature of Roots will not be extended; in Pro- serpina, beyond the five simple terms here given: though the ordinary botanical ones—corm, bulb, tuber, ete.—will be severally explained in connection with the plants which: et specially characterize. sah It. Tue Srem. Derivation of ppd chy co cite pcan BS ass npn da . 96 The channel of communication between leaf and root ............ 107 In a perfect plant it consists of three parts : " I. Tue Srem (StremMMaA) proper.—A growing or advancing shoot which sustains all the other organs of the plant.......+. tee 96 It may grow by adding thickness to its sides without advancing ; but its essential characteristic is the vital power of Advance. 96 _aecleeneamanmpnmarinen arene 96 A 1 i lay branched ; having subordinate leaf-stalks and " flower-stalks, if not larger branches bdiadedccs sttwavdiawts. GEE 22.;” it Sse, buds, leaves, and flowers of the plant. | to incidentally throughout ‘the eighth eka wtih. 94-97 miele Pee! ; 2e HE LEAF-STALK (CymBa) sustains, and expands itself into, ‘ ent ly fu rrowed above, and convex below...... axenic —— It is to be called in Latin, the Cymba ; in English, the Leaf-Stalk 95 | I, Tae Frowrn-stak (PETIOLUS): me Sts Gememtielly round ... ..... ...05..0cc -seecdees ‘heeds « ak dbs se i aBt Stung. ‘s ov is usually separated distinctly at its termination from the flower... ee rs ee ey 92, 93 aan Petiolus ; in English, Wawersulk er “aH! cers These three are the essential parts of a stem. But besides these, it has, when largely developed, a permanent form: namely, IV. Tue TRuNK.—A non-advancing mass of collected stem, ar- - _. rested at a given height from the ground......... Rt MO SEs 98 ~ *- ‘The'stems of annual plants are either leafy, as of a thistle, or bare, sustaining the flower or flower-cluster at a certain “height above the ground. Receiving therefore these follow- . ing names :— Yv. THe Virca.—The leafy stem of an annual plant, not a _ Brass, yet growing upright........ en cdss ssac ss cen eae 104 VL Tue VircuLa.—The leafiess flower-stem of an annual plant, / Not a grass, as of a primrose or dandelion....... ita ohbtees 104 VIL Tue Fr.um.—The running stem of a creeping plant. It is not specified in the text for use ; but will be necessary ; so also, perhaps, the Stelechos, or stalk proper (26, p. 104) the branched stem of an annual plant, not a grass; one cannot well talk of the Virga of hemlock. The ‘Stolon’ is explained in its classical sense at page 100, but I believe botanists use it otherwise. I shall have occasion to refer to, and complete its explanation, in speaking of bulbous plants. VIII. THe CaupEx.—The essentially ligneous and compact part of This equivocal word is not specified for use in the text, but I mean to keep it for the accumulated stems of inlaid plants, palms, and the like ; for which otherwise we haye no sepa- rate term. et PAGE tr IX. Tur AvENA.—Not specified in the text at all; but it will be ~ prettier than ‘baculus,’ which is that I had proposed, for the ‘ staff’ of grasses, See page 113. These ten names are all that the student need remember ; but he will find some interesting particulars respecting the following three, noticed in the text :— Stips.—The origin of stipend, stupid, and stump,........-.++0++ SrreuLaA.—The subtlest Latin term for straw........-seeeeeeeeee CAuLIs (Kale).—The peculiar stem of branched eatable vegetables \ CannA.—Not noticed in the text; but likely to be sometimes use- ful for the stronger stems of grasses. Ill, THe Lear. Derivation of word.........- bie Serbo bine ble 3d eons hae Rp Rees BOONES » The Latin form ‘folium’.,... » en atsece 12A0nee te a The Greek form ‘petalos’,.... pennes ooh Pee 00 meen ews tee ee wed Veins and ribs of leaves, to be usually summed under the term ‘rib’ Chemistry of leaves......... ey ree pipes tee ese scesmeleb abe The nomenclature of the leaf consists, in botanical books, of little more than barbarous, and, for the general reader, to- tally useless attempts to describe their forms in Latin. But 104 105 2eee8ps PAGE are infinite and indescribable except by the pen- ve central types of form in the next volume of 1; which, so that the reader sees and remembers, - call anything he likes But it is necessary that . s should be assigned to certain classes of leaves which _ are essentially different from each other in character and tis- gue, not merely in form. Of these the two main divisions have been already given: but I will now add the less impor- tant: ones which yet require distinct names, Se Ey ats ee eG Te, APOLLINE.—Typically represented by the joarel. chitertans 38 o ARETHUSAN.—Represented by the alisma................- 40 Ye LPT OT EF + Itonght to have been noticed that the character of serra- tion, within reserved limits, is essential to an Apolline leaf, and genolutely refused by an Arethusan one. = UL Dryav.—Of the ordinary leaf tissue, neither manifestly strong, nor admirably tender, but serviceably consistent, _ which we find generally to be the substance of the leaves of _ forest trees. Typically represented by those of the oak. TV. ABIeTINE.—Shaft or sword-shape, as the leaves of firs and V. CreEssic.—Delicate and light, with smooth tissue, as the - Teayes of cresses, and clover. WL SaLvIAn.—Soft and woolly, like miniature blankets, easily folded, as the leaves of sage. ‘Yi. ‘CAULINE.—Softly succulent, with thick central ribs, as of ‘the cabbage. VILL ALorrne.—Inflexibly succulent, as of the aloe or houseleek.. No rigid application of these terms must ever be attempt- ed ; but they direct the attention to important general condi- tions, and will often be found to save time and trouble in _ description. IV. THE FLOWER. 7 Its general nature and function ....... one Maeees Wacas cee osobcei ee _ Consists essentially of Corolla and Treasury..........20..-s00---. 58 _ Has in perfect form the following parts :—- I. THE Torvus.—Not yet enough described in the text. It is _ the expansion of the extremity of the flower-stalk, in prepara- tion for the support of the expanding flower. ..... wveeee DO-LSA Ii. VI. Vil. : P. Tur InvotucruM.—Any kind of wrapping or propping con- dition of leafage at the base of a flower may properly come under this head ;. but the manner of prop or protection dif- fers in ditferent en and I will not at present atte angio names to these peculiar forms. Tne CaLyx (The Hiding-place).—The outer whorl of leaves, under the protection of which the real flower is brought to maturity. Its separate leaves are called SEPALS .U0) i500... . THe CoROLLA (The Cup).—The inner whorl of leaves, form * 53 ing the flower itself. Its separate leaves are called deal ; . THe TREASURY.—The part of the flower that ——-s its. seeds. THe PruLAR.—The part of the flower above its treasury, by which the power of the pollen is carried down to the seeds, . It consists usually of two parts—the Smarr and VOLUTE.. When the pillar is composed of two or more shafts, attached to separate treasury-cells, each cell with its shaft is called a CARPEL ..... 04 ee ee ee ee ee THE STAMENS.—The parts of the flower which secrete its . pollen’... s. 4 bie adie vie de ae evveccdes oat dae ae eee wee wee ee wee They consist usually of two parts, the FILAMENT and AN- | THER, not yet described, VIII. Tue Necrary,—The part of the flower containing its honey, or any other special product of its inflorescence. The name has often been given to certain forms of petals of which the use is not yot known. No notice has yet been taken of this part of the flower in Proserpina. These being all the essential parts of the flower itself, other forms and substances are developed in the seed as it ripens, which, I believe, may most conveniently be arran ott in im separate section, though not logically to be considered separable from the flower, but only as mature states of certain parts OL av. 59 58 58 162 58 Par sprawls Od ro +) ag x daily: sph gneiss Y, Tae Seep, A “HR must "ones more desire the reader to take notice that, under the four sections already defined, the morphology of _ the plant is to be considered as complete, and that we are now te Pome and name, farther, its product ; and that not errr. ee ee ’ | editia ian detriment, for the sake of higher creatures. This q a consists essentially of two parts: the Seed and its - ate exis ae | PAGE og Aes BR SRED.—Dofined. . 5... ..,0c0ir'e do niee saieevice siaside ens cises 152 Bey It consists, in its perfect form, of three parts ............ 153 Binsin Suit | ; stuns three parts are not yet determinately named in the ‘a : but I give now the names which will be usually at- i: Oi tached to them. ips a The Sacque.—The Outside skin of a seed................. 152 — 3 The Nutrine.—A word which I coin, for general applicabil- - ity, whether to the farina of corn, the substance of a nut, or the parts that become the first leaves in a bean ...... 152 eis) a The Germ.—The origin of the root ... .....s..eseesee eee 152 Mepis Heme -ehned 2. 158 Consists, like the seed when in perfect form, of three - The Skin.—The outer envelope of all the seed structures .. 153 ay The Rind.—The central body of the Husk ..... soatek 153-162 C. The Shell.—Not always shelly, yet best described by this general term ; and becoming a shell, so called, in nuts, peaches, dates, and other such kernel-fruits ........... 153 _ The products of the Seed and Husk of Plants, for the use _ of animals, are practically to be massed under the three heads of Breap, Or, and Frurr. But the substance of which bread ‘is made is more accurately described as Farina; and the 240 ‘INDEX. | pleasantness of fruit to the taste depends on two elements in its substance: the juice, and the pulp containing it, which may properly be called Nectar and Ambrosia. We have there- fore in all four essential products of the Seed and Husk— A. Farina. Flour cnet sSiontcs Apenee fs ope. phe aii yaad = 158 B. Oleum. Sl sesees i cpeh thaees cba seeeeeeees eae 100 C. Nectar. Fruit-juice,...6... 08 S deena’ al ef suse. 158 D. Ambrosia. —_ Fruit-substance... ahd unea eal apa Besides these all-important products of the seed, others are formed in the stems and leaves of plants, of which no ac- count hitherto has been given in Proserpina, I delay any ex- tended description of these until we have examined the struct- ure of wood itself more closely ; this intricate and difficult task having been remitted (p. 122) to the days of coming spring ; and I am well pleased that my younger readers should at first be vexed with no more names to be learned than those of the vegetable productions with which they are most pleas- antly acquainted: but for older ones, I think it well, before closing the present volume, to indicate, with warning, some of the obscurities, and probable fallacies, with which this vanity of science encumbers the chemistry, no less than the morphology, of plants, Looking back to one of the first books in which our new knowledge of organic chemistry began to be displayed, thirty years ago, I find that even at that period the organic elements which the cuisine of the laboratory had already detected in simple Indigo, were the following :— Isatine, Chlorindine, Bromisatine, Chlorindoptene, Bibromisatine ; Chlorindatmit ; Chlorisatine, Chloranile, Bichlorisatine ; Chloranilam, and, Chilorisatyde, Chloranilammon, Bichlorisatyde ; INDEX. 241 And yet, with all this practical skill in decoction, and aceu- “ t (2 in observation and nomenclature, so far are our scientific men from arriving, by any decoctive process of their’ own knowledge, at general results useful to ordinary human creatures, that when I wish now to separate, for young scholars, in first massive arrangement of vegetable productions, the Substances of Plants ftom their Essences ; that is to say, the weighable arid measurable body of the plant from its practically immeasurable, if not imponderable, spirit, I find in my three volumes of close-printed chemistry, no informa- tion whatever respecting the quality of volatility in matter, except this one sentence :— * :*% The disposition of various substances to yield vapour is very different : and the difference depends doubtless on the relative power of cohesion with which they are endowed.” * - in this not extremely pregnant, though extremely cau- tious, sentence, two conditions of matter are confused, no notice being taken of the difference in manner of dissolution between a vitally fragrant and a mortally putrid substance. ~ It is still more curious that when I look for more definite instruction on such points to the higher ranks of botanists, I find in the index to Dr. Lindley’s “Tateodwetion to Botany’ —seven hundred pages of close print—not one of the four words ‘ Volatile,’ ‘Essence,’ ‘Scent,’ or ‘Perfume.’ I examine the index to Gray’s ‘Structural and Systematic Botany,’ with precisely the same success. I next consult Professors Balfour - and Grindon, and am met by the same dignified silence. Finally, I think over the possible chances in French, and try in Figuier’s indices to the ‘Histoire des Plantes’ for ‘Odeur’ —no such word! ‘Parfum ’—no such word. ‘Essence —no such word. ‘Encens’—no such word. I try at last ‘Pois de Senteur,’ at a venture, and am referred to a page which de- scribes their going to sleep. Left thus to my own resources, I must be content for the present to bring the subject at least under safe laws of nomen. - lature. It is possible that modern chemistry may be entirely * “Elements of Chemistry,” p. 44. By Edward Turner; edited by Justus Liebig and William Gregory. Taylor and Walton, 1840, 242 oo. Se right in alleging the absolute identity of substances such as albumen, or fibrine, whether they occur in the animal or vegetable economies. But I do not choose to assume this identity in my nomenclature. It may, perhaps, be very fine and very instructive to inform the pupils preparing for com- petitive examination that the main element of Milk is Milkine, and of Cheese, Cheesine. But for the practical purposes of life, all that I think it necessary for the pupil to know is that in order to get either milk or cheese, he must address himself to a Cow, and not toa Pump; and that what a chemist can produce for him out of dandelions or cocoanuts, however milky or cheesy it may look, may more safely be called by some name of its own. f This distinctness of language becomes every day more Aeuis, | able, in the face of the refinements of chemical art which now enable the ingenious confectioner to meet the demands of an unscientific person for (suppose) a lemon drop, with a mixture of nitric acid, sulphur, and stewed bones. It is better, what- ever the chemical identity of the products may be, that each should receive a distinctive epithet, and be asked for and sup- - plied, in vulgar English, and vulgar probity, either as essence of lemons, or skeletons. I intend, therefore,—and believe that the practice will be found both wise and convenient,—to separate in all my works on natural history the terms used for vegetable products from those used for animal or mineral ones, whatever may be their chemical identity, or resemblance in aspect. I do not mean . to talk of fat in seeds, nor of flour in eggs, nor of milk in rocks. Pace my prelatical friends, I mean to use the word ‘Alb’ for vegetable albumen ; and although I cannot without pedantry avoid using sometimes the word ‘milky’ of the white juices of plants, I must beg the reader to remain unaffected in his conviction that there isa vital difference between liquids that coagulate into butter, or congeal into India-rubber, Oil, when used simply, will always mean a vegetable product; and when I have occasion to speak of petroleum, tallow, or blub- ber, I shall generally call these substances by their right names, 2 also a certain number of vegetable materials more pared, secreted, or digested for us by animals, such et. ney, silk, and cochineal. The properties of these : require more coriplex definitions, but they have all very intel- 4 - term for an extract of any plant in boiling water: though when _ standing alone the word will take its accepted Chinese mean- ‘ ec essence, the general term for the condensed dew of ey. , which is with grace and fitness called the - tbeing’ of a plait because its properties are almost always _ characteristic of the species; and it is not, like leaf tissue or — wood fibre, approximately the same material’ inodifferant shapes ; but a separate element in each family of flowers, of a mysterious, delightful, or dangerous influence, logically i inex- sae chemically inconstructible, and wholly, in dignity of © above all modes and faculties of form. ad 2 ~ ligible and well-established names. ‘Tea’ must be a general — INDEX IL. TO THE PLANTS SPOKEN OF IN THIS VOLUME, UNDER THEIR ENGLISH NAMES, ACCEPTED BY PROSERPINA, Apple, 74 Ash, 85, 90 Aspen, 94 Asphodel, 10, 29 Bay, 39 Bean, 75 Bed-straw, 86 Bindweed, 102 Birch, 120 Blackthorn, 85, 90 Blaeberry, 40, 143 Bluebell, 102 Bramble, 85, 135 Burdock, 80, 93 Burnet, 69 Butterbur, 84 Cabbage, 93, 105 Captain-salad, 105 Carrot, 26, 29 Cauliflower, 93, 105 Cedar, 29, 46, 81, Celandine, 54 Cherry, 49, 92 Chestnut, 47 ‘¢ Spanish, 117 Chicory, 84 Clover, 80 Colewort, 105 Coltsfoot, 79 Corn-cockle, 78 Corn-flag, 76, 78 1és , at Cowslip, 98 Crocus, 29, 30 Daffodil, 10 Daisy, 83, 102, 145 Dandelion, 88 Devils Bit, 104 Dock, 93 Elm, 40 Fig, 48 Flag, 76 Flax, 116 Foils, Rock, 102 ** “Roof, 102, 108 Foxglove, 70, 84, 98 Frog-flower, 43 Grape, 74, 92 Grass, 40, 41, 42, 111, 113, 114, 115 ; Hawk's-eye, 84 Hazel, 85 Heath, 50, 51, 77, 144 Hemlock, 77 Herb-Robert, 86 Holly, 81, 85 Houseleek, 30, 108 Hyacinth, 49, 50 Ivy, 80 Jacinth, 61, 129 Lilac, Lily, 5, 29, 40, 75, 78 - Lily, St. Bruno’s, 5, 10, 11 _ Lily of the Valley, 101 F Peony, # 91 3 Pink, 102 Poppy, 52, 56, 63, 73 Primrose Radish, 28, 31 Ragged Robin, 109 Rhubarb, 92 Rice, 40 Rock-foil, 102 Roof-foil, 102, 103 : Rose, 48, 52, 56, 75, 78, 85. 86 91, 102 Rush, 110 Saxifrage 85, 101, 103 Scabious 104 Sedum, 103 Sorrel-wood, 11 Spider Plant, 10 Sponsa solis, 84 Stella, 102, 103 ** domestica, 103 Stonecrop, 103 Sweetbrier, 79 Thistle, 75, 81, 83, 84, 86, 103 note, 107 note. Thistle, Creeping, 97 “Waste, 108 Thorns, 86, 90 ‘* Black, 85, 90 Thyme, 84 Tobacco, 31, 78 Tormentilla, 79 Turnip, 29 Vine, 75, 78, 99, 106 Viola, 102 Wallflower, 80 Wheat, 90, 116 Wreathewort, 121 INDEX III. i}3 TO THE PLANTS SPOKEN OF IN THIS VOLUME, UNDER THEIR LATIN OR GREEK NAMES, ACCEPTED BY PROSERPINA,. Acanthus, 75 Alata, 102 Alisma, 40 Amaryllis, 29, 30 Anemone, 78 Artemides, 136 Asphodel, 10 Aurora, 143 Azalea, 143 Cactus, 33 Campanula, 102 Carduus, 97 Charites, 131 Cistus, 52 Clarissa, 102, 109 Contorta, 121 Convoluta, 102~ Cyclamen, 27 Droside, 29, 188 Ensate, 141 Erie, 11, 142 Eryngo, 61 Fragaria, 131 Francesca, 102, 108 Frarinus, 135 « Geranium, 61, 86 pr Gladiolus, 75, 78, 115 Hyacinthus, 129 os Hypnum, 13 eg fe Tris, 29, 74 Lilium (see Lily), 10 © Lucia, 79,1382 ~ © Magnolia, 39 Margarita, 102 Myrtilla, 142 Narcissus, 78 Ophrys, 125 Papaver, 66, 70 Persica, 102 Pomum, 131 Primula, 101 Rosa, 102 Rubra, 131, 136 Satyrium, 126 Stella, 102, 103 Veronica, 56 Viola, 102 SIX LECTURES 1 _ ARIADNE FLORENTINA. ; Sahin ofl’ aahvaty ih SIX LECTURES Risire fe we ON WOOD AND METAL ENGRAVING. LECTURE I. DEFINITION OF THE ART OF ENGRAVING. 1, Tur entrance on my duty for to-day begins the fourth year of my official work in Oxford; and I doubt not that ‘some of my audience are asking themselves, very doubtfully at all events, I ask myself, very anxiously—what has been P asnek.2 _ For practical result, I have not much to show. I an- nounced, a fortnight since, that I would meet, the day before yesterday, any gentleman who wished to attend this course for purposes of study. My class, so minded, numbers four, of whom three wish to be artists, and ought not therefore, by rights, to be at Oxford at all; and the fourth is the last re- ‘maining unit of the class I had last year. _ 2. Yet I neither in this reproach myself, nor, if I could, ggeee I reproach the students who are not here. I do not ‘reproach myself ; for it was impossible for me to attend prop- € ¥ the schools and to write the grammar for them at the ‘same time; and I do not blame the absent students for not attending a school from which I have generally been absent 2508-9 -ARIADNE ‘FLORENTINA, Oe myself. In all this, there is much to be mended, but, i in true light, nothing to be regretted. I say, I had to write my school grammar. These three volumes of lectures under my hand,* contain carefully set down, the things I want you first to know. None of my writings are done fluently ; the second volume of Modern Painters was all of it written twice—most of it, four times, —over ; and these lectures have been written, I don’t know how many times. You may think that this was done merely in an author’s vanity, not in a tutor’s care. To the vanity I plead guilty,—no man is more intensely vain than Iam; but my vanity is set on having it known of me that I am a good master, not in having it said of me that I am a smooth author. My vanity is never more wounded than in being ‘called a fine writer, meaning—that nobody need mind what I say. 3. Well, then, besides this vanity, I have some solicitude for your progress. You may give me credit for it or not, as you choose, but it is sincere. And that your advance may be safe, I have taken the best pains I could in laying down laws for it. In these three years I have got my grammar written, and, with the help of many friends, all working instruments in good order; and now we will try what we can do. Not that, even now, you are to depend on my presence with you in personal teaching. I shall henceforward think of the lect- ures less, of the schools more; but my best work for the schools will often be by drawing in Florence or in Lancashire —not here. 4. I have already told you several times that the course through which I mean every student in these schools should pass, is one which shall enable them to understand the ele- mentary principles of the finest art. It will necessarily be severe, and seem to lead to no immediate result. Some of you will, on the contrary, wish to be taught what is imme- diately easy, and gives prospect of a manifest success, But suppose they should come to the Professor of Logie and Rhetoric, and tell him they wanted to be eee to — like Mr. Spurgeon, or the Bishop of * Inaugural series, Aratra Pentelici, far Eagle's Nest. ee Spanid say Pie them,—I eA, and if I could I would - ‘not, tell you how to preach like Mr. Spurgeon, or the Bishop of ——. Your own character will form your style ; your own 4 zeal will direct it ; your own obstinacy or ignorance may a limit or exaggerate it ; but my business is to prevent, as far _ as I can, your having any particular style ; and to teach you the laws 8 of all language, and the essential power of your : coves’ q ‘manner, this course, which I propose to you in art, | y will be calculated only to give you judgment and method in _ future study, to establish to your conviction the laws of gen- _ eral art, and to enable you to draw, if not with genius, at _ least with sense and propriety. ' The course, so far as it consists in practice, will be defined . _ in my Instructions for the schools. And the theory connected _ with that practice is set down in the three lectures at the end _ of the first course I delivered—those on Line, Light, and _ . You will have, therefore, to get this book,* and it is the _ only one which you will need to have of your own,—the others are placed, for reference, where they will be accessible 7 “6 you. | 5 In the 189th paragraph, p. 132, it states the order of your practical study in these terms : z “1 wish you to begin by getting command of line ;—that is to say, by learning to draw a steady line, limiting with ab- _ solute correctness the form or space you intend it to limit; to proceed by getting command over flat tints, so that you _ may be able to fill the spaces you have enclosed evenly, either with shade or colour, according to the school you adopt ; and, finally, to obtain the power of adding such fineness of _ drawing, within the masses, as shall express their undulation, and their characters of form and texture.” _ And now, since in your course of practice you are first re- quired to attain the power of drawing lines accurately and _ delicately, so in the course of theory, or grammar, I wish you rs * My inaugural series of seven lectures, published at the Clarendon 252 ARIADNE FLORENTINA, = first to learn the principles of linear design, exemplified by the schools which at the top of page 130 you will find charac- terized as the Schools of Line. 6. If I had command of as much time as I should like to spend with you on this subject, I would begin with the early forms of art which used the simplest linear elements of design. But, for general service and interest, it will be better that I should sketch what has been accomplished by the greatest masters in that manner ; the rather that their work is more or less accessible to all, and has developed into the vast indus- tries of modern engraving, one of the most powerful existing influences of education and sources of pleasure among civil- ized people. And this investigation, so far from interrupting, will facili- tate our examination of the history of the nobler arts. You will see in the preface to my lectures on Greek sculpture that I intend them to be followed by a course on architecture, and that by one on Florentine sculpture. But the art of engraving is so manifestly, at Florence, though not less essentially else: where, a basis of style both in architecture and sculpture, that it is absolutely necessary I should explain to you in what the skill of the engraver consists, before I can define with accu- racy that of more admired artists. For engraving, though not altogether in the method of which you see examples in the print-shops of the High Street, is, indeed, a prior art to that either of building or sculpture, and is an inseparable part of both, when they are rightly practised. 7. And while we thus examine the scope of this first of the arts, it will be necessary that we learn also the scope of mind of the early practisers of it, and accordingly acquaint our- selves with the main events in the biography of the schools of Florence. To understand the temper and meaning of one great master is to lay the best, if not the only, foundation for the understanding of all; and I shall therefore make it the leading aim of this course of lectures to remind you of what is known, and direct you to what is knowable, of the life and character of the greatest Florentine master of engraving, Sandro Botticetli ; and, incidentally, to give you some idea of oy ty a — — a By vis = hae 7 2 FINITION OF THR ART OF BNGRAVING. 253 "the power of the greatest master of the German, or any north- ern, school, Hans Holbein. 8. You must feel, however, that I am using the word “en- graving” in a somewhat different, and, you may imagine, a wider, sense, than that which you are accustomed to attach to it. So far from being a wider sense, it is in reality a more, accurate and restricted one, while yet it embraces every con- ceivable right application of the art. And I wish, in this first lecture, to make entirely clear to you the proper meaning of the word, and proper range of the art of, engraving ; in my next following lecture, to show you its place in Italian schools, and then, in due order, the place it ought to take in our own, and in all schools. 9. First then, to-day, of the Differentia, or essential quality of Engraving, as distinguished from other arts. What answer would you make to me, if I asked casually © what engraving was? Perhaps the readiest which would oc- cur to you would be, ‘“ The translation of pictures into black and white by means admitting reduplication of impressions.” But if that be done by lithography, we do not call it engray- ing,—whereas we speak contentedly and continually of seal engraving, in which there is no question of black and white. And, as scholars, you know that this customary mode of speak- ing is quite accurate ; and that engraving means, primarily, making a permanent cut or furrow in something. The cen- tral syllable of the word has become a sorrowful one, meaning the most permanent of furrows. 10. But are you prepared absolutely to accept this limita- tion with respect to engraving as a pictorial art? Will you call nothing an engraving, except a group of furrows or cavi- ties cut in a hard substance? What shall we say of mezzo- tint engraving, for instance, in which, though indeed furrows and cavities are produced mechanically as a ground, the artist's work is in effacing them? And when we consider the power of engraving in representing pictures and multiplying them, are we to recognize and admire no effects of light and shade except those which are visibly produced by dots or furrows? I mean, will the virtue of an engraving be in ex- O54 ARIADNE FLORENTINA. hibiting these imperfect means of its effect, or in concealing them ? 11. Here, for instance, is the head of a soldier by Deven a mere gridiron of black lines. Would this be better or worse engraving if it were more like a photograph or litho- graph, and no lines seen?—suppose, more like the head of Mr. Santley, now in all the music-shops, and really quite de- ceptive in light and shade, when seen from over the way ? Do you think Durer’s work would be better if it were more like that? And would you have me, therefore, leaving the question of technical method of production altogether to the craftsman, consider pictorial engraving simply as the produc- tion of a light-and-shade drawing, by some method earns its multiplication for the public? 12. This, you observe, is a very practical question indeed For instance, the illustrations of my own lectures on sculpture are equivalent to permanent photographs. There can be little doubt that means will be discovered of thus producing perfect facsimiles of artists’ drawings; so that, if no more than fac- simile be required, the old art of cutting furrows in metal may be considered as, at this day, virtually ended. And, in- deed, it is said that line engravers cannot any more get ap- prentices, and that a pure steel or copper plate is not likely to be again produced, when once the old living masters of the bright field shall have been all laid in their earth-furrows. 13. Suppose, then, that this come to pass; and more than this, suppose that wood engraving also be superseded, and that instead of imperfect transcripts of drawings, on wood- blocks or metal-plates, photography enabled us to give, quite cheaply, and without limit to number facsimiles of the fin- ished light-and-shade drawings of artists themselves. Another group of questions instantly offers itself, on these new condi- tions ; namely, What are the best means for a light-and-shade drawing—the pen, or the pencil, the chareoal, or the flat wash? That is to say, the pen, producing shade by black lines, as old engraving did; the pencil, producing shade. by grey lines, variable in force ; the charcoal, producing a smoky shadow with no lines in it, or the washed tint, producing a os ght ee +. ee re trar sdiiaow with no Rie in it. Which of these methods is the best?—or have they, each and all, virtues to be separately studied, and distinctively applied ? __ Is engraving to be only considered as cut work? 2nd, For present designs multipliable without cutting, by the sunshine, __what'methods or instruments of drawing will be best? And now, 3rdly, before we can discuss these questions at all, is there not another lying at the root of both,—namely, what a light-and-shade drawing itself properly is, and how it differs, or should differ, from a painting,—whether by mere defi- ; -¢iency, or by some entirely distinct merit ? L common talk about Turner, that his works are intelligible and beautiful when engraved, though incomprehensible as ‘paintings. Admitting this to be so, do you suppose it is be- _ eause the translation into light and shade is deficient in some is qualities: which the painting had, or that it possesses some qual- ity which the painting had not? Does it please more because ; it is deficient in the colour which confused a feeble spectator, and offended a dogmatic one,—or because it possesses a deci- _ gion in its steady linear labour which interprets, or corrects, the swift pencilling of the artist? 16. Do you notice the two words I have just used, Decision, and Linear 2—Decision, again introducing the idea of cuts or divisions, as opposed to gradations | Linear, as opposed to massive or broad ? Yet we use all these words at different times in praise, illo: they evidently mark inconsistent qualities. Softness - and decision, breadth and delineation, cannot co-exist in equal graving inconsistent with that of the painting, and vice versa. Now, be clear about these three questions which we have to-day to answer. ‘A. Is all engraving to be cut work ? shade drawing will be best ? lS Fests We x 2m uh & : yr BNORA VING. 955 — ' B. If it need not be cut work, but only the reproduction. . of a drawing, what methods of executing a light-and- is . 14. See how curiously the questions multiply on us. Ist, 15. For instance, you know how confidently it is said, in degrees. There must surely therefore be a virtue in the en- — al ae aus Sai le ey! Oa oa 256 —sSOARIADNR- RLORENTINA.— Ls CG. Is the shaded drawing itself to be oon cle as a deficient or imperfect painting, or as a different thing from a painting, having a virtue of its own, belonging to black and white, as opposed to colour? 17. I will give you the answers at once, briefly, and am- plify them afterwards. A. All engraving must be cut work ;—+hat is its differentia, Unless your effect be produced by cutting into some solid substance, it is not engraving at all, B. The proper methods for light-and-shade drawing vary according to subject, and the degree of completeness desired,—some of them having much in common with engraving, and others with painting. C. The qualities of a light-and-shade drawing ought to be entirely different from those of a painting. It is not a deficient or partial representation of a coloured scene or picture, but an entirely different reading of either. So that much of what is intelligible in a paint- ing ought to be unintelligible in a light-and-shade study and vice versa. [Yon have thus three arts,—engraving, light-and-shade draw- ing, and painting. Now I am not going to lecture, in this course, on painting, nor on light-and-shade drawing, but on engraving only. But I must tell you something about light-and-shade drawing first ; or, at least, remind you of what I have before told. 18. You see that the three elementary lectures in my first volume are on Line, Light, and Colour,—that is to say, on the modes of art which produce linear designs,—which pro- duce effects of light,—and which produce effects of colour. I must, for the sake of new students, briefly repeat the ex- planation of these. Here is an Arabian vase, in which the pleasure given to the eye is only by lines ;—no effect of light, or of colour, is at- tempted. Here is a moonlight by Turner, in which there are no lines at all, and no colours at all. The pleasure given to the eye is only by modes of light and shade, or effects of light. Finally, here is an early Florentine painting, in which there are ats Geaaicrkac, aiid ma elleck ol flight whattiver but all K Pa tlieidies winen to the eye is in gaiety and variety of colour. __. 19. I say, the pleasure given to the eye. The lines on this vase write ‘something ; ; but the ornamentation produced by ~ the beautiful writing is independent of its meaning. So the colour. It is not the shape of the waves, but the light on _ them ; not the expression of the figures, but their colour, by _ which the ocular pleasure is to be given. _ . These three examples are violently marked ones ; but, in _ preparing to draw any object, you will find that, practically, _ you have to ask yourself, Shall I aim at the colour of it, the - light of it, or the lines of it? You can’t have all three ; you _ ean’t eyen have any two out of the three in equal stvtonyth _ The best art, indeed, comes so near nature as in a measure to - unite all. But the best is not, and cannot be, as good as nature; and the mode of its deficiency is that it must lose _ some of the colour, some of the light, or some of the delinea- tion. And in consequence, there is one great school which says, We will have the colour, and as much light and de- _ lineation as are consistent with it. Another which says, We will have shade, and as much colour and delineation as are consistent with it. The third, We will have delineation, and ‘as much colour and shade as are consistent with it. _ . 20. And though much of the two subordinate qualities may - in each school be consistent with the leading one, yet the _ schools are evermore separate : as, for instance, in other mat- _ ters, one man says, I will have my fee, and as much honesty as is consistent with it ; another, I will have my honesty, and as much fee as is consistent with it. Though the man who _ will have his fee be subordinately honest,—though the man _ who will have his honour, subordinately rich, are they not evermore of diverse schools ? So you have, in art, the utterly separate provinces, though in contact at their borders, of i The Delineators ; The Chiaroscurists ; and The Colourists. 4 ‘moonlight is pleasant, first, as light; and the figures, first,as . She site ARIADNE " FLORENTINA, _ 21. The Delineators are the men on whom I am nigatng to 3 give you this course of lectures. They are essentially engrav- — ers, an engraved line being the best means of delineation. The Chiaroscurists are essentially draughtsmen with chalk, charcoal, or single tints. Many of them paint, but always with _some effort and pain. Leonardo is the type of them; but the entire Dutch school consists of them, laboriously painting, without essential genius for colour. The Colourists are the true painters ; and all the faultless (as far, that is to say, as men’s work can be so,) and consum- mate masters of art belong to them. 22. The distinction between the colourist and chiaroscurist school is trenchant and absolute ; and may soon be shown you so that you will never forget it. Here is a Florentine picture — by one of the pupils of Giotto, of very good representative quality, and which the University galleries are rich in possess- ing. At the distance at which I hold it, you see nothing but a chequer-work of brilliant, and, as it happens, even glaring colours. If you come near, you will find this patehwork re- solve itself into a Visitation, and Birth of St. John; but that St. Elizabeth’s red dress, and the Virgin’s blue and white one, and the brown posts of the door, and the blue spaces of the sky, are painted in their own entirely pure colours, each shaded with more powerful tints of itself,—pale blue with deep blue, scarlet with crimson, yellow with orange, and green with rich- er green. The whole is. therefore as much a mosaic work of brilliant colour as if it were made of bits of glass. There is no effect of light attempted, or so much as thought of : you don’t know even where the sun is; nor have you the least notion what time of day it is. The painter thinks you cannot be so super- fluous as to want to know what time of day it is. 23. Here, on the other hand, is a Dutch picture of good average quality, also out of the University galleries. It repre- sents a group of cattle, and a herdsman watching them, And you see in an instant that the time is evening. The sun is setting, and there is warm light on the landscape, the cattle, and the standing figure, ee es ee eee ee ¥ 4 e : : . VITION OF THE ART OF ENGRAVING. 259 re Nor paleo, the picture in any conspicuous way seem devoid of colour. On the contrary, the herdsman has a scarlet jacket, which comes out rather brilliantly from the mass of shade round it ; and a person devoid of colour faculty, or ill taught, might imagine the picture to be really a fine work of colour. But if you will come up close to it, you will find that the herdsman has brown sleeves, though he has a scarlet jacket ; and that the shadows of both are painted with precisely the same brown, and in several places with continuous touches of the pencil. It is only in the light that the scarlet is laid on. _ This at once marks the picture as belonging to the lower or shiagoseuriat school, even if you had not before recognized it as such by its pretty rendering of sunset effect. 24, You might at first think it a painting which showed greater skill than that of the school of Giotto. But the skill is not the primary question. The power of imagination is the first thing to be asked about. This Italian work imagines, and requires you to imagine also, a St. Elizabeth and St. Mary, to the best of your power. But this Dutch one only wishes you to imagine an effect of sunlight on cowskin, which is a far _ lower strain of the imaginative faculty. _Also, as you may see the effect of sunlight on cowskin, in reality, any summer afternoon, but cannot so frequently see a St. Elizabeth, it is a far less useful strain of the imaginative faculty. And, generally speaking, the Dutch chiaroscurists are in- deed persons without imagination at all,—who, not being able to get any pleasure out of their thoughts, try to get it out of their sensations ; note, however, also their technical connec- tion with the Greek school of shade, (see my sixth inaugural lecture, p. 158,) in which colour was refused, not for the sake of deception, but of solemnity. 25. With these final motives you are not now concerned ; your present business is the quite easy one of knowing, and noticing, the universal distinction between the methods of treatment in which the aim is light, and in which it is colour; c. and so to keep yourselves guarded from the danger of being _ misled by the, often very ingenious, talk of persons who have ARIADNE FLORENTINA. vivid colour sensations without having learned to distinguish. them from what else pleases them in pictures. There is an interesting volume by Professor Taine on the Dutch school, containing a valuable historical analysis of the influences which formed it ; but full of the gravest errors, resulting from the confusion in his mind between colour and tone, in conse- © quence of which he imagines the Dutch painters to be colour- ists. 26. It is so important for you to be grounded securely in these first elements of pictorial treatment, that I will be so far tedious as to show you one more instance of the relative intellectual value of the pure colour and pure chiaroscuro school, not in Dutch and Florentine, but in English art. Here is a copy of one of the lost frescoes of our Painted Chamber of Westminster ;—fourteenth-century work, entirely conceived in colour, and calculated for decorative effect. There is no more light and shade in it than in a Queen of Hearts in a pack of cards; all that the painter at first wants you to see is- that the young lady has a white forehead, and a golden crown, and a fair neck, and a violet robe, and a crimson shield with golden leopards on it; and that behind her is a clear blue sky. . Then, farther, he wants you to read her name, ** Debon- nairete,” which, when you have read, he farther expects you to consider what it is to be debonnaire, and to remember your Chaucer’s description of the virtue :— She was not brown, nor dun of hue, But white as snowe, fallen new, With eyen glad, and browes bent, Her hair down to her heeles went, And she was simple, as dove on tree, Full debonnair of heart was she. 27. You see Chaucer dwells on the color just as much as the painter does, but the painter has also given her the Eng- lish shield to bear, meaning that good-humour, or debonnair- ete, cannot be maintained by self-indulgence ;—only by forti- tude. Farther note, with Chaucer, the “ eyen glad,” and brows “bent” (high-arched and calm), the strong life (hair down to DEE NITION oF THE ART oF ENGRA ayers 261 the reels.) and that her gladness is to be without subtlety, — - 3 that is to say, without the slightest pleasure in any form of _ advantage-taking, or ary shrewd or mocking wit: “she was _ simple as dove on tree ;” and you will find that the colour- both in the fresco and in the poem, is in the very highest degree didactic and intellectual ; and distinguished, as _ _ being so, from all inferior forms of art. Farther, that it re- quires you yourself first to understand the nature of simplicity, and to like simplicity in young ladies better than subtlety ; and to understand why the second of Love’s five kind arrows (Beauté being the first), _ Simplece ot nom, la seconde Qui maint homme parmi le monde Et mainte dame fait amer. Nor must you leave the picture without observing that there is another reason for Debonnairete’s bearing the Royal shield, —of all shields that, rather than another. ‘“ De-bonne-aire ” _ meant originally ‘‘ out of a good eagle’s nest,” the “‘ aire” sig- nifying the eagle’s nest or eyrie especially, because it is flat, the Latin “area” being the root of all. _ And this coming out of a good nest is recognized as, of all things, needfullest to give the strength which enables people to be good-humoured ; and thus you have “ debonnaire” the third word of the group, with “ gentle” and _ “kind,” all first signifying “of good race.” You will gradually see, as we go on, more and more why.I called my third volume of lectures Eagle’s Nest; for Iam not fantastic in these titles, as is often said; but try shortly to mark my chief purpose in the book by them. 28. Now for comparison with this old art, here is a modern engraving, in which colour is entirely ignored ; and light and. shade alone are used to produce what is supposed to be a piece of impressive religious instruction. But it is not a piece of religious instruction at all ;—only a piece of religious sensation, prepared for the sentimental pleasure of young ladies ; whom (since Iam honoured to-day by the presence of many) I will take the opportunity of warning against such 262 _ ARIADNE FLORENTINA. forms of false theological satisfaction. This engraving repre- sents a young lady in a very long and, though plain, very be- coming white dress, tossed upon the waves of a terrifically stormy sea, by which neither her hair nor her becoming dress is in the least wetted ; and saved from despair in that situa- _ tion by closely embracing a very thick and solid stone Cross. By which far-sought and original metaphor young ladies are expected, after some effort, to understand the recourse they may have, for support, to the Cross of Christ, in the midst of the troubles of this world. 29. As those troubles are for the present, in all probability, limited to the occasional loss of their thimbles when they have not taken care to put them into their workboxes,—the concern they feel at the unsympathizing gaiety of their companions,— or perhaps the disappointment at not hearing a favourite clergyman preach,—(for I will not suppose the young ladies - interested in this picture to be affected by any chagrin at the loss of an invitation to a ball, or the like worldliness,)—it seems to me the stress of such calamities might be repre- sented, in a picture, by less appalling imagery. And I can assure my fair little lady friends,—if I still have any,—that whatever a young girl’s ordinary troubles or annoyances may be, her true virtue is in shaking them off, as a rose-leaf shakes - Off rain, and remaining debonnaire and bright in spirits, or even, as the rose would be, the brighter for the troubles ; and not at all in allowing herself to be either drifted or depressed to the point of requiring religious consolation. But if any real and deep sorrow, such as no metaphor can represent, fall upon her, does she suppose that the theological advice of this piece of modern art can be trusted? If she will take the pains to think truly, she will remember that Christ Himself never says anything about holding by His Cross. He speaks a good deal of bearing it; but never for an instant of holding byit. It is His Hand, not His Cross, which is to save either you, or St. Peter, when the waves are rough. And the utterly reckless way in which modern religious teachers, whether in art or literature, abuse the metaphor somewhat briefly and violently ~ leant on by St. Paul, simply prevents your understanding the — - a be Fa ols any word which Christ Himself its on this matter! So you see this popular art of light and shade, _ eatching you by your mere thirst of sensation, is not only un- 3 _ didactic, but the reverse of didactic—deceptive and illusory. see This popular art, you hear me say, scornfully; and I bien dold; you, in some of my teaching in Aratra Pentelici, that _ all great art must be popular. Yes, but great art is popular, as bread and water are to children fed be a father. And vile r art is popular, as poisonous jelly is, to children cheated by a _confectioner. And it is quite possible to make any kind of art popular on those last terms. The colour school may be- - come just as poisonous as the colourless, in the hands of fools, — _ or of rogues. Here is a book I bought only the other day,— _ one of the things got up cheap to catch the eyes of mothers _ at bookstalls,—Puss in Boots, illustrated ; a most definite work of the colour school—red jackets and white paws and yellow coaches as distinct as Giotto or Raphael would have _ kept them. But the thing is done by fools for money, and _ becomes entirely monstrous and abominable, Here, again, is _ colour art produced by fools for religion : here is Indian sacred _ painting,—a black god witha hundred arms, with a green god on one side of him and a red god on the other ; still a most _ definite work of the colour school. Giotto or Raphael could not have made the black more resolutely black, (though the _ whole colour of the school of Athens is keptin distinct separa- tion from one black square in it), nor the green more unques- tionably green. Yet the whole is pestilent and loathsome. _ 81. Now but one point more, and I have done with this sub- _ ject for to-day. - You must not think that this manifest brilliancy and Harle- _ quin’s-jacket character is essential in the colour school. The essential matter is only that everything should be of ifs own _ definite colour: it may be altogether sober and dark, yet the distinctness of hue preserved with entire fidelity. Here, for instance, is a picture of Hogarth’s,—one of quite the most precious things we have in our galleries. It represents a meeting of some learned society—gentlemen of the last cen- _ tury, very gravely dressed, but who, nevertheless, as gentlemen + —264— ARIADNE PLORENTINA, pleasantly did in that day,—you feline Goldsmith's weak- ness on the point—wear coats of tints of dark red, blue, or violet. There are some thirty gentlemen in the room, and perhaps seven or eight different tints of subdued claret-colour in their coats; and yet every coat is kept so distinctly of its — own proper claret-colour, that each gentleman’s servant woul: know his master’s. Yet the whole canvas is so grey and quiet, that as ITnow — hold it by this Dutch landscape, with the vermilion jacket, you would fancy Hogarth’s had no colour in it at all, and that the Dutchman was half-way to becoming a Titian; whereas — Hogarth’s is a consummate piece of the most perfect colourist school, which Titian could not beat, in its way ; and the Dutch- man could no more paint half an inch of it than he could sum- mon a rainbow into the clouds. 32. Here then, you see, are, altogether, five works, all of — the absolutely pure colour school :— 1. One, Indian,—Religious Art ; 2. One, Florentine,—Religious Art ; 3. One, English, from Painted Chamber Westminster,— Ethic Art ; 4. One, English ,—Hogarth,—Naturalistie Art ; 5. One, Baplishaiito-day sold in the High Street,—Carica-_ turist Art. And of these, the Florentine and old English are divine work, — God-inspired ; full, indeed, of faults and innocencies, but di- — vine, as good children are. | Then this by Hogarth is entirely wise and right ; but — worldly-wise, not divine, | While the old Indian, and this, with which we feed our chil- | dren at this hour, are entirely damnable art ;—every bit of it — done by the direct inspiration of the devil,—feeble, ridiculous, — —yet mortally poisonous to every noble quality in body and | soul. | 33. I have now, I hope, guarded you sufficiently from the — danger either of confusing the inferior school of chiaroscuro — with that of colour, or of imagining that a work must neces- — sarily be good, on the sole ground of its belonging to the — ITION OF THE ART OF ENGRAVING. 265 : I can now proceed securely to separate the - third school, that of Delineation, from both ; and to examine * few ial qualiti It begins, (see Inaugural Lectures, § 137,) in the primitive Saale races insensible alike to shade and to colour, and veloping into both. - Now as the design is primitive, so are the means likely to be primitive. A line is the simplest work of art you can pro- - duce. What are the simplest means you can produce it _ with? _ A Cumberland lead pencil is a work of art in itself, quite a nineteenth-century machine. Pen and ink are complex and ‘eoemay's and even chalk or charcoal not always handy. But the primitive line, the first and last, generally the best — of lines, is that which you have elementary faculty of at your _ fingers’ ends, and which kittens can draw as well as you—the - The first, I say, and the last of lines. Permanent exceed- _ ingly,—even in flesh, or on mahogany tables, often more per- manent than we desire. But when studiously and honourably __ made, divinely permanent, or delightfully—as on the venerable _ desks of our public schools, most of them, now, specimens of _ “wood engraving dear to the heart of England. 4 34. Engraving, then, is in brief terms, the Art of Scratch. It is essentially the cutting into a solid substance for the sake of making your ideas as permanent as possible,—graven with ‘an iron pen in the Rock for ever. Permanence, you observe, is the object, not multiplicability ;—that is quite an accidental, sometimes not even a desirable, attribute of engraving. Du- ration of your work—fame, and the undeceived vision of all men, on the pane of glass of the window on a wet day, or on the pillars of the castle of Chillon, or on the walls of the pyramids ;—a primitive art,—yet first and last with us. Since then engraving, we say, is essentially cutting into the surface of any solid; as the primitive design is in lines or dots, the primitive cutting of such design is a scratch or a hole ; and scratchable solids being essentially three—stone, nearly devoid of thought and of sentiment, but gradually de- 4 266 ARIADNE FLORENTINA. — wood, metal,—we shall have three great schools of unuenting to investigate in each material. 35. On tablet of stone, on tablet of wood, on tablet of steel, —the first giving the law to everything; the second true Athenian, like Athena’s first statue in olive-wood, making the law legible and homely ; and the third true Vulcanian, haying the splendour and power of accomplished labour, Now of stone engraving, which is joined inseparably with sculpture and architecture, I am not going to speak at length in this course of lectures. I shall speak only of wood and _metal engraving. But there is one circumstance in stone en- graving which it is necessary to observe in connection with — the other two branches of the art. The great difficulty for a primitive engraver is to make his scratch deep enough to be visible. Visibility is quite as essential to your fame as permanence; and if you have only your furrow to depend on, the engraved tablet, at certain times of day, will be illegible, and passed without notice. But suppose you fill in your furrow with something black, then it will be legible enough at once ; and if the black fall out or wash out, still your furrow is there, and may be filled again by anybody. Therefore, the noble stone engravers, using marble to re- ceive their furrow, fill that furrow with marble ink, And you have an engraved plate to purpose ;—with the whole sky for its margin! Look here—the front of the church of San Michele of Lucca,—white marble with green serpen- tine for ink; or here,—the steps of the Giant’s Stair, with lead for ink; or here,—the floor of the Pisan Duomo, with porphyry for ink. Such cutting, filled in with colour or with black, branches into all sorts of developments,—Florentine mosaic on the one hand, niello on the other, and infinite minor arts. 36. Yet we must not make this filling with eclour part of our definition of engraving. To engrave is, in final strictness, **to decorate a surface with furrows.” (Cameos, in accuratest terms, are minute sculptures, not engravings.) A ploughed Ne ee ee ee on OF THE ART oF ENORA VING. 26% is the eat type of such art ; and is, on hilly land, an exquisite piece of decoration. Therefore it will follow that engraving distinguishes itself 4 - from ordinary drawing by greater need of muscular effort. _ he quality of a pen drawing is to be produced easily,—de- .* ibshaabely; always,* but with a point that glides over the paper. ‘Engraving, on the contrary, requires always force, and its virtue is that of a line produced by pressure, or by 4 blows of a chisel. Pony involves, therefore, always, ideas of power and dexterity, . but also of restraint ; and the delight you take in it should involve the understanding of the difficulty the workman dealt | with. You perhaps doubt the extent to which this feeling _ ‘justly extends, (in the first volume of ‘‘ Modern Painters,” ex- : _ pressed” under the head “Ideas of Power.”) But why is a 4 ‘large stone in any building grander than a small one? Sim- ply because it was more difficult to raise it. So, also, an en- grayed line is, and ought to be, recognized as more grand than a pen or pencil line, because it was more difficult to exe- cute it. _ In this mosaic of Lucca front you forgive much, and ad- mire much, because you see it is all cut in stone. So, in wood and steel, you ought to see that every line has been costly ; ‘but observe, costly of deliberative, no less than athletic or executive power. The main use of the restraint which makes the line difficult to draw, is to give time and motive for delib- eration in drawing it, and to ensure its being the best in your power. 37. For, as with deliberation, so without repentance, your engraved line must be. It may, indeéd, be burnished or beaten out again in metal, or patched and botched in stone; but always to disadvantage, and at pains which must not be ineurred often. And there is a singular evidence in one of Durer’s finest plates that, in his time, or at least in his manner _ of work, it was not possible at all. Among the disputes as to the meaning of Durer’s Knight and Death, you will find it poentiactss suggested, or insisted, that the horse’s raised foot ; * Compare Inaugural Lectures, § 144. 268 == ARIADNE FLORENT is going to fall into a snare. What has been fancied a noose — is only the former outline of the horse’s foot and limb, unel- faced. The engraved line is therefore to be ccnduaiie not experi- mental. ‘I have determined this,” says the engraver. Much excellent pen drawing is excellent in being tentative,—in be- ing experimental. Indeterminate, not through want of mean- ing, but through fulness of it—halting wisely between two opinions—feeling cautiously after clearer opinions. But your engraver has made up his opinion. This is so, and must for ever be so, he tells you. A very proper thing for a thoughtful man to say ; a very improper and impertinent thing for a fool- ish one to say. Foolish engraving is consummately foolish work. Look,—all the world,—look for evermore, says the foolish engraver ; see what a fool I have been, How many lines I have laid for nothing. How many lines a with no precept, much less superprecept. 88. Here, then, are two definite ethical characters in all en- graved work, It is Athletic; and it is Resolute. Add one more; that it is Obedient shire their infancy the nurse, but in their youth the slave, of the higher arts; servile, both in the mechanism and labour of it, and in its funetion of inter- preting the schools of painting as superior to itself. And this relation to the higher arts we will study at the source of chief power in all the normal skill of Christendom, Florence ; and chiefly, as I said, in the work of one Florentine master, Sandro Botticelli. LECTURE IL. THE RELATION OF ENGRAVING TO OTHER ARTS IN FLORENCE. 39. From what was laid before you in my last lecture, you must now be aware that I do not mean, by the word ‘ engray- ing,’ merely the separate art of producing plates from which black pictures may be printed. I mean, by engraving, the art of producing decoration on a surface by the touches of a chisel or a burin ; and I mean by = PE ie , on a a oe eee | Spates arts, the subordinate surface of this lin- ear work, in sculpture, i in metal work, and in painting ; or in the representation and repetition of painting. _ And first, therefore, I have to map out the broad relations : of the arts of sculpture, metal work, and painting, in Florence, _ among themselves, during the period in which the art of en- _ raving was distinctly connected with them.* 40. You will find, or may remember, that in my lecture on "Michael Angelo and Tintoret I indicated the singular impor- in the history of art, of a space of forty years, between 1480, and the year in which Raphael died, 1520. Within that - space of time the change was completed, from the principles _ of ancient, to those of existing, art ;—a manifold change, not _ definable in brief terms, but most clearly characterized, and _ easily remembered, as the change of conscientious and didactic _ art, into that which proposes to itself no duty beyond techni- - cal skill, and no object but the pleasure of the beholder. Of - that momentous change itself I do not purpose to speak in the _ present course of lectures ; but my endeavour will be to lay before you a rough chart of the course of the arts in Florence up to the time when it took place ; a chart indicating for you, definitely, the growth of conscience, in work which is distinct- _ ively conscientious, and the perfecting of expression and means of popular address, in that which is distinctively di- dactic. . Foye 4 iM ey en - Ae in Palin) 5 41. Means of popular address, observe, which have become - singularly important to us at this day. Nevertheless, remem- . ber that the power of printing, or reprinting, black pictures, _ —practically contemporary with that of reprinting black /e/ters, _ —modified the art of the draughtsman only as it modified that _of.the scribe. Beautiful and unique writing, as beautiful and unique painting or engraving, remain exactly what they were ; _ but other useful and reproductive methods of both have been _superadded. Of these, it is acutely said by Dr. Alfred Wolt- -mann,+— _ *Compare Aratra Pentelici, § 154. _ +‘ Holbein and His Time,” 4to, Bentley, 1872, (a very valuable book,) _p. 17. Italics mine. 270 “A far more important ontte is pliyedd in the artlife acu’ 7 many by the technical arts for the multiplying of works ; for Germany, while it was the land of book-printing, is also the land of picture-printing. Indeed, wood-engraying, which pre- — ceded the invention of book-printing, prepared the way for it, and only left one step more necessary for it. Bookzprinting and picture-printing have both the same inner cause for their ori- gin, namely, the impulse to make each mental gain a common ~ blessing. Not merely princes and rich nobles were to have the privilege of adorning their private chapels and apartments with beautiful religious pictures; the poorest man was also to have his delight in that which the artist had devised and pro- — duced. It was not sufficient for him when it stood in the — church as an altar-shrine, visible to him and to the congregation — from afar; he desired to have it as his own, to carry it about with him, to bring it into his own home. The grand impor-— tance of wood-engraving and copperplate is not sufficiently — estimated in historical investigations. They were not alone — of use in the advance of art ; they form an epoch in the entire . life of mind and culture. The idea embodied and mulipheg® in pictures became like that embodied in the printed word, the herald of every intellectual movement, and conquered the world.” 42. «Conquered the world”? The rest of the sentence is” . true, but this, hyperbolic, and greatly false. It should have — been said that both painting and engraving have conquered — much of the good in the world, and, hitherto, little or none of © the evil. ‘ . Nor do I hold it usually an advantage to art, in teaching, j that it should be common, or constantly seen. In becoming ~ intelligibly and kindly beautiful, while it remains solitary and — unrivalled, it has a greater power. Westminster Abbey is more didactic to the English nation, than a million of popu illustrated treatises on architecture. . Nay, even that it cannot be understood but with some diffi- culty, and must be sought before it can be seen, is no harm, — The noblest didactic art is, as it were, set on a hill, and its— disciples come to it. The vilest destructive and corrosive art — stands at the street corners, crying, ‘‘ Turn in hither ; come, eat of my bread, and drink of my wine, which 1 have . mingled.” OF ENGRAVING ro ornen ARTS. ont And Dr. Woltmann hen:-allawe; bintienthytad easily to fall into the common notion of Liberalism, that bad art, dissemi- - nated, is instructive, and good art isolated, not so. The _ question is, first, I assure you, whether what art you have got j is good or bad. If essentially bad, the more you see of it, _ the worse for you. Entirely popular art is all that is noble, in the cathedral, the council chamber, and the market-place ; _ not the paltry coloured print pinned on the wall of a private room, _ 43. I despise the poor !—do I, think you? Not so. They . + only despise the poor who think them better off with police , news, and coloured tracts of the story of Joseph and Poti- _ ‘phar’s wife, than they were with Luini painting on their _ church walls, and Donatello carving the pillars of their _ Market-places. _ Nevertheless, the effort to be universally, instead of locally, didactic, modified advantageously, as you know, and in a ; thousand ways varied, the earlier art of engraving : and the _ development of its popular power, whether for good or evil, - eame exactly—so fate appointed—at a time when the minds __ of the masses were agitated by the struggle which closed in the Reformation in some countries, and in the desperate re- fusal of Reformation in others.* The two greatest masters of engraving whose lives we are to study, were, both of them, _ passionate reformers : Holbein no less than Luther ; Botticelli no less than Savonarola. 44, Reformers, I mean, in the full and, accurately, the only, sense. Not preachers of new doctrines; but witnesses - against the betrayal of the old ones which were on the lips of _ all men, and in the lives of none. Nay, the painters are indeed more pure reformers than the priests. They rebuked the _ manifest vices of men, while they realized whatever was love- _ liest in their faith. Priestly reform soon enraged itself into _ mere contest for personal opinions ; while, without rage, but in stern rebuke of all that was vile in conduct or thought,— ~ “in declaration of the always-received faiths of the Christian ; : * See Carlyle, Frederick, Book IIL, chap. viii. 272 ‘ ARIADNE FLORENTINA, — | Church, and in warning of the power of faith, and death,* over the petty designs of men,—Botticelli and Holbein to- ‘gether fought foremost in the ranks of the reformation. 45. To-day I will endeavour to explain how they attained such rank. Then, in the next two lectures, the technics of both,—their way of speaking ; and in the last two, what they had got to say. First, then, we ask how they attained this rank ;—who taught them what they were finally best to teach? How far must every people—how far did this Florentine people— teach its masters, before they could teach dt? Even in these days, when every man is, by hypothesis, as — good as another, does not the question sound strange to you ? You recognize in the past, as you think, clearly, that national — advance takes place always under the guidance of masters, or groups of masters, possessed of what appears to be some new personal sensibility or gift of invention ; and we are apt to be reverent to these alone, as if the nation itself had been unprogressive, and suddenly awakened, or converted, by the genius of one man. No idea can be more superficial. Every nation must teach its tutors, and prepare itself to receive them ; but the fact on which our impression is founded—the rising, apparently by chance, of men whose singular gifts suddenly melt the multi- — tude, already at the point of fusion ; or suddenly form, and inform, the multitude which has gained coherence enough to be capable of formation,—enables us to measure and map — the gain of national intellectual territory, by tracing first the lifting of the mountain chains of its genius. 46. I have told you that we have nothing to do at present with the great transition from ancient to modern habits of thought which took place at the beginning of the sixteenth — century. Ionly want to go as far as that point ;—where we * I believe Iam taking too much trouble in writing these lectures. This sentence, § 44, has cost me, I suppose, first and last, about as many hours as there are lines in it;—and my choice of these two words, faith and death, as representatives of power, will perhaps, after all, only puzzle the reader. aa ee ‘sh om a eT ng Z a itd et e nH r. ce . pir OF ENGRA VING TO orner ARTS. 273 : ; tad find ‘the old superstitious art represented finally by Perugino, and the modern scientific and anatomical art repre- sented primarily by Michael Angelo. And the epithet be- stowed on Perugino by Michael Angelo, ‘goffo nell’ arte,’ _ dunce, or blockhead, in art,—being, as far as my knowledge of history extends, the most cruel, the most false, and the most , foolish insult ever offered by one great man to another,—does you at least good service, in showing how trenchant the separation is between the two orders of artists,*—how exclu- | sively we may follow out the history of all the ‘ goffi nell’ arte,’ and write our Florentine Dunciad, and Laus Stultitize, in peace; and never trench upon the thoughts or ways of ‘these proud ones, who showed their fathers’ nakeduess, and snatched their masters’ fame. 47. The Florentine dunces in art are a multitude ; but I only want you to know something about twenty of them. _ Twenty !—you think that a grievous number? It may, perhaps, appease you a little to be told that when you really ‘have learned a very little, accurately, about these twenty dunees, there are only five more men among the artists of - Christendom whose works I shall ask you to examine while you are under my care. That makes twenty-five altogether, —an exorbitant demand on your attention, you still think ? And yet, but a little while ago, you were all agog to get me to go and look at Mrs. A’s sketches, and tell you what was to be thought about them ; and Tve had the greatest difficulty to keep Mrs..B’s photographs from being shown side by side with the Raphael drawings in the University galleries. And you will waste any quantity of time in looking at Mrs. A’s sketches or Mrs. B’s photographs; and yet you look grave, because, out of nineteen centuries of European art-labour and thought, I ask you to learn something seriously about the works of five-and-twenty men ! 48. It is hard upon you, doubtless, considering the quan- _™ He is said by Vasari to have called Francia the like. Francia is a ~ child compared to Perugino ; but a finished working-goldsmith and ornamental painter nevertheless ; and one of the very last men to be called ‘ goffo,’ except by unparalleled insolence, 274. - ARIADNE FLORENTINA. tity of time you must nowadays spend in trying which can hit balls farthest. So I will put the task into the simplest nssoves I can. Here are the names of the twenty-five men,* and cine each, a line indicating the length of his life, and the position of it in his century. The diagram still, however, needs a few words of explanation. Very chiefly, for those who know any- thing of my writings, there is needed explanation of its not including the names of Titian, Reynolds, Velasquez, Turner, and other such men, always reverently put before you at other times. They are absent, because I have no fear of your not looking at these. All your lives through, if you care about art, you will be looking at them. But while you are here at Oxford, I want to make you learn what you should know of these earlier, many of them weaker, men, who yet, for the very reason of their greater simplicity of power, are better guides for you, and of whom some will remain guides to all genera- tions. And, as regards the subject of our present course, I have a still more weighty reason ;—Vandyke, Gainsborough, Titian, Reynolds, Velasquez, and the rest, are essentially por- trait painters. They give you the likeness of a man: they have nothing to say either about his future life, or his gods. ‘That is the look of him,’ they say: ‘here, on earth, we know no more.’ . re 49. But these, whose names I have engraved, have some- thing to say—generally much,—either about the future life of man, or about his gods. They are therefore, literally, seers or prophets. False prophets, it may be, or foolish ones; of that you must judge; but you must read before you can judge; and read (or hear) them consistently ; for you don’t know them till you have heard them out. But with Sir Joshua, or Titian, one portrait is as another: it is here a pretty lady, there a great lord; but speechless, all ;-—whereas, with these twenty-five men, each picture or statue is not * The diagram used at the lecture is engraved on the opposite leaf; the reader had better draw it larger for himself, as it had to be made inconveniently small for this size of leaf, ‘ : 4 4 d ; bl achat person of a plomalt soaidly; but another "chapter of-a Sibylline book _ 50. For this reason, then, I do not want Sir Joshua or | Velasquen in my defined group ; and for my present purpose, I can spare from it even four others :—namely, three who have too special gifts, and must each be separately studied—Cor- _ reggio, Carpaccio, Tintoret ;—and one who has no special gift, _ buta balanced group of many—Cima. This leaves twenty- a one for classification, of whom I will ask you to lay hold thus. You must continually have felt the difficulty caused by the names of centuries not tallying with their years ;—the year 1201 being the first of the 13th century, and so on. Iam always plagued by it myself, much as I have to think and write with reference to chronology ; and I mean for the future, in our art chronology, to use as far as possible a different form of notation. _ 51. In my diagram the vertical lines are the divisions of tens of years ; the thick black lines divide the centuries. The horizontal lines, then, at a glance, tell you the length and date of each artist’s life. In one or two instances I cannot find the - date of birth ; in one or two more, of death ; and the line in- dicates then only the ascertained* period during which the artist worked. And, thus represented, you see nearly all their lives run through the year of a new century ; so that if the lines repre- senting them were needles, and the black bars of the years 1300, 1400, 1500 were magnets, I could take up nearly all the needles by lifting the bars. _ §2. I will actually do this, then, in three other simple dia- grams. I place a rod for the year 1300 over the lines of life, and I take up allit touches. Ihave to drop Niccola Pisano, _ but I catch five. Now, with my rod of 1400, I have dropped Oreagna indeed, but I again catch five. Now, with my rod of 1500, I indeed drop Filippo Lippi and Verrocchio, but I catch seven. And here I have three pennons, with the staves of the -* ¢Ascertained,’ scarcely any date ever is, quite satisfactorily. The diagram only represents what is practically and broadly true. I may . have to modify it greatly in detail. 276 4=—S—sé« ~~ Sanaa 1500-6 1431—1506 Mantegna See) 1457—1515 Botticelli \e—-~-o-—-9—-2— 1426—1516 Bellini 4 > ote Os 1446—1524 PERUGINO ned 1470—1535 Luini ——s ooo 1471—1527_ Durer Ameo _—— 1498—1543 Holbein eo a beat e7 on the whole, with very little coaxing, I aa the groupe in this memorable and quite literally ‘handy’ form. For see, I write my list of five, five, and seven, on bits of pasteboard ; Ihinge | my rods to these ; and you can brandish the school of 1400 in your left hand, gna of 1500 in your right, like—railway sig- nals ;—and I wish all railway signals were as clear. Once learn, thoroughly, the groups in this artificially contracted form, and you can refine and complete afterwards ‘oh your leisure. 55. And thus actually flourishing my two pennons, and get- ting my grip of the men, in either hand, I find a notable thing concerning my two flags. The men whose names I hold in my left hand are all sculptors ; the men whose names I hold © in my right are all painters. You will infallibly suspect me of having chosen them thus on purpose. No, honour bright !—I chose simply the greatest men,—those I wanted to talk to you about. I arranged them by their dates ; I put them into three conclusive peaes 3 ca: and behold what follows ! 56. Farther, note this: in the 1300 group, four out of the five men are architects as well as sculptors and painters. In the 1400 group, there is one architect; in the 1500, none. And the meaning of that is, that in 1300 the arts were all : united, and duly led by architecture ; in 1400, sculpture began to assume too separate a power to herself ; in 1500, painting — arrogated all, and, at last, betrayed all. From which, with much other collateral evidence, you may justly conclude that — the three arts ought to be practised together, and that they naturally are so. I long since asserted that no man could be an architect who was not aseulptor. As I learned more and more of my business, I perceived also that no man could be a sculptor who was not an architect ;—that is to say, who had ~ not knowledge enough, and pleasure enough in structural law, x to be able to build, on occasion, better than a mere builder. And so, finally, I now positively aver to you that nobody, in the graphie arts, ean be quite rightly a master of anything, who is not master of everything ! 57. The junction of the three arts in men’s minds, at the ea ee OF ENGRAVING T0 OTHER ARTS, 279 | t time: a signified in these) words of Chaucer. - ‘Love's Garden, neg 5 OF ito weeping on Everidele En Slt sa detetitink id closed was, and walled well P. ae ys With high walls, embatailled, gluten what Portrayed without, and well dathyted p - eabdrisheishy «is ‘With many rich portraitures. a: Sitio fas 3 "Phe French aicacal is better still, and gives four pel sy in unison i. ‘Quant suis avant un pou alé Fe thokyed s03 Et vy un vergier grant et le, _ dighieeshsen” ‘Bien eloz de bon mur batillié J toe) Pourtrait dehors, et entaillié -» © Ou (for au) maintes riches escriptures. einmobadr iswer. ov Read also carefully the ddsiwintion of the temples of Mars and Venus in the Knight’s Tale. Contemporary French uses *entaille’ even of solid sculpture and of the living form ; and Pygmalion, as a perfect master, professes wood carving, ivory carving, wax-work, and iron-work, no less than stone sculpt- Bre see i! oT ee ya " : a = Pimalion, uns entaillieres =) > Pourtraians en fuz * et en pierres os =>». En mettaux, en os, et oii cire, Ls» +» Bten toute autre matire. - 30 bet - made a little sketch, when last’in Florence, of a sub- ject whic tal fix the idea of this unity of the arts in your min inds, At the base of the tower of Giotto are two rows of exagonal panels, filled with bas-reliefs. Some of these are b unknown hands,—some by Andrea. Pisano, some by Luca . Robbia, two by Giotto himself ; of these I sketched the nel representing the art of petite i ou haye in that bas-relief one of the foundation-stones of ‘the most perfectly-built tower in Europe ; you have that stone carved by its architect’s own hand ; you find, further, that this ete OT sone For fust, log of wood, erroneously ‘fer’ in the later printed editions. _ Compare the account of the works of Art and sith towards the _ of the Romance of the Rose. 280 ARIADNE FLORENTINA. architect and sculptor was the greatest painter of his time, and the friend of the greatest poet ; and you have represented ~ by him a painter in his shop,—bottega,—as symbolic of the entire art of painting. 59. In which representation, please note how carefully Giotto shows you the tabernacles, or niches, in which the paintings are to be placed. Not independent of their Semen, these panels of his, you see! Have you ever considered, in the early history of painting, how important also is the history of the frame maker? It is a matter, I assure you, needing your very best consideration. For the frame was made before the picture. The painted window is much, but the aperture it fills was thought of be- fore it. The fresco by Giotto is much, but the vault it adorns was planned first. Who thought of these ;—who built? — Questions taking us far back before the birth of the shep- herd boy of Fesolé,—questions not to be answered by history of painting only, still less of painting in Jialy only. 60. And in pointing out to you this fact, I may once for alll prove to you the essential unity of the arts, and show you how impossible it is to understand one without reference to another. Which I wish you to observe all the more closely, that you may use, without danger of being misled, the data, of unequalled value, which have been collected by Crowe and Cavalcasella, in the book which they have called a History of Painting in Italy, but which is in fact only a dictionary of de- tails relating to that history. Such a title is an absurdity on the face of it. For, first, you can no more write the history of painting in Italy than you can write the history of the south wind in Italy. The sirocco does indeed produce cer- tain effects at Genoa, and others at Rome ; but what would be che value of a treatise upon the winds, which, for the honour of any country, assumed that every city of it had a native sirocco ? But, further,—imagine what, success would attend the me- teorologist who should set himself to give an account of the south wind, but take no notice of the north! And, finally, suppose an attempt to give you an account of a ae ee Ee ye LATION OF ENGRAVING TO OTHER ARTS. 281 “either wind, but none of the seas, or mountain passes, by which they were nourished, or directed. _ 61. For instanee, I am in this course of lectures to give you an account of a single and minor branch of graphic art,—en- graying. But observe how many references to local cireum- stances it involves. There are three materials for it, we said ; —stone, wood, and metal. Stone engraving is the art of countries possessing marble and gems; wood engraving, of countries overgrown with forest ; metal engraving, of countries possessing treasures of silver and gold. And the style of a stone engraver is formed on pillars and pyramids ; the style of a wood engraver under the eaves of larch cottages; the style of a metal engraver in the treasuries of kings. Do you suppose I could rightly explain to you the value of a single touch on brass by Finiguerra, or on box by Bewick, unless I had grasp of the great laws of climate and country; and could trace the inherited sirocco or tramontana of thought to which the souls and bodies of the men owed their existence? _ 62. You see that in this flag of 1300 there is a dark strong line in the centre, against which you read the name of Arnolfo, In writing our Florentine Dunciad, or History of Fools, can we possibly begin with a better day than All Fools’ Day? On All Fools’ Day—the first, if you like better so to call it, of the month of opening,—in the year 1300, is signed the document making Arnolfo a citizen of Florence, and in 1310 he dies, chief master of the works of the Cathedral there. To this man, Crowe and Cavaleasella give half a page, out of three volumes of five hundred pages each. But lower down in my flag, (not put there because of any inferiority, but by order of chronology,) you will see a name sufficiently familiar to you—that of Giotto ; and to him, our historians of painting in Italy give some hundred pages, under the impression, stated by them at page 243 of their volume, that ‘‘in his hands, art in the Peninsula became en- titled for the first time to the name of Italian.” 63. Art became Italian! Yes, but what art? Your authors give a perspective—or what they call such,—of the upper 282 ARIADNE FLORENTINA. ‘OTT Sa church of Assisi, as if that were merely an accidental oceur- rence of blind walls for Giotto to painton! = = But how came the upper church of Assisi there? Sow came it to be vaulted—to be aisled ? How came 6 Giotto to be asked to paint upon it? The art that built it, good or bad, must have been an Italian one, before Giotto. He could not have painted on nase air. Let us see how his panels were made for him. 64. This Captain—the centre of our first group—Arnolfo, has always hitherto been called ‘Arnolfo di Lapo ;’—Arnolfo the son of Lapo. Modern investigators come down on us delightedly, to an us—Arnolfo was not the son of Lapo. In these days you will have half a dozen aoetoriy withing each a long book, and the sense of all will be,—Arnolfo wasn’t the son of Lapo. Much good may you get of that! Well, you will find the fact to be, there was a great North- man builder, a true:son of Thor, who came down into Italy in 1200, served the order of St. Francis there, built Assisi, taught Arnolfo how to build, with Thor’s hammer, and disap- peared, leaving his name uncertain—Jacopo—Lapo—nobody knows what. Arnolfo always recognizes this man as his true father, who put the soul-life into him ; he is known to his Florentines always as Lapo’s Arnolfo, That, or some likeness of that, is the vital fact. You never can get at the literal limitation of living facts. They disguise themselves by the very strength of their life: get told again and again in different ways by all manner of people ;—the literalness of them is turned topsy-turvy, inside-out, over and over again ;—then the fools come and read them wrong side upwards, or else, say there never was a fact at all. _Noth- ing delights a true blockhead so much as to prove a negative ;—- to show that everybody has been wrong. Fancy the delicious sensation, to an empty-headed creature, of fancying for a moment that he has emptied everybody else’s head as well as his own! nay, that, for once, his own hollow bottle of a head has had the best of other bottles, and has been /jirst money ¢ fe. first to know—nothing. ee ATION OF ENGRAVING TO OTHER ARTS. 283 - 65. Hold, then, steadily the first tradition about this Ar- nolfo. That his rea] father was called “Cambio ” matters to _ you not a straw. That he never called himself Cambio’s - Arnolfo—that nobody else ever called him so, down to Vasari’s time, is an infinitely significant fact to you. In my d letter in Fors Clavigers you will find some ae- count of the noble habit of the Italian artists to call them- selves by their masters’ names, considering their master as their true father. If not the name of the master, they take that of their native place, as having owed the character of their life to that. They rarely take their own family name : sometimes it is not even known,—when best known, it is un- familiar to us. The great Pisan artists, for instance, never bear any other name than ‘the Pisan ;’ among the other five- and-twenty names in my list, not above six, I think, the two German, with four Italian, are family names. Perugino, (Peter of Perugia), Luini, (Bernard of Luino), Quercia, (James of Quercia), Correggio, (Anthony of Correggio), are named from their native places. Nobody would have under: stood me if I had called Giotto, ‘Ambrose Bondone ;’ or Tintoret, Robusti; or even Raphael, Sanzio. Botticelli is named from his master ; Ghiberti from his father-in-law ; and Ghirlandajo from his work. Orcagna, who did, for a wonder, name himself from his father, Andrea Cione, of Florence, has been always called ‘ Angel’ by everybody else ; while Arnolfo, who never named himself from his father, is now like to be — fathered against his will. But, I again beg of you, keep to the old story. For it represents, however inaccurately in detail, clearly in sum, the fact, that some great master of German Gothic at this time came down into Italy, and changed the entire form of Italian architecture by his touch. So ‘that while Niccola and Giovanni Pisano are still virtually Greek artists, experimen- tally introducing Gothic forms, Arnolfo and Giotto adopt the entire Gothic ideal of form, and thenceforward use the pointed arch and steep gable as the limits of sculpture. _ 66. Hitherto I have been speaking of the relations of my twenty-five men to each other. But now, please note their 284 ARIADNE FLORENTINA, relations altogether to the art before them. These twenty- five include, I say, all the great masters of Christian art. Before them, the art was too savage to be Christian ; after- wards, too carnal to be Christian. Too savage to be Christian? I will justify that assertion hereafter ; but you will find that the European art of 1200 includes all the most developed and characteristic conditions of the style in the north which you have probably been ac- customed to think of as Norman, and which you may always most conveniently call so; and the most developed condi~ tions of the style in the south, which, formed .out of effete Greek, Persian, and Roman tradition, you may, in like man- ner, most conveniently express by the familiar word Byzayrrxe. Whatever you call them, they are in origin adverse in temper, and remain so up to the year 1200. Then an influence ap- pears, seemingly that of one man, Nicholas the Pisan, (our first Masrer, observe,) and a new spirit adopts what is best in each, and gives to what it adopts a new energy of its own, namely, this conscientious and didactic power which is the speciality of its progressive existence. And just as the new- born and natural art of Athens collects and reanimates Pelas- gian and Egyptian tradition, purifying their worship, and perfecting their work, into the living heathen faith of the world, so this new-born and natural art of Florence collects and animates the Norman and Byzantine tradition, and forms out of the perfected worship and work of both, the honest Christian faith, and vital craftsmanship, of the world. 67. Get this first summary, therefore, well into your minds. The word ‘Norman’ I use roughly for North-savage ;— roughly, but advisedly. I mean Lombard, Scandinavian, Frankish ; everything north-savage that you can think of, except Saxon. (I have a reason for that exception; never mind it just now.) * * Of course it would have been impossible to express in any accurate terms, short enough for the compass of a lecture, the conditions of op- position between the Heptarchy and the Northmen ;—between the By- zantine and Roman ;—and between the Byzantine and Arab, which form minor, but not less trenchant, divisions of Art-province, for subsequent = rr Te ee ee ee ee ee ee, ee ee ee ee Se ree ee ‘RELATI: ON OF ENGRAVING TO OTHER ARTS. 285 dat aneth savage I call Norman, all south-savage I call By- ZANTINE ; this latter including dead native Greek primarily— then dead foreign Greek, in Rome ;—then Arabian—Persian —Phenician—Indian—all you can think of, in art of hot countries, up to this year 1200, I rank under the one term Byzantine. Now all this cold art—Norman, and all this hot art—Byzantine, is virtually dead, till 1200. It has no con- science, no didactic power ;* it is devoid of both, in the sense that dreams are. _ Then in the 13th century, men wake as if they heard an alarum through the whole vault of heaven, and true human life begins again, and the cradle of this life is the Val d’Arno. There the northern and southern nations meet ; there they lay down their enmities ; there they are first baptized unto John’s baptism for the remission of sins; there is born, and thence exiled,—thought faithless for breaking the font of baptism to save a child from drowning, in his ‘bel San Giovanni,’ —the greatest of Christian poets ; he who had pity even for the lost. 68. Now, therefore, my whole history of Christian architect- ure and painting begins with this Baptistery of Florence, and with its associated Cathedral. Arnolfo brought the one into the form in which you now see it; he laid the foundation of the other, and that to purpose, and he is therefore the Caprain of our first school. _ For this Florentine Baptistery + is the great one of the world. Here is the centre of Christian knowledge and power. delineation. If you can refer to my ‘‘ Stones of Venice,” see § 20 of its first chapter. - * Again much too broad a statement: not to be qualified but by a - length of explanation here impossible. My lectures on Architecture, now in preparation, will contain further detail. + At the side of my page, here, I find the following memorandum, which was expanded in the viva-voce lecture. The reader must make what he can of it, for I can’t expand it here. Sense of Italian Church plan. _Baptistery, to make Christians in ; house, or dome, for them to pray and be preached to in ; bell-tower, to ring all over the town, when they were either to pray together, rejoice together, or to be warned of danger. Harvey’s picture of the Covenauters, with a shepherd on the outlook, as a campanile, Bg OR ARIADNE FLORENTINA. - And it is one piece of large engraving. White substance, cut into, and filled with black, and dark-green. = No more perfect work was afterwards done; and I wish you to grasp the idea of this building clearly and irrevocably, —first, in order (as I told you in a previous lecture) to quit yourselves thoroughly of the idea that ornament should be decorated construction ; and, secondly, as the noblest type of the intaglio ornamentation, which developed itself into all minor application of black and white to engraving. = 69. That it should do so first at Florence, was the natural sequence, and the just reward, of the ancient skill of Etruria in chased metal-work. The effects produced in gold, either by embossing or engraving, were the direct means of giving interest to his surfaces at the command of the ‘ auri faber,’ or orfevre : and every conceivable artifice of studding, chiselling, and interlacing was exhausted by the artists in gold, who were at the head of the metal-workers, and from whom ate — _ of the sculptors were reinforced. The old French word ‘orfroiz,’ (aurifrigia,) cutee 4 essen- tially what we eall ‘frosted’ work in gold ; that which resem- bles small dew or crystals of hoar-frost ; the ‘ frigia’ coming from the Latin frigus. To chase, or enchase, is not properly said of the gold ; but of the jewel which it secures with hoops or ridges, (French, enchasser*), Then the armourer, or eup and casket maker, added to this kind of decoration that of flat inlaid enamel; and the silver-worker, finding that the raised filigree (still a staple at Genoa) only attraeted tarnish, or got crushed, early sought to decorate a surface which would bear external friction, with labyrinths we safe inci- sion. 70. Of the security of incision as a means of permanent decoration, as opposed to ordinary carving, here is a beautiful instance in the base of one of the external shafts of the Cathe- dral of Lucca; 13th-century work, which by this time, had it been carved in relief, would have been a shapeless remnant of indecipherable bosses. But it is still as safe as if it had been cut yesterday, because the smooth round mass of the pillar is * And ‘chassis,’ a window frame, or tracery, a Thee a * Fe Ue TOS ie eee” J + ——— i 1 > ee. >, ; SS it ee i ; ) ENGRAVING TO OTHER ARTS, 287 aly ' 3 into that, furrows are cut with a chisel 1 der comma and as powerful as‘a burin. The of 1 design is trusted entirely to the depth of these ms—here dying out and expiring in the light of the , there deepened, by drill holes, into as definitely a ; line as if it were drawn with ink; and describing the 3 outline of the leafage with a delicacy of comet and of percep- tion which no man will ever surpass, and which very few have rivalled, in the proudest days of design. nad ‘This security, in silver plates, was completed by filling the v8 with the black paste which at once exhibited and pre- ‘them. ‘The transition from that niello-work to modern ene one of no real moment: my object is to make understand the qualities which constitute the merit of the engraving, whether charged with niello or ink. And this I hope ultimately to accomplish by studying with you some of the works of the four men, Botticelli and Mantegna in the Durer and Holbein in the north, whose names I have ut in our last flag, above and beneath those of the three ‘painters, Perugino the captain, Bellini on one side— Luini on the other. - The four following lectures * will contain data necessary for such study : you must wait longer before I can place before _ you those by which I can justify what must greatly surprise some of my audience—my having given Perugino the captain’s a place among the three painters. . 72. But I do so, at least primarily, because what is com- ; monly thought affected in his design is indeed the true re- - mains of the great architectural symmetry which was soon to be lost, and which makes him the true follower of Arnolfo and _ Brunelleschi; and because lie is a sound craftsman and work- - man to the very heart’s core. A noble, gracious, and quiet ’ labourer from youth to death,—never weary, never impatient, _* This present lecture does not, as at present published, justify its § title ; ‘because I have not thought it necessary to write the yiva-voce portions of it which amplified the 69th paragraph. I will give the sub- stance of them in better form elsewhere ; ; meantime the part of the _ ecture here given may be in its own way useful. ee 288 _ ARIADNE FLORENTINA. never untender, never untrue. Not Tintoret in power, not Raphael in flexibility, not Holbein in veracity, not Luini in love,—their gathered gifts he has, in balanced and fruitful measure, fit to be the guide, and impulse, and father of all. LECTURE TL THE TECHNICS OF WOOD ENGRAVING. 73. I am to-day to begin to tell you what it is necessary you should observe respecting methods of manual execution in the two great arts of engraving. Only to begin to tell you, There need be no end of telling you such things, if you care to hear them. The theory of art is soon mastered ; but ‘dal detto al fatto, ve gran tratto;’ and as I have several times told you in former lectures, every day shows me more and more the importance of the Hand, 74. Of the hand as a Servant, observe,—not of the hand as a Master. For there are two great kinds of manual work : one in which the hand is continually receiving and obeying orders ; the other in which it is acting dependently, or even giving orders of its own. And the dependent and submis- sive hand is a noble hand; but the independent or imperative hand is a vile one. That is to say, as long as the pen, or chisel, or other graphic instrument, is moved under the direct influence of mental attention, and obeys orders of the brain, it is work- ing nobly ; the moment it moves independently of them, and performs some habitual dexterity of its own, it is base. 75. Deaxterity—I say ;—some ‘right-handedness’ of its own. We might wisely keep that word for what the hand does at the mind’s bidding ; and use an opposite word—sinisterity, —for what it does at its own. For indeed we want such a word in speaking of modern art ;—it is all full of sinisterity. Hands independent of brains ;—the left hand, by division of labour, not knowing what the right does,—still less what it ought to do, —- es ee SC rr Cl eC. eer mC rrr Br ied satiate ud ie” i THE TECHNICS OF wooD ENGRA VING. 289 16. Turning, then, to our special subject. All engraving, I said, is intaglio in the solid. But the solid, in wood engrav- ing, is a coarse substance, eusily cut ; and in metal, a fine substance, not easily. Therefore, in general, you may be pre- pared to accept ruder and more elementary work in one than the other; and it will be the means of appeal to blunter minds. You probably already know the difference between the actual methods of producing a printed impression from wood and metal ; but I may perhaps make the matter a little more clear. In metal engraving, you cut ditches, fill them with ink, and press your paper into them. In wood engraving, you leave ridges, rub the tops of them with ink, and stamp them on your paper. The instrument with which the substance, whether of the wood or steel, is cut away, is the same. It is a solid plough- share, which, instead of throwing the earth aside, throws it up and out, producing at first a simple ravine, or furrow, in the wood or metal, which you can widen by another cut, or extend by successive cuts. This (Fig. 1) is the general shape of the solid ploughshare : Ww Fie. 1. but it is of course made sharper or blunter at pleasure. The furrow produced is at first the wedge-shaped or cuneiform ravine, already so much dwelt upon in my lectures on Greek sculpture. 77. Since, then, in wood printing, you print from the sur- face left solid ; and, in metal printing, from the hollows cut ~ into it, it follows: that if you put few touches on wood, you draw, as on a slate, with white lines, leaving a quantity of black ; but if you put few touches on metal, you draw with black lines, leaving a quantity of white. Now the eye is not in the least offended by quantity of white, but is, or ought to be, greatly saddened and offended a7 Se ae > ae 2 ~ 290 ARIADNE FLORENTINA. by quantity of black. Hence it follows that you must never put little work on wood. You must not sketch opor: ‘it. You may sketch on metal as much as you please, | 78. “ Paradox,” you will say, as usual. ‘ Are not all our journals,—and tbe best of them, Punch, par excellence,—full of the most brilliantly swift and slight sketches, engraved on wood ; while line-engravings take ten years to produce, and cost ten guineas each when they are done?” Yes, that is so; but observe, in the first place; obats ap- pears to youa sketch on wood is not so at all, but a most la- borious and careful imitation of a sketch on paper ; whereas when you see what appears to be a sketch on metal, it is one, And in the second place, so far as the popular fashion is con- trary to this natural method,—so far as we do in reality try to produce effects of sketching in wood, and of finish’ in metal,—our work is wrong. Those apparently careless and free sketches on the Stil ought to have been stern and deliberate ; those exquisitely toned.and finished engravings on metal ought to have looked, instead, like free ink sketches on white paper. That is the theorem which I propose to you for consideration, and which, in the two branches of its assertion, I hope to prove to you ; the first part of it, (that wood-cutting should be careful,) in this present lecture ; the second, (that metal-cutting should be, at least in a far greater degree than it is now, slight, and free,) in the following one. 79. Next, observe the distinction in respect of thickness, no less than number, of lines which may properly be used in the two methods. In metal engraving, it is easier to lay a fine line than a thick one ; and however fine the line may be, it lasts ;—but in wood engraving it requires extreme precision and skill to leave a thin dark line, and when left, it will be quickly beaten down by a careless printer. Therefore, the virtue of wood engray- ing is to exhibit the qualities and power of thick lines ; and of metal engraving, to exhibit the qualities and power of third ones, All thin dark lines, therefore, in wood, broadly anbadtiihe 7 TECHNICS OF WOOD ENGRAVING. 291 are to be used only in case of necessity ; and thick lines, on metal, only in case of necessity. a __ 80. Though, however, thin dark lines cannot easily be pro- ; duced i in wood, thin light ones may be struck in an instant. Nevertheless, even thin light ones must not be used, except with extreme caution. For observe, they are equally useless as outline, and for expression of mass. You know how far from exemplary or delightful your boy’s first quite voluntary exercises in white line drawing on your slate were? You could, indeed, draw a goblin satisfactorily in such method ;— around O, with arms and legs to it, and a scratch under two dots in the middle, would answer the purpose; but if you _ wanted to draw a pretty face, you took pencil or pen, and _paper—not your slate. Now, that instinctive feeling that a white outline is wrong, is deeply founded, For Nature her- self draws with diffused light, and concentrated dark ;—never, except in storm or twilight, with diffused dark, and con- centrated light ; and the thing we all like best to see drawn— the human face—cannot be drawn with white touches, but by extreme labour. For the pupil and iris of the eye, the eye- brow, the nostril, and the lip are all set in dark on pale ground, You can’t draw a white eyebrow, a white pupil of the eye, a white nostril, and a white mouth, on a dark ground. Try it, and see what a spectre you get. But the same number of dark touches, skilfully applied, will give the idea of a beau- tiful face. And what is true of the subtlest subject you have to represent, is equally true of inferior ones. Nothing lovely _ ean be quickly represented by white touches. You must hew out, if your means are so restricted, the form by sheer labour ; and that both cunning and dextrous. The Florentine mas- __ters, and Durer, often practise the achievement, and there are _ many drawings by the Lippis, Mantegna, and other leading Italian draughtsmen, completed to great perfection with the white line; but only for the sake of severest study, nor is their work imitable by inferior men. And such studies, how- ever accomplished, always mark a disposition to regard ] too much, and local colour too little. We conclude, then, that we must never trust, in wood, to : ? i an “oe 299 ARIADNE FLORENTINA. — our power of outline with white ; and our general laws, thus far determined, will be—thick lines in wood; thin ones in metal; complete drawing on wood ; sketches, if we choose, on etal: 81. But why, in wood, lines at all? Why not cut wis white spaces, and use the chisel as if its incisions were so much white paint? Many fine pieces of wood-eutting are indeed executed on this principle. Bewick does nearly all his foliage so ; and continually paints the light plumes of his birds with single touches of his chisel, as if he were laying on white. But this is not the finest method of wood-cutting. It im- plies the idea of a system of light and shade in which the shadow is totally black. Now, no light and shade can be good, much less pleasant, in which all the shade is stark black. Therefore the finest wood-cutting ignores light and shade, and expresses only form, and dark local colour. And it is convenient, for simplicity’s sake, to anticipate what I should otherwise defer telling you until next lecture, that fine metal engraving, like fine wood-cutting, ignores light and shade ; and that, in a word, all good engraving whatsoever does so. 82. I hope that my saying so will make you eager to inter- rupt me. ‘What! Rembrandt's etchings, and Lupton’s mez- zotints, and Le Keux’s line-work,—do you mean to tell us that these ignore light and shade ?’ I never sid that mezzotint ignored light and shade, or ovght to do so. Mezzotint is properly to be considered as chiaroscuro drawing on metal. But I do mean to tell you that both Rembrandt’s etchings, and Le Keux’s finished line- work, are misapplied labour, in so far as they regard chiaro- scuro ; and that consummate engraving never uses it as a primal element of pleasure. 83. We have now got our principles so far defined that T ean proceed to illustration of them by example. Here are facsimiles, very marvellous ones,* of two of the * By Mr. Burgess. The toil and skill necessary to produce a fac- simile of this degree of precision will only be recognized by the reader who has had considerable experience of actual work. THE TECHNIUS OF WOOD ENGRAVING. 293 best wood engravings ever produced by art,—two subjects in Holbein’s Dance of Death. You will probably like best that I should at once proceed to verify my last and most startling statement, that fine engraving disdained chiaroscuro. _ This vignette (Fig. 2) represents a sunset in the open mountainous fields of southern Germany. And Holbein is so entirely careless about the light and shade, which a Dutch- man would first have thought of, as resulting from the sunset, that, as he works, he forgets altogether where his light comes from. Here, actually, the shadow of the figure is cast from _ the side, right across the picture, while the sun is in front. And there is not the slightest attempt to indicate gradation of light in the sky, darkness in the forest, or any other positive element of chiaroscuro. This is not because Holbein cannot give chiaroscuro if he chooses. He is twenty times a stronger master of it than Rembrandt; but he, therefore, knows exactly when and how to use it; and that wood engraving is not the proper means for it. The quantity of it which is needful for his story, and will not, by any sensational violence, either divert, or vulgarly enforce, the attention, he will give ; and that with an unriv- alled subtlety. Therefore I must ask you for a moment or two to quit the subject of technics, and look what these two woodcuts mean. | _ 84. The one I have first shown you is of a ploughman ploughing at evening. It is Holbein’s object, here, to express the diffused and intense light of a golden summer sunset, so far as is consistent with grander purposes. A modern French or English chiaroscurist would have covered his sky with fleecy clouds, and relieved the ploughman’s hat and his horses against it in strong black, and put sparkling touches on the furrows and grass. Holbein scornfully casts all such tricks aside ; and draws the whole scene in pure white, with simple outlines. _ 85. And yet, when I put it beside this second vignette, (Fig. 3), which is of a preacher preaching in a feebly-lighted ehurch, you will feel that the diffused warmth of the one sub- ject, and diffused twilight in the other, are complete; and 294 ©) ARIADNE FLORENTINA. © os they will finally be to -you more impressive than if they had been wrought out with every superficial means of a on each block. cnta diode | For it is as a symbol, not as a scenic effect, that ‘in each case the chiaroscuro is given. Holbein, I said, is at the head of the painter-reformers, and his Dance of Death is the most energetic and telling of all the forms given, in this epoch, to the Rationalist spirit of reform, preaching the new Gospel of Death,—“ It’ is no matter whether you are priest or layman, what you believe, or what you do: here is the end.” You shall see, in the course of our inquiry, that Botticelli, in like manner, represents the Faithful and Catholic sees, 20 Te- form. Purdike Hi 86. The teaching of Holbein is therefore ania rhelanehioly, —for the most part purely rational ; and entirely furious in its indignation against all who, either by actual injustice in this life, or by what he holds to be false promise of another, destroy the good, or the energy, of the few days which man has to live. Against the rich, the luxurious, the Pharisee, the false lawyer, the priest, and the unjust judge, Holbein uses his fiercest’ mockery; but he is never himself unjust ; never caricatures or equivocates ; gives the facts as he knows them, with explanatory symbols, few and clear, 9 6 87. Among the powers which he hates, the pathetic and ingenious preaching of untruth is one of the chief; and it is curious to find his biographer, knowing this, and reasoning, as German crities nearly always do, from ) acquired knowledge, not perception, imagine instantly that he sees hypoerisy in the face of Holbein’s preacher. ‘How skilfully,” says Dr. Woltmann, “is the preacher propounding his doctrines ; how thoroughly is his hypocrisy expressed in the features of his countenance, and in the gestures of his hands.” But look at the cut yourself, candidly. I challenge you to find the slight est trace of hypocrisy in either feature or gesture. ‘Holbein knew better. It is not the hypocrite who has power in the pulpit. It is the sincere preacher of untruth who does mis- chief there, The hypocrite’s place of power is in trade, or in general society ; none but the sincere ever get fatal influence al eh ete Le eee ate of) - Oe Sea we le, ~ae el “4 Vibe Pom vig sche finale ie era pret TECHNICS OF WOOD ENGRAVING. 295 a in the pulpit, This man is a refined gentleman—ascetic, earnest, thoughtful, and kind, He scarcely uses the vantage even of his pulpit,—comes aside out of it, as an eager man would, pleading ; he is intent on being understood—is under- stood ; his congregation are delighted—you might hear a pin drop among them : one is asleep indeed, who cannot see him, (being under the pulpit,) and asleep just because the teacher ‘is as gentle as he is earnest, and speaks quietly. _ 88. How are we to know, then, that he speaks in vain? First, because among all his hearers you will not find one shrewd face. They are all either simple or stupid people: there is one nice woman in front of all, (else Holbein’s repre- sentation had been caricature,) but she is not a shrewd one, _ Secondly, by the light and shade. The church is not in ex- treme darkness—far from that; a grey twilight is over every- thing. but the sun is totally Per out of it ;—not a ray comes in even at the window—that is darker than the walls, or vault. _ Lastly, and chiefly, by the mocking expression of Death. Mocking, but notangry. The man has been preaching what he thought true. Death laughs at him, but is not indignant with him, _ Death comes quietly : Iam going to be preacher now ; here isyour own hour-glass, ready for me. You have spoken many . words i in your day, But “of the things which you have spoken, this is the sum,”—your death-warrant, signed and sealed. There’s your text for to-day. 89. Of this other picture, the meaning is more plain, and far more beautiful The husbandman is old and gaunt, and has past his days, not in speaking, but pressing the iron into the ground. And the payment for his life’s work is, that he is clothed in rags, and his feet are bare on the clods ; and he = Sais hat—but the brim of a hat only, and his long, unkempt grey hair comes through. But all the air is full of warmth and of peace ; and, beyond his village church, there is, at last, light indeed. His horses lag in the furrow, and his own bs totter and fail: but one comes to help him, ‘It isa long field,’ says Death ; ‘ but we'll get to the end of it to-day, —you and I.’ 296 ARIADNE FLORENTINA, 90. And now that we know the meaning, we are able to discuss the teclinical qualities farther. Both of these engravings, you will find, are executed with blunt lines ; but more than that, they are executed with quiet lines, entirely steady. Now, here I have in my hand a lively woodcut of the pres- ent day—a good average type of the modern style of wood- cutting, which you will all recognize.* The shade in this is drawn on the wood (not cut, but drawn, observe,) at the rate of at least ten lines in a second: Hol- bein’s at the rate of about one line in three seconds. + 91. Now there are two different matters to be considered with respect to these two opposed methods of execution. The first, that the rapid work, though easy to the artist, is very difficult to the woodcutter ; so that it implies instantly a separation between the two crafts, and that your wood en- graver has ceased to be a draughtsman. I shall return to this point. I wish to insist on the other first; namely, the effect of the more deliberative method on the drawing itself. 92. When the hand moves at the rate of ten lines in a second, it is indeed under the government of the muscles of the wrist and shoulder ; but it cannot possibly be under the complete government of the brains. I am able to do this zigzag line evenly, because I have got the use of the hand from practice ; and the faster it is done, the evener it will be. But I have no mental authority over every line I thus lay: chance regulates them. Whereas, when I draw at the rate of two or three seconds to each line, my hand disobeys the mus- cles a little—the mechanical accuracy is not so great; nay, there ceases to be any appearance of dexterity at all. But there is, in reality, more manual skill required in the slow work than in the swift,—and all the while the hand is thoroughly under the orders of the brains. Holbein deliber- ately resolves, for every line, as it goes along, that it shall be * The ordinary title-page of Punch. + In the lecture-room, the relative rates of execution were shown; I arrived at this estimate by timing the completion of two small pieces ‘of shade in the two methods. . THE TECHNICS OF WOOD ENGRAVING. 291 _ 80 thick, so far from the next,—that it shall begin here, and _ stop there. And he is deliberately assigning the utmost _ quantity of meaning to it, that a line will carry. _ 93. It is not fair, however, to compare common work of one age with the best of another. Here is a woodcut of Ten- niel’s, which I think contains as high qualities as it is possible to find in modern art.* I hold it as beyond others fine, be- cause there is not the slightest caricature in it. No face, no attitude, is pushed beyond the degree of natural humour they would have possessed in life; and in precision of momentary expression, the drawing is equal to the art of any time, and _ shows power which would, if regulated, be quite adequate to producing an immortal work. 94. Why, then, is it not immortal? You yourselves, in compliance with whose demand it was done, forgot it the next week. It will become historically interesting; but no man of true knowledge and feeling will ever keep this in his cabinet of treasure, as he does these woodcuts of Holbein’s. _ The reason is that this is base coin,—alloyed gold. There is gold in it, but also a quantity of brass and lead—wilfully added—to make it fit for the public. Holbein’s is beaten gold, seven times tried in the fire. Of which commonplace but useful metaphor the meaning here is, first, that to catch the vulgar eye a quantity of,—so-called,—light and shade is added by Tenniel. It is effective to an ignorant eye, and is ~ ingeniously disposed ; but it is entirely conventional and false, unendurable by any person who knows what chiaroscuro is. . Secondly, for one line that Holbein lays, Tenniel has a _ dozen. There are, for instance, a hundred and fifty-seven lines in Sir Peter Teazle’s wig, without counting dots and _ slight cross-hatching ;—but the entire face and flowing hair _ of Holbein’s preacher are done with forty-five lines, all told. __ 95. Now observe what a different state of mind the two — _ artists must be in on such conditions ;—one, never in a hurry, never doing anything that he knows is wrong ; never doing a D>? - line badly that he can do better ; and appealing only to the _ . * John Bull as Sir Oliver Surface, with Sir Peter Teazle and Joseph Surface. It appeared in Punch, early in [863. ‘ ae ARIADNE FLORENTINA. feelings of sensitive persons, and the judgment of attentive ones. That is Holbein’s habit of soul. What is the habit of soul of every modern engraver? Always in a hurry; every- where doing things wibsich he knows to be wrong—(Tenniel knows his light and shade to be wrong as well as I do)—con- tinually doing things badly which he was able to do better ; and appealing exclusively to the feelings of the oy ome the judgment of the inattentive. Do you suppose that is not enough to make the difference between mortal and immortal art,—the origina - acan ering supposed alike in both ? * 96. Thus far of the state of the artist himself. I pass soit to the relation between him and his subordinate, - eee cutter. The modern wttiet 9 requires him to cut a husitred aa fifty- seven lines in the wig only,—the old artist requires him to cut forty-five for the face, and long hair, altogether. The actual proportion is roughly, and on the average, about one to twenty of cost in manual labour, ancient to modern,—the twentieth part of the mechanical labour, to produce an immor- tal instead of a perishable work,—the twentieth part of the labour ; and—which is the ‘greatest difference of all—that twentieth part, at once less mechanically difficult, and more mentally pleasant. Mr. Otley, in his general History of En- graving, says, ‘ The greatest difficulty in wood engraving oc- curs in clearing out the minute quadrangular lights ;” and in any modern woodcut you will see that where the lines of the drawing cross each other to produce shade, the white inter- stices are cut out so neatly that there is no appearance of any jag or break in the lines; they look exactly as if they had been drawn with a pen. It is chiefly difficult to cut the pieces clearly out when the lines cross at right angles ; easier when they form oblique or diamond-aheped interstices ; but * In preparing these passages for the press, I feel perpotial} need of qualifications and limitations, for it is impossible to surpass the humour, or precision of expressional touch, in the really golden parts of Tenniel’s day. works ; and they may be immortal, as representing what is best in their : | THE TECHNICS OF WooD ENGRAVING. 299 - in any case, some half-dozen cuts, and in square crossings as many as twenty, are required to clear one interstice, There- fore if I carelessly draw six strokes with my pen across other six, I produce twenty-five interstices, each of which will need at least six—perhaps twenty, careful touches of the burin to clear out.—Say ten for an average ; and I demand two hun- dred and fifty exqusitely precise touches from my engraver, to render ten careless ones of mine. » 97. Now I take up Punch, at his best. The whole of the left side of John Bull's waistcoat—the shadow on his knee-breeches and great- coat—the whole of the Lord Chancellor’s gown, and of John Bull’s and Sir Peter Teazle’s complexions, are worked with fin- ished precision of cross-hatching. These have indeed some purpose in their texture ; but in the most wanton and gratuitous way, the wall below the window is cross-hatched too, and that not with a double, but a treble line, Fig. .4. There are about thirty of these columns, with thirty-five in- terstices each : approximately, 1,050—certainly not fewer— interstices to be deliberately cut clear, to get that two inches square of shadow. _ Now ealculate—or think enough to feel the impossibility of calculating—the number of woodcuts used daily for our pop- ular prints, and how many men are night and day cutting 1,050 square holes to the square inch, as the occupation of their manly life. And Mrs. Beecher Stowe and the North Americans fancy they have abolished slavery ! - 98. The workman cannot have even the consolation of pride ; for his task, even in its finest accomplishment, is not really difficult,—only tedious. When you have once got into the practice, it is as easy as lying. To cut regular holes with- _ out a purpose is easy enough ; but to cut zrregular holes with a purpose, that is difficult, for ever ;—no tricks of tool or ‘trade will give you power to do that. _ The supposed -difficulty—the thing which, at all events, it takes time to learn, is to cut the interstices neat, and each Fra, 4. 300 ARIADNE FLORENTINA. lke the other. But is there any reason, do you suppose, for their being neat, and each like the other? So far from it; they would be twenty times prettier if they were irregular, and each different from the other. And an old woodcutter; instead of taking pride in cutting these intestices smooth and alike, resolutely cuts them rough and irregular ; taking care, at the same time, never to have any more than are wanted, this being only one part of the general system of intelligent ma- nipulation, which made so good an artist of the engraver that it is impossible to say of any standard old woodeut, whether the draughtsman engraved it himself or not. I should imag- ine, from the character and subtlety of the touch, that every line of the Dance of Death had been engraved by Holbein; we know it was not, and that there can be no certainty given by even the finest pieces of wood execution of anything more than perfect harmony between the designer and workman. And consider how much this harmony demands in the latter. — Not that the modern engraver is unintelligent in applying his mechanical skill: very often he greatly improves the drawing ; but we never could mistake his hand for Holbein’s. 99. The true merit, then, of wood execution, as regards this matter of cross-hatching, is first that there be no more eross- ing than necessary ; secondly, that all the interstices be vari- ous, and rough. You may look through the entire series of the Dance of Death without finding any cross-hatching what- ever, except in a few unimportant bits of background, so rude as to need searecely more than one touch to each interstice. Albert Durer crosses more definitely ; but yet, in any fold of his drapery, every white spot differs in size from every other, and the arrangement of the whole is delightful, by the ain of variety which the spots on a leopard have. On the other hand, where either expression or form can be rendered by the shape of the lights and darks, the old engraver becomes as careful as in an ordinary ground he is careless. The endeavour, with your own hand, and common pen and ink, to copy asmall piece of either of the two Holbein woodcuts’ (Figures 2 and 3) will prove this to you better than any words, 100. I said that, had Tenniel been rightly trained, there THE THCHNICS OF WCOD ENGRAVING. 301 ain hes been the making of a Holbein, or nearly a Holbein, in him. I do not know; but I can turn from his work to that of a man who was not feuinis at all, and who was, without training, Holbein’s equal. _ Equal, in the sense that this brown stone, in my left hand, is the equal, though not the likeness, of that in my right. They are both of the same true and pure crystal; but the one is brown with iron, and never touched by forming hand ; the other has never been in rough companionship, and has been exquisitely polished. So with these two men. The one was the companion of Erasmus and Sir Thomas More. His father was so good an artist that you cannot always tell their draw- ings asunder. But the other was a farmer's son ; and learned his trade in the back shops of Newcastle. Yet the first book I asked you to get was his biograplay ; and in this frame are set together a drawing by Hans Hol- bein, and one by Thomas Bewick. I know which is most scholarly ; but I do not know which is best. 101. Itis much to say for the self-taught Englishman ;—yet do not congratulate yourselves on his simplicity. I told you, a little while since, that the English nobles had left the his- tory of birds to be written, and their spots to be drawn, by a printer’s lad ;—but I did not tell you their farther loss in the fact that this printer’s lad could have written their own his- tories, and drawn their own spots, if they had let him. But they had no history to be written; and were too closely macu- late to be portrayed ;—white ground in most places altogether obscured. Had there been Mores and Henrys to draw, Be- wick could have drawn them ; and would have found his func- tion. As it was, the nobles of his day left him to draw the frogs, and pigs, and sparrows—of his day, which seemed to him, in his solitude, the best types of its Nobility. No sight or thought of beautiful things was ever granted him ;—no heroic creature, goddess-born—how much less any native Deity—ever shone upon him. To his utterly English mind, the straw of the stye, and its tenantry, were abiding truth ;— the cloud of Olympus, and its tenantry, a child’s dream. He could draw a pig, but not an Aphrodite. 302 - ARIADNE FLORENTINA, ~ 102. The three pieces of woodcut from his Fables (the two. lower ones enlarged) in the opposite plate, show his utmost strength and utmost rudeness. I must endeayour to make you thorbusiile understand both :—the magnificent artistic power, the flawless virtue, veracity, tenderness,—the infinite humour of the man ; and yet the difference between England: and Florence, in the use they make of such gifts in their elite: dren. ripaiermetre ‘ For the moment, however, I confine myself to the examina, tion of technical points ; and we must follow our formericon-, clusions a little further. . iodanepingcds wilt 103. Because our lines in wood must be thick, Sideianmeen, an extreme virtue in wood engraving to economize lines,—not merely, as in all other art, to save time and power, but because, our lines being necessarily blunt, we must make’ up our minds to do with fewer, by many, than are in the object. inte is this. necessarily a disadvantage ? rein osebened Absolutely, an immense disadvantage—a woodent never can. be so beautiful or good a thing as a painting, or line engraying- But in its own separate and useful way, an excellent thing, be-, cause, practised rightly, it exercises in the artist, and sum-. mons in you, the habit of abstraction ; that is tosay, of decid-. ing what are the essential points in the things you see, and. seizing these ; a habit entirely necessary to strong humanity ; and so natural to all humanity, that it leads, in its indolent, and undisciplined states, to all the vulgar amateur’s liking of. sketches better than pictures. The sketch seems, to put the thing for him into a concentrated and exciting form. 104. Observe, therefore, to guard you from this error, that. a bad sketch is good for nothing ; and that nobody can make a good sketch unless they generally are trying to finish with extreme care. But the abstraction of the essential particulars in his subject by a line-master, has a peculiar didactic value. For painting, when it is complete, leaves it much to your own judgment what to look at ; and, if you are a fool, you look at the wrong thing ;—but in a fine woodcut, the master _ to you, *‘ You shall look at this or at nothing.” he diy 105. For example, here is a. little tailpiece of Bewick’s, to d ~~ Sk NV 2. 5S, PLATE L—TuHrincs CELESTIAL AND TERRESTRIAL As apparent to the English Mind. Pay et x 7 THE TECHNICS OF WOOD ENGRAVING. 303 able of the Frogs and the Stork.* He is, as I told you, _ as stout a reformer as Holbein, or Botticelli, or Luther, or - Sayonarola ; and, as an impartial reformer, hits right and left, Si classes, if he sees them wrong. Most fre- ; strikes’ at vice without reference to class ; but in 4 this vignette he strikes definitely at the degradation of the viler 4 mind which is incapable of being governed, because derstand the nobleness of kingship. He has writ- 4 etter than written, engraved, sure to suffer no slip of _ type—his legend under the drawing; so that we know his 3 meaning: — . a » & Set them up with a king, indeed !” _ , 106. There is an audience of seven frogs, listening to a _ speaker, or croaker, in the middle; and Bewick has set him- _ self to. show in all, but especially in the speaker, essential frog- _ giness of mind—the marsh temper. He could not have done _ it half so well in painting as he has done by the abstraction of _ wood-outline. The characteristic of a manly mind, or body, is to be gentle in temper, and firm in constitution; the con- _ trary essence of a froggy mind and body is to be angular in _ temper, and flabby in constitution. I have enlarged Bewick’s ‘ orator-frog for you, Plate I., ¢., and I think you will feel that _ he is entirely expressed in those essential particulars. __, This being perfectly good woodcutting, notice especially its _ deliberation. No serawling or scratching, or cross-hatching, _ or ‘free’ work of any sort. Most deliberate laying down of solid lines and dots, of which you cannot change one. The real difficulty of wood engraving is to cut every one of these _ black lines or spaces of the exactly right shape, and not at all _ to cross-hatch them cleanly. _. 107. Next, examine the technical treatment of the pig, above. _ Thaye purposely chosen this as an example of a white object on dark ground, and the frog asa dark object on light ground, to explain to you what I mean by. saying that fine engraving - regards local colour, but not light and shade. You see both - frog and pig are absolutely without light and shade. The frog, indeed, casts a shadow; but his hind leg is as white as his Pag ». >>... * From Bewick’s A’sop’s Fables. 304 ARIADNE FLORENTINA. throat. In the pig you don’t even know which way the light — falls. But you know at once that the pig is white, — the frog brown or green. 108. There are, however, two pieces of chiaroscuro implied in the treatment of the pig. It is assumed that his curly tail would be light against the background—dark against his.own rump. This little piece of heraldic quartering is absolutely necessary to solidify him. He would have been a white ghost of a pig, flat on the background, but for that alternative tail, and the bits of dark behind the ears. Secondly: Where the shade is necessary to suggest the position of his ribs, it is given with graphic and chosen points of dark, as few as pos- sible ; not for the sake of the shade at all, but of the es bone. 109. That, then, being the law of refused ekinatadenes ob- serve further the method of outline. We said that we were to have thick lines in wood, if possible. Look what thickness of black outline Bewick has left under our pig’s chin, and above his nose. But that is not a line at all, you think? No ;—a modern engraver would have made it one, and prided himself on getting it fine. Bewick leaves it actually thicker than the snout, but puts all his ingenuity of touch to vary the forms, and break the extremities of his white cuts, so that the eye may be refreshed and relieved by new forms at every turn. The group of white touches filling the space be- tween snout and ears might be a wreath of fine-weather clouds, so studiously are they grouped and broken. And nowhere, you see, does a single black line cross an- other. Look back to Figure 4, page 55, and you will know, hence- — forward, the difference between good and bad woodeutting. 110. We have also, in the lower woodcut, a notable instance of Bewick’s power of abstraction. You will observe that one — of the chief characters of this frog, which makes him humor- — ous —next to his vain endeavour to get some firmness into his — forefeet—is his obstinately angular hump-back. And you — must feel, when you see it so marked, how important a gen- : THE TECHNICS OF WOOD ENGRAVING. 305 eral character of a frog it is to have a hump-back,—not at the shoulders, but the loins. ; 111. Here, then, is a case in which you will see the exact - - function that anatomy should take in art. ___ All the most scientific anatomy in the world would never have taught Bewick, much less you, how to draw a frog. _ But when once you have drawn him, or looked at him, so as to know his points, it then becomes entirely interesting to find out why he has a hump-back. So I went myself yesterday to Professor Rolleston for a little anatomy, just as I should have gone to Professor Phillips for alittle geology ; and the Pro- _ fessor brought me a fine little active frog ; and we put him on _ the table, and made him jump all over it, and then the Pro- _ fessor brought in a charming Squelette of a frog, and showed me that he needed a projecting bone from his rump, as a bird needs it from his breast,—the one to attach the strong mus- eles of the hind legs, as the other to attach those of the fore- Jegs or wings. So that the entire leaping power of the frog is in his hump-back, as the flying power of the bird is in its _ breastbone. And thus this Frog Parliament is most literally _ a Rump Parliament—everything dapedding on the hind legs, and nothing on the brains ; which makes it wonderfully like _ some other Parliaments we know of nowadays, with Mr. Ayr- _ ton and Mr. Lowe for their esthetic and acquisitive eyes, and _ arump of Railway Directors. _ 112. Now, to conclude, for want of time only—I have but _ touched on the beginning of my subject,—understand clearly _ and finally this simple principle of all art, that the best is that _ which realizes absolutely, if possible. Here is a viper by Car- paccio: you are afraid to go near it. Here is an arm-chair by Carpaccio : you who came in late, and are standing, to my re- - gret, would like to sit down in it. This is consummate art ; _ but you can only have that with consummate means, and ex- quisitely trained and hereditary mental power. _ With inferior means, and average mental power, you must be content to give a rude abstraction ; but if rude abstraction _ ts to be made, think what a difference there must be between _ @ wise man’s and a fool's; and consider what heavy responsi- 306 bility lies upon you in your youth, to determine, among reali- ‘ ties, by what you will be delighted, and, among imaginations, by whose you will be led. mH fT! LECTURE IV. cil trot ad i iaks ierty 113. We are to-day to examine the proper misthods fot the technical management of theemost perfect of the arms of pre-— cision possessed by the artist. For you will at once under- — stand that a line cut by a finely-pointed instrument upon the | smooth surface of metal is susceptible of the utmost fineness — that can be given to the definite work of the human hand. In | drawing with pen upon paper, the surface of the paper is — slightly rough ; necessarily, two points touch it instead of one, — and the liquid flows from them more or less irregularly, what-_ ever the draughtsman’s skill. But you cut a metallie ‘sur-_ face with one edge only ; the furrow drawn by a skater on — the surface of ice is like it on a large scale. Your surface is — polished, and your line may be wholly faultloanpat perrmsicace.. . is. er 114. And because, in such material, effects snk “a pro-— duced which no penmanship could rival, most people, I fancy, think that a steel plate half engraves itself; that the work- man has no trouble with it, compared to that: of a pen draughtsman. bt Hood hve To test your feeling in this matter accurately, here is a manuscript book written with pen and ink, and gr with flourishes and vignettes. | You will all, I think, be disposed, on examining it, to ex- claim, How wonderful! and even to doubt the possibility of | every page in the book being completed in the same manner. — Again, here are three of my own drawings, executed with the pen, and Indian ink, when I was fifteen. They are copies — from large lithographs by Prout ; and I imagine that most of — my pupils would think me very tyrannical if I requested them — THE TECHNICS OF METAL ENGRAVING. ‘SONTUOT] AO UVIG ANL— I] ALVTg ran’ ~ SON meen IB TECHNICS OF METAL ENGRAVING. 307 . hing of the kind themselves. And yet, when you D fechetlis tisitp liniows a line engraving like this,* or this,* Fabel erin. contains, alone, as much work as fifty pages _ of the manuscript book, or fifty such drawings as mine, you look upon its effect as quite a matter of course,—you never ‘ wonderful’ that is, nor consider how you would like to have hich aaa anything of the same kind your- MIP. 2 ; PAB. Yet you cannot plappies it is in reality easier to — 3 a line with a cutting point, not seeing the effect at all, or, if any effect, seeing a gleam of light instead of darkness, than to draw your black line at once on the white paper? You eannot really think + that there is something complacent, - sympathetic, and helpful in the nature of steel; so that while _ a pen-and-ink sketch may always be considered an achieve- ment proving cleverness in the sketcher, a sketch on steel _ eomes out by a mere favour of the indulgent metal; or that _ the plate is woven like a piece of pattern silk, and the pattern _ is developed by pasteboard cards punched full of holes? Not 0. Look close at this engraving, or take a smaller and simpler one, Turner’s Mercury and Argus,—imagine it to be a draw- _ ing in pen and ink, and yourself required similarly to produce _ its parallel! True, the steel point has the one advantage of not blotting, but it has tenfold or twentyfold disadvantage, in _ that you cannot slur, nor efface, except in a very resolute and laborious way, nor play with it, nor even see what you are _ doing with it at the moment, far less the effect that is to be. You must feel what you are doing with it, and know precisely what you have got todo; how deep, how broad, how far apart your lines must be, etc. and ete., (a couple of lines of etceteras _ would not be enough to imply ali you must know). But sup- q pose the plate were only a pen drawing: take your pen—your ~ pembeet SoTity 5 parietillar's, large plate of the Grand Canal, Venice, after Turner ; and *s, of Tivoli, after Turner. The other examples referred to are eft in the University Galleries. th is paragraph was not read at the lecture, time not allowing :—it “is part of what I wrote on engraving some years ago, in the papers si the i gpamem called the Cestus of Aglaia. tag) OO ee ST ae os ! ie oe ai i ™ > ~~ ae : “a gee s : Rak a i ae : ; - 308° ARIADNE FLORENTINA. © finest—and just try to copy the leaves that entangle the head of Jo, and her head itself; remembering always that the kind of work required here is mere child’s play compared to that of fine figure engraving. Nevertheless, take a small magnify-— ing glass to this—count the dots and lines that gradate the nostrils and the edges of the facial bone; notice how the light is left on the top of the head by the stopping, at its out- line, of the coarse touches which form the shadows under the leaves ; examine it well, and then—I humbly ask of you—try to do a piece of it yourself! You clever sketcher—you young lady or gentleman of genius—you eye-glassed dilettante—you eurrent writer of criticism royally plural,—I beseech you,— do it yourself; do the merely etched outline yourself, if no more. Look you,—you hold your etching needle this way, as you would a pencil, nearly ; and then,—you serateh with it! it is as easy as lying. Or if you think that too difficult, take an easier piece ;—take either of the light sprays of foliage that rise against the fortress on the right, pass your lens over them—-look how their fine outline is first drawn, leaf by leaf ; then how the distant rock is put in between, with broken lines, mostly stopping before they touch the leaf-outline; and again, I pray you, do it yourself,—if not on that seale, on a larger. Go on into the hollows of the distant rock,—trayerse its thickets, —number its towers ;— count how many lines there are in a laurel bush—in an arch—in a casement; some hun- dred and fifty, or two hundred, deliberately drawn lines, you will find, in every square quarter of an inch ;—say three thou- sand to the inch,—each, with skilful intent, put in its place! and then consider what the ordinary sketcher’s work must appear, to the men who have been trained to this! . 116. “But might not more have been done by three thou- sand lines to a square inch?” you will perhaps ask. Well, possibly. It may be with lines as with soldiers: three hun- dred, knowing their work thoroughly, may be stronger than three thousand less sure of their aim. We shall have to press close home this question about numbers and purpose pres- ently ;—it is not the question now. Suppose certain results required,—atmospheric effects, surface textures, transparen- THE TECHNICS OF METAL ENGRAVING. 309 ; cies of shade, confusions of light,—then, more could not be done with less. There are engravings of this modern school, Oe Le | a ee eT ee of which, with respect to their particular aim, it may be said, most truly, they ‘cannot be better done.” _ Here is one just finished,—or, at least, finished to the eyes of ordinary mortals, though its fastidious master means to re- touch it ;—a quite pure line engraving, by Mr. Charles Henry Jeens ; (in calling it pure line, I mean that there are no mixt- ures of mezzotint or any mechanical tooling, but all is steady hand-work,) from a picture by Mr. Armytage, which, without possessing any of the highest claims to admiration, is yet free from the vulgar vices which disgrace most of our popular re- ligious art ; and is so sweet in the fancy of it as to deserve, better than many works of higher power, the pains of the en- graver to make it 2 common possession. It is meant to help us to imagine the evening of the day when the father and mother of Christ had been seeking him through Jerusalem : they have come toa well where women are drawing water ; St. Joseph passes on,—but the tired Madonna, leaning on the _ well’s margin, asks wistfully of the women if they have seen _ such and such a child astray. Now will you just look fora while into the lines by which the expression of the weary and _ anxious face is rendered; see how unerring they are,—how _ealm and clear; and think how many questions have to be - determined in drawing the most minute portion of any one, —its curve,—its thickness,—its distance from the next,—its own preparation for ending, invisibly, where it ends. Think what the precision must be in these that trace the edge of the lip, and make it look quivering with disappointment, or _ in these which have made the eyelash heavy with restrained tears. 117. Or if, as must be the case with many of my audience, _ it is impossible for you to conceive the difficulties here over- come, look merely at the draperies, and other varied sub- _ stances represented in the plate ; see how silk, and linen, and _ stone, and pottery, and flesh, are all separated in texture, and - gradated in light, by the most subtle artifices and appliances _ of line,—of which artifices, and the nature of the mechanical ° 64000. | ARIADNRFLORENTINA,S) > labour throughout, I must endeavour to give you to-day a more distinct conception than you are in the habit of form- ing. But as I shall have to blame some of these methods in their general result, and I do not wish any word of general blame to be associated with this most excellent and careful plate by Mr. Jeens, I will pass, for special examination, to one already in your reference series, which for the rest exhibits more various treatment in its combined landscape, back- ground, and figures; the Belle Jardiniére of pe pre’ een and engraved by the Baron Desmoyers. why You see, in the first place, that the ipebaltbay eiitannd other coarse surfaces are distinguished from the flesh and draperies by broken and wriggled lines. Those broken lines cannot be executed with the burin, they are etched in the early states of the plate, and are a modern artifice, never used by old engravers; partly because the older men were not masters of the art of etching, but chiefly because even those who were acquainted with it would not employ lines of this nature. They have been developed by the importance of landscape in modern engraving, and have produced some val- uable results in small plates, especially of architecture. | But they are entirely erroneous in principle, for the surface of stones and leaves is not broken or jagged in this manner, but consists of mossy, or blooming, or otherwise organic texture, — which cannot be represented by these coarse lines; their gen- eral consequence has therefore been to withdraw the mind of the observer from all beautiful and tender characters in fore- ground, and eventually to destroy the very — of land-— scape engraving which gave birth to them. . il sdb Considered, however, as a means of relieving more , deli. cate textures, they are in some degree legitimate, being, in — fact, a kind of chasing or jagging one part of the plate surface — in order to throw out the delicate tints from the rough field. — But the same effect was produced with less pains, and far more entertainment to the eye, by the older engravers, who employed purely ornamental variations of line ; thus in Plate . IV., opposite page 87, the drapery is sufficiently distin- guished’ from the grass by the treatment of the latter as an_ _ graved by Mare Antonio, with the same purpose, in the plate % lyme r Standard Series. ib vetoes however, you observe what difference of texture and exists between the smooth, continuous lines them- gel¥es, Which are all really engraved. You must take some 4 pains to understand the nature of this operation. . The line is first cut lightly through its whole course, by bsolute decision and steadiness of we which you may en- wour to imitate if you like, in its simplest phase, by draw- 12 cirele with your compass-pen ; and. then, grasping your snholc er so that you can push the point like a plough, de- ibing other circles inside or outside of it, in exact parallel- Bcd the mathematical line, and at exactly equal distances. To approach, or depart, with your point at finely gradated intervals, may be your next exercise, if you find the first un- i dly easy. 119. When the line is thus described in its proper course, it is ploughed deeper, where depth is needed, by a second F aht of the burin, first on one side, and then on the other, the ‘cut being given with gradated force so as to take away most _ steel where the line is to be darkest. Every line of gradated _ depth in the plate has to be thus cut eight or ten times over at least, with retouchings to smooth and clear all in the close. _ Jason has to plough his field ten-furrow deep, with his fiery. oxen well in hand, all the while. _ When the essential lines are thus produced, in their several directions, those which have been drawn across each other, so as to give depth of shade, or richness of texture, have to be _ farther enriched by dots in the interstices ; else there would bea painful appearance of network Wedkywhieee'+ and these dots require each four or five jags to produce them ; and each ‘of these jags must be done with what artists and engravers _ alike call ‘feeling,—the sensibility, that is, of a hand com- _ pletely under mental government. So wrought, the dots look soft, and like touches of paint ; but mechanically dug in, they are vulgar and hard. .~ 120. Now, observe, that, for every piece of shadow through- 312 os ARIADNE PLORENTINA, ae out the work, the engraver has to decide with abet sraatin and kind of line he will produce it. Exactly the same quan- tity of black, and therefore the same depth of tint in general effect, may be given with six thick lines; or with twelve, of half their thickness ; or with eighteen, of a third of the thick- ness. The second six, second twelve, or second eighteen, may cross the first six, first twelve, or first eightéen, or go between them ; and they may cross at any angle. And then the third six may be put between the first six, or between the second six, or across both, and at any angle. In the net-work thus produced, any kind of dots may be} put in the severally shaped interstices. And for any of the series of superadded lines, dots, of equivalent value in shade, may be substituted, (Some engravings are wrought in dots altogether.) Choice infinite, with multiplication of infinity, is, at all events, to be made, for every minute space, from one side of the plate to the other. 121. The excellence of a beautiful engraving is primarily in the use of these resources_to exhibit the qualities of the orig- inal picture, with delight to the eye in the method of transla- tion ; and the language of engraving, when once you begin to deestand it, is, in these respects, so fertile, so ingenious, so ineffably subtle and severe in its grammar, that you may quite easily make it the subject of your life’s investigation, as you would the scholarship of a lovely literature. But in doing this, you would withdraw, and necessarily withdraw, your attention from the higher qualities of art, precisely as a grammarian, who is that, and nothing more, . ioses command of the matter and substance of thought. Aud the exquisitely mysterious mechanisms of the engraver’s method haye, in fact, thus entangled the intelligence of the careful draughtsmen of Europe ; so that since the final per- fection of this translator’s power, all the men of finest patience and finest hand have stayed content with it ;—the subtlest draughtsmanship has perished from the canvas, * and sought * An effort has lately been made in France, by Meissonier, Gérome, and their school, to recover it, with marvellous collateral skill of en- gravers, The etching of Gerome’s Louis XVI. and Molidre is one of the completest pieces of skilful mechanism ever put on metal, TECHNICS OF METAL BNGRAVING. 313 more popular praise in this labyrinth of disciplined language, _ and more or less dulled or degraded thought. And, in sum, I _ know no cause more direct or fatal, in the destruction of the j great schools of European art, than the perfectness of modern ; line engraving. 122. This great and profoundly to be regretted influence I _ will prove and illustrate to you on another occasion. My ob- _ ject to-day is to explain the perfectness of the art itself ; and _ above all to request you, if you will not look at pictures in- _ stead of photographs, at least not to allow the cheap merits _ of the chemical operation to withdraw your interest from the _ - splendid human labour of the engraver. Here is a little vi- _ gnette from Stothard, for instance, in Rogers’ poems, to the ; Loree t ¢ « Soared in the swing, half vleael and half afraid, k lies bp _ Neath sister elms, that waved their summer shade.” _ You would think, would you not? (and rightly,) that of all difficult things to express with crossed black lines and dots, the face of a young girl must be the most difficult. Yet here you haye the face of a bright girl, radiant in light, _ transparent, mysterious, almost breathing,—her dark hair in- volved in delicate wreath and shade, her eyes full of joy and _ sweet playfulness,—and all this done by the exquisite order _ and gradation of a very few lines, which, if you will examine _ them through a lens, you find dividing and chequering the lip, and cheek, and chin, so strongly that you would have fan- cied they could only produce the effect of a grim iron mask. _ But the intelligences of order and form guide them into beauty, . and inflame them with delicatest life. _ 123. And do you see the size of this head? About as large as the bud of a forget-me-not! Can you imagine the fineness _ of the little pressures of the hand on the steel, in that space, _ which at the edge of the almost invisible lip, fashioned its less _ or more of smile. _ My chemical friends, if you’ wish ever to know anything rightly concerning the arts, I very urgently advise you to throw all. your vials and washes down the gutter-trap ; and _ if you will ascribe, as you think it so clever to do, in your ~ eR 314 | ARIADNE PLORENTINA. > modern creeds, all virtue to the sun, use that virtue through your own heads and fingers, and apply your solar energies to draw a skilful line or two, for once or twice in your life. You may learn more by trying to engrave, like Goodall, the tip of an ear, or the curl of a lock of hair, than by photographing the entire population of the United States of Lee, white, and neutral-tint. And one word, by the way, touching the eceitpitbtaie I friki at my having set you to so fine work that it hurts your eyes. You have noticed that all great sculptors—and most of the great painters of Florence—began by being goldsmiths. Why _ do you think the goldsmith’s apprenticeship is so fruitful? — Primarily, because it forces the boy to do small work, and mind what he is about. Do you suppose Michael Angelo learned his business by dashing or hitting at it? He laid the foundation of all his after power by doing precisely what I ain requiring my own pupils to do,—copying German engray- ings in facsimile! And for your eyes—you all sit up at night till you haven’t got any eyes worth speaking of. Go to bed at half-past nine, and get up at four, and you'll see something out of them, in time. 124. Nevertheless, whatever admiration you may be brbuiht to feel, and with justice, for this lovely workmanship,—the more distinctly you comprehend its merits, the more distinctly also will the question rise in your mind, How is it that a per- formance so marvellous has yet taken no rank in the records of art of any permanent or acknowledged kind? How is it that these vignettes from Stothard and Turnér,* like tlie *I must again qualify the too sweeping statement of the text, I think, as time passes, some of these nineteenth century line engravings will become monumental, The first vignette of the garden, with the cut hedges and fountain, for instance, in Rogers’ poems, is so consum- mate in its use of every possible artifice of delicate line, (note the look of tremulous atmosphere got by the undulatory etched lines on the pave- ment, and the broken masses, worked with dots, of the fountain foam,) that I think it cannot but, with some of its companions, survive the ref- use of its school, and become classic, I find in like manner, even with all their faults and weaknesses, the vignettes 6 Heyne’s at to be real art-possessions, cHNTOS (OF METAL ENGRAVING. 315 "woodcuts from. Tenniel, scarcely make the name of the en-_ e known ; and that they never are found side by side with c this older and apparently ruder art, in the cabinets of men of _ veal judgment. The reason is precisely the same as in the ease of the Tenniel woodcut. This modern line engraving is alloyed gold. Rich in capacity, astonishing in attainment, it nevertheless admits wilful fault, and misses what it ought first to haye attained, It is therefore, to a certain measure, vile in its perfection ; while the older work is noble even in its failure, and classic no less in what it deliberately refuses, _ than in what it rationally and rightly prefers and performs. _ 125. Here, for instance, I have enlarged the head of one of ~ _ Durer’s Madonnas for you out of one of his most careful plates.* You think it very ugly. Well, so it is. Don’t be afraid to think so, nor to say so. Frightfully ugly ; vulgar also. It is the head, simply, of a fat Dutch girl, with all the pleasantness left out. There is not the least doubt about that. Don’t let anybody force Albert Durer down your throats; nor make you expect pretty things from him. Stot- _ hard’s young girl in the swing, or Sir Joshua’s Age of Inno- cence, are in quite angelic spheres of another world, compared to this black domain of poor, laborious Albert. We are not talking of female beauty, so please you, just now, gentlemen, but of engraving. And the merit, the classical, indefeasible, immortal merit of this head of a Dutch girl with all the beauty left out, is in the fact that every line of it, as engrav- _ ing, is as good as can be ;—good, not with the mechanical dexterity of a watchmaker, but with the intellectual effort and sensitiveness of an artist who knows precisely what can be done, and ought to be attempted, with his assigned materials. _ He works easily, fearlessly, flexibly ; the dots are not all meas- ured in distance ; the lines not all mathematically parallel or _ divergent. He has even missed his mark at the mouth in one place, and leaves the mistake, frankly. But there are no pet- ‘ Sita mistakes ; nor is the eye so accustomed to the look of _ * Plate 11th, in the Appendix, taken from the engraving of the his vs sitting in the fenced garden, with two angels crowning her. 316° ARIADNE FLORENTINA, the mechanical furrow as to accept it for final excellence. The engraving is full of the painter’s higher power and wider per- ception ; it is classically perfect, because duly subordinate, and presenting for your applause only the virtues proper to its own sphere. Among these, I must now ete the first of all is the decorative arrangement of lines. 126. You all know what a pretty thing a damask tablecloth is, and how a pattern is brought out by threads running one way in one space, and across in another. So, in lace, a cer- tain delightfulness is given by the texture of meshed lines. Similarly, on any surface of metal, the object of the en- graver is, or ought to be, to cover it with lovely lines, forming a lacework, and including a-variety of spaces, delicious to nae eye. And this is his business, primarily ; before any other nlastie can be thought of, his work must be ornamental. You know I told you a sculptor’s business is first to cover a surface with pleasant bosses, whether they mean anything or not; so an en-— graver’s is to cover it with pleasant lines whether, they mean anything or not. That they should mean something, and a good deal of something, is indeed desirable afterwards ; but first we must be ornamental. 127. Nowif you will compare Plate IL at the beginning of this lecture, which is a characteristic example of good Florentine engraving, and represents the Planet and power of Aphro- dite, with the Aphrodite of Bewick in the upper division of Plate I., you will at once understand the difference between a primarily ornamental, and a primarily realistic, style. The first requirement in the Florentine work, is that it shall be a lovely arrangement of lines; a pretty thing upon a page. Bewick has a secondary notion of making his vignette a pretty thing upon a page. But he is overpowered by his vigorous veracity, and bent first on giving you his idea of Venus. Quite right, he would have been, mind you, if he had been carving a statue of her on Mount Eryx ; but not when he was engrav- ing a vignette to Aisop’s fables. To engrave well is to orna- ment a surface well, not to create a realistic impression. I beg your pardon for my repetitions ; but the point at issue is the fe & & % & & & & OY % re PLATE III,—AtT EVENING, FROM THE TOP OF FESOLE. ‘ ~ 2 TECHNICS OF METAL BYGRA VING. 317 2 root of the whole business, and I must get it well asserted, : Ta me pass to a more important example. Aisle Three years ago, in the rough first arrangement of the : copies in the Educational Series, I put an outline of the top of ’s sceptre, which, in the catalogue, was said to be prob- 4 ably by Baccio Bandini of Florence, for your first real exer- cise; it remains so, the olive ge put first only _ its ~ mythological rank. - The series of engravings to which the plate from which that exercise is copied belongs, are part of a number, executed _ chiefly, I think, from early designs of Sandro Botticelli, and _ some in great part by his hand. He and his assistant, Baccio, worked together; and in such harmony, that Bandini proba- bly often does what Sandro wants, better than Sandro could have done it himself ; and, on the other hand, there is no-de- sign of Bandini’s over which Sandro does not seem to have had influence. - And wishing now to show you three examples of the finest work of the old, the renaissance, and the modern schools,— of the old, I will take Baccio Bandini’s Astrologia, Plate IIL, - opposite. Of the renaissance, Durer’s Adam and Eve. And - of the modern, this head of the daughter of Herodias, en- -graved from Luini by Beaugrand, which is as affectionately and sincerely wrought, though in the modern manner, as any ‘plate of the old schools. _ 129. Now observe the progress of the feeling for light and shade in the three examples. ‘The first is nearly all white paper ; you think of the outline as the constructive element throughout. ~The second is a vigorous piece of white and black—not of light and shade,—for all the high lights are equally white, whether of flesh, or leaves, or goat’s hair. _ The third is complete in chiaroscuro, as far as engraving can be. Now the dignity and virtue of the plates is in the exactly - inverse ratio of their fulness in chiaroscuro. Bandini’s is excellent work, and of the very highest school. 318: ARIADNE FL ORENTIN A. Durer’s entirely accomplished work, but of an ule Ao And Beaugrand’s, excellent work, but of a vulgar and igi classical school. And these relations of the schools are to be determined by the quality in the lines ; we shall find that in proportion as the light and shade is neglected, the lines are studied ; that those of Bandini are perfect ; of Durer perfect, only with a lower perfection ; but of Beaugrand, entirely faultful. — 130. I have just explained to you that in modern engraving the lines are cut in clean furrow, widened, it may be, by suc- cessive cuts; but, whether it be fine or thick, retaining always, when printed, the aspect of a continuous line drawn with the pen, and entirely black throughout its whole course. Now we may increase the delicacy of this line to any extent by simply printing it in grey colour instead of black. I ob- tained some very beautiful results of this kind in the later volumes of ‘ Modern Painters,’ with Mr. Armytage’s help, by - using subdued purple tints; but, in any case, the line thus engraved must be monotonous in its character, and cannot be expressive of the finest qualities of form, Accordingly, the old Florentine workmen constructed the line itself, in important places, of successive minute touches, so that it became a chain of delicate links which could be opened or closed at pleasure.* If you will examine through a lens the outline of the face of this Astrology, you will find it is traced with an exquisite series of minute touches, suscepti- ble of accentuation or change absolutely at the engrayver's pleasure ; and, in result, corresponding to the finest condi- tions of a pencil line drawing by a consummate master. In the fine plates of this period, you have thus the united powers — of the pen and pencil, and both absolutely secure and multi- pliable. * The method was first developed in engraving designs on silyer— numbers of lines being executed with dots by the punch, for variety’s sake. For niello, and printing, a transverse cut was substituted for the blow. The entire style is connected with the later Roman and Byzan- tine method of drawing lines with the drill hole, in marble. See above, Lecture IL., Section 70, 31. Ta a alittle proud of ss rade Aigcdtered, aud had the patience to carry out, this Florentine method of _ exéotition for myself, when I was a boy of thirteen. My good r had given me some copies calculated to teach F ms -dreedom of hand ; the touches were rapid and vigorous,— many of them in mechanically regular zigzags, far beyond any * : done. But I was resolved to have them, somehow; and ; actually facsimilied a considerable portion of the drawing in the Florentine manner, with the finest point I could eut to 4 Saraihorce a quarter of an hour to forge out the like- ‘of one return in the zigzag which my master carried ~ fully, that he did not detect my artifice till I sholwod it him,— _ on which he forbade me ever to do the like again. And it _ was only thirty years afterwards that I found I had been quite right after all, and working like Baccio Bandini! But the patience which carried me “through that early effort, served tie well through all the thirty years, and enabled me to ; yze, and in a measure imitate, the method of work em- : by every master; so that, whether you believe me or not at first, you will find what I tell you of their superiority, or inferiority, to be true. ah “982. When lines are studied with this degree of care you < sure the master will leave room enough for you to see them and enjoy them, and not use any at random, All the _. engravers, therefore, leave much white paper, and use r entire power on the outlines. 183 Next to them come the men of the Renaissance schools, d by Durer, who, less careful of the beauty and refine- - And the essential difference between these men and the poderns is that these central masters cut their line for the ¢ part with a single furrow, giving it depth by force of hand or wrist, and retouching, not in the furrow itself, but with a s beside it.* Such work can only be done well on copper, * this most important and distinctive character was: pointed cut to Mr. Burgess. ‘down through twenty returns in two seconds ; and so success- 819 pid mitie to imitate in the bold way in which they | of the line, delight in its vigour, accuracy, and complex- | 5 320 “ARIADNE PLORENTINA. and it can display all faculty of hand or ectiek precision of eye, and accuracy of knowledge, which a human creature can possess. But the dotted or hatched line ig not used in this central style, and the higher sabes, pf beauty never thought of. In the Astrology of Bandini,—and Helin that the As- trologia of the Florentine meant what we mean by Astronomy, and much more,—he wishes you first to look.at the face : the lip half open, faltering in wonder; the amazed, intense, dreaming gaze ; the pure dignity of forehead, undisturbed by terrestrial thought. None of these things could be so much as attempted in Durer’s method ; he can engraye flowing hair, skin of animals, bark of trees, wreathings of metal-work, with the free hand ; also, with laboured chiaroscuro, or with sturdy line, he can reach expressions of sadness, or gloom, or pain, | or soldierly strength,—but pure beauty,—never. 134. Lastly, you have the Modern school, deepening its lines in successive cuts, .The instant consequence of the in- troduction of this method is the restriction.of curvature ; you cannot follow a complex curve again with precision through its furrow. If you are a desirous ploughman, you can driye your plough any number of times along the simple curve. But you cannot repeat again exactly the motions which cut a variable one.* You may retouch it, energize it, and deepen it in parts, but you cannot cut it all through again equally. And the retouching and energizing in parts is a living and in- tellectual process ; but the cutting all through, equally, a me- chanical one. The difference is exactly such as that between the dexterity of turning out two similar mouldings from a lathe, and carving them with the free hand, like a Pisan sculp- tor. And although splendid intellect, and subtlest sensibility, — have been spent on the production of some modern plates, the — mechanical element introduced by their manner of execution | always overpowers both ; nor can any plate of consummate value — ever be produced in the modern method. ) 135. Nevertheless, in landscape, there are two examples in | your Reference series, of insuperable skill and extreme beauty : . * This point will ee further examined and explained in the Appendix. — . : a ) Se ee oe | : wr, ek 2 oe a sa BS By PLATE IV.—‘‘ By THE SPRINGS OF PARNASSUS.” a rue 1 TECHNICS OF uarAL ENGRAVING. — 321 | Miller's plate, before instanced, of the Grand Canal, Venice ; and E. Goodall’s of the upper fall of the Tees. The men who _ engraved these plates might have been exquisite artists ; but their patience and enthusiasm were held captive in the false system of lines, and we lost the painters; while the engray- ings, wonderful as they are, are neither of them worth a Turner etching, scratched in ten minutes with the point of an _ old fork ; and the common types of such elaborate engraving are none of them worth a single frog, pig, or puppy, out of the corner of a Bewick vignette. _ 186. And now, I think, you cannot fail to understand clearly — _ what you are to look for in engraving, as a separate art from that of painting. Turn back to the ‘ Astrologia’ as a perfect type of the purest school. She is gazing at stars, and crowned with them. But the stars are black instead of shining! You cannot have a more decisive and absolute proof that you must not look in engraving for chiaroscuro. _ Nevertheless, her body is half in shade, and her left foot ; ;. and she casts a shadow, and there isa bar of shade behind her. 7 VJ _ All these are merely so much acceptance of shade as may relieve the forms, and give value to the linear portions. The - face, though turned from the light, is shadowless. Again. Every lock of the hair is designed and set in its wee with the subtlest care, but there is no lustre attempted, —no texture,—no mystery. The plumes of the wings are set studiously in their places,—they, also, lustreless. That even their filaments are not drawn, and that the broad curve em- bracing them ignores the anatomy of a bird’s wing, are con- ditions of design, not execution. Of these in a future lect- —oure* 137. The ‘ Poesia,’ Plate IV., opposite, is a still more severe, _ though not so generic, an example ; its decorative foreground reducing it almost to the rank of Goldsmith’s ornamentation. I need scarcely point out to you that the flowing water shows neither lustre nor reflection; but notice that the observer’s - eimion:: is supposed to be so close to every dark touch of the * See Appendix, Article T. zs - 43 hac ahr 322 ARIADNE FLORENTINA. > graver that he will see the minute dark spots which indicate the sprinkled shower falling from the vase into the pool. — 138. This habit of strict and calm attention, constant in the artist, and expected in the observer, makes all the difference between the art of Intellect, and of mere sensation. For every detail of this plate has a meaning, if you care to under- stand it. This is Poetry, sitting by the fountain of Castalia, which flows first out of a formal urn, to show that it is not artless ; but the rocks of Parnassus are behind, and on the top of them—only one tree, like a mushroom with a thick stalk. You at first are inclined to say, How very absurd, to put only one tree on Parnassus! but this one tree is the Im- mortal Plane Tree, planted by Agamemnon, and at once con- nects our Poesia with the Iliad. Then, this is the hem of the robe of Poetry,—this is the divine vegetation which springs up under her feet,—this is the heaven and earth united by her power,—this is the fountain of Castalia flowing out afresh among the grass,—and these are the drops with which, out of a pitcher, Poetry is nourishing the fountain of Castalia. All which you may find out if you happen to know anything about Castalia, or about poetry ; and pleasantly think more upon, for yourself. But the poor dunces, Sandro and Baccio, feeling themselves but ‘ goffi nell’ arte,’ have no hope of telling you all this, except suggestively. They can’t engrave grass of Parnassus, nor sweet springs so as to look like water; but they can make a pretty damasked surface with ornamental leaves, and flowing lines, and so leave you oe to think — of—if you will. 139. ‘But a great many people won’t, and a erat many more can’t ; and surely the finished engravings are much more delightful, and the only means we have of giving any idea of finished pictures, out of our reach,’ Yes, all that is true; and when we examine the effects of line engraving upon taste in recent art, we will discuss these matters ; for the present, let us be content with knowing what the best work is, and why it isso. Although, however, I do uot now press further my cavils at the triumph of modern line engraving, I must assign to you, in few words, the ae ae es: or METAL ENGRAVING. 323. reason of its recent decline. Bngeabess coihiesti that pho- © tognishe and cheap woodcutting have ended their finer craft. _ No complaint can be less grounded. They themselves de- _ stroyed their own craft, by vulgarizing it. Content in their _ beautiful mechanism, they ceased to learn, and to feel, as ’ _ artists; they put themselves under the order of publishers _ and printsellers ; they worked indiscriminately from whatever — was put into their hands,—from Bartlett as willingly as from _ Turner, and from Mulready as carefully as from Raphael. _ They filled the windows of printsellers, the pages of gift books, __ with elaborate rubbish, and piteous abortions of delicate in- » dustry. They worked cheap, and cheaper,—smoothly, and more smoothly,—they got armies of assistants, and surrounded _ themselves with schools of mechanical tricksters, learning _ their stale tricks with blundering avidity. They had fallen— before the days of photography—into providers of frontis- pieces for housekeepers’ pocket-books. I do not know if photography itself, their redoubted enemy, has even now ousted them from that last refuge. 140. Such the fault of the engraver,—very pardonable ; scarcely avoidable,—however fatal. Fault mainly of humility. But what has your fault been, gentlemen? what the patrons’ fault, who have permitted so wide waste of admirable labour, _ 80 pathetic a uselessness of obedient genius? It was yours to have directed, yours to have raised and rejoiced in, the skill, the modesty, the patience of this entirely gentle and indus- trious race ;—copyists with their heart. The common painter- copyists who encumber our European galleries with their easels and pots, are, almost without exception, persons too stupid to be painters, and too lazy to be engravers. The real copyists—the men who can put their soul into another’s work —are employed at home, in their narrow rooms, striving to make their good work profitable to all men. And in their submission to the public taste they are truly national servants as much as Prime Ministers are. They fulfil the demand of the nation ; what, asa people, you wish to have for possession in art, these men are ready to give you. ~ And what have you hitherto asked of them?—Ramsgate >. ea ARIADNE FLORENTINA. Sands, and Dolly Vardens, and the Paddington Station,~ these, I think, are typical of your chief demands ; the cartoons of Raphael—which you don’t care to see themselves; and, by way of a flight into the empyrean, the Madonna di San Sisto. And, literally, there are hundreds of cities and villages in Italy in which roof and wall are blazoned with the noblest divinity and philosophy ever imagined by men; and of all this treasure, I can, as far as I know, give you not one ex- ample, in line engraving, by an English hand ! Well, you are in the main matter right in this. You want essentially Ramsgate Sands and the Paddington Station, be- - eause there you can see yourselves. Make yourselves, then, worthy to be seen for ever, and let English engraving become noble as the record of nnaren _ loveliness and honour, LECTURE V. DESIGN IN THE GERMAN SCHOOLS OF ENGRAVING. 141. By reference to the close of the preface to ‘ Eagle’s Nest,’ you will see, gentlemen, that I meant these lectures, from the first, rather to lead you to the study of the char- acters of two great men, than to interest you in the processes of a secondary form of art. As I draw my materials into the limited form necessary for the hour, I find my divided pur- pose doubly. failing ; and would fain rather use my time to- day in supplying the defects of my last lecture, than in opening the greater subject, which I must, treat with still more lamentable inadequacy. Nevertheless, you must not think it is for want of time that I omit reference to other celebrated engravers, and insist on the special power of these two only. Many not inconsiderable reputations are founded merely on the curiosity of collectors of prints, or on partial skill in the management of processes ; others, though resting on more secure bases, are still of no importance to you in the general history of art; Whereas you will find the work of i, ena SCHOOLS OF ENGRA VING. | 325 eee Botticelli determining for you, without need of any farther range, the principal questions of moment in the relation of the Northern and Southern schools of design. _ Nay, s'wider method of inquiry would only render your com- ‘ less accurate in result. It is only in Holbein’s majestic aunghidt capacity, and only in the particular phase of Teutonic _ life which his art adorned, that the problem can be dealt with : on fair terms. We Northerns can advance no fairly compara- _ ble antagonist to the artists of the South, except at that one moment, and in that one man. Rubens cannot for an instant be matched with Tintoret, nor Memling with Lippi; while Reynolds only rivals Titian in what he lédtned: from’ hit’ But in Holbein and Botticelli we have two men trained in- dependently, equal in power of intellect, similiar in material and mode of work, contemporary in age, correspondent in _ disposition. The relation between them is strictly typical of _ the constant aspects to each other of the Northern and South- ern schools. _ 142. Their point of closest contact is in the art of engray- ing, and this art is developed entirely as the servant of the “great passions which perturbed or polluted Europe in the ‘fifteenth century. The impulses which it obeys are all new; and it obeys them with its own nascent plasticity of temper. ‘Painting and sculpture are only modified by them ; but en- Pe? is educated. __ These passions are in the main three ; namely, i, L The thirst for classical literature, and the forms of proud and false tastes which arose out of it, in the position it had assumed as the enemy of Christianity. | 2 The pride of science, enforcing (in the particular do- a ve main of Art) accuracy of perspective, shade, and anat- Sr omy, never before dreamed of. ng ‘The sense of error and iniquity in the theological teach- aS ing of the Christian Church, felt by the highest intel- _lects of the time, and necessarily rendering the formerly submissive religious art impossible, 326 _ ARIADNE PLORENTINA, : Zo-day, then, our task is to examine the oscnliea chatacters of the Design of the Northern Schools of Engraing: as af- fected by these great influences. 143. I have not often, however, used the word ‘ design, and must clearly define the sense in which I now-use it. It is vaguely used in common art-parlance ; often as if it meant merely the drawing of a picture, as distinct from its colour ; and in other still more inaccurate ways. The accurate and proper sense, underlying all these, I must endeavour to make clear .to you, ‘Design’ properly signifies that power in any lect loeki which has a purpose other than of imitation, and which is ‘designed,’ composed, or separated to that end, It implies — the rejection of some things, and the insistan¢e upon ee: : with a given object.* - Let us take progressive instances. Here is a group of prettily dressed peasant children, charmingly painted by a very able modern artist—not absolutely without design, for he really wishes to show yowhow pretty peasant children can be, (and, in so far, is wiser and kinder than Murillo, who likes to show how ugly they can be) ; also, his group is agree- ably arranged, and its component children carefully chosen. Nevertheless, any summer’s day, near any country village, you may come upon twenty groups in an hour as pretty as this; *If you paint a bottle only to amuse the spectator by showing him" how like a painting may be to a bottle, you cannot be considered, in art- philosophy, as a designer. Butif you paint the cork flying out of the bottle, and the contents arriving in an arch at the mouth of a recipient glass, you are so far forth a designer or signer; probably meaning to express certain ultimate facts respecting, say, the hospitable disposition of the landlord of the house; but at all events representing the bottle and glass in a designed, and not merely natural, manner. Not tierely — natural—nay, in some sense non-natural, or supernatural, And all great artists show both this fantastic condition of mind in their work, and show that it has arisen out of a communicative or didactic et They are the Sign-painters of God, I have added this note to the lecture in copying my memoranda of it here at Assisi, June 9th, being about to begin work in the Tavern, or Tebernecsl amt, of the Lower Church, with its variously significant four great ‘signs,’ ; GERMAN SCHOOLS OF ENGRAVING. 321 —if you have eyes—children in them twenty times han these. A photograph, if it could render them pail: in colour, would far excel the charm of this ~ painting 3 for i in it, good and clever as it is, there is nothing _ supernatural, and much that is sub-natural. per 144. Beside this group of, in every sense of the word, ‘ art- ess’ lit e country girls, I will now set one—in the best sense : ‘of the word artful’ little country girl,—a sketch by Gains- | “Porongh. You never saw her like before. Never will again, now that — Gainsborough is dead. No photography,—no seience,—no | ag , will touch or reach for an instant this super-natural- nes will look vainly through the summer fields for sah a child. ‘Nor up the lawn, nor by the wood,” is she. ' Whence do you think this marvellous charm has come? Sapentions: knew, would not we all be Gainsboroughs? This, only you may practically ascertain, as surely as that a flower _ will.die if you -cut its root away, that you cannot alter a sin- - gle touch in Gainsborough’s work without injury to the whole. _ Half a dozen spots, more or less, in the printed gowns of _ these other children whom I first showed you, will not make the smallest difference to them ; nor a lock or two more or _ less in their hair, nor a dimple or two more or less in their ? cheeks, But if you alter one wave of the hair of Gains- borough’s girl, the child is gone. Yet the art is so subtle, that I do not expect. you to believe this. It looksso instine- __ tive, so easy, so ‘chanceux,’—the French word is better than ours. Yes, and in their more accurate sense, also, ‘Il a de la _A stronger Designer than he was with him. He a ond tell. you himself how the thing was done. z (M5, I proceed to take a more definite instance—this Greek of the Lacinian Juno. The design or appointing of the forms. now entirely prevails over the resemblance to Nature. No real hair could ever be drifted into these wild lines, which : pe mean. the wrath of the Adriatic winds round the Cape of s. And yet, whether this be uglier or prettier than Gains- borough’s child—(and you know already what J think about =4% Ss 328° ARIADNE FLOREN. TINA. it, that no Greek goddess was ever half so pretty as an English girl, of pure clay and temper, )—uglier or prettier, it is more dignified and impressive. It at least belongs to the domain of a lordlier, more majestic, more guiding, and or- daining art. 146. I will go back another five hundred years, wld place an Egyptian beside the Greek divinity. The resemblance to Nature is now all but lost, the ruling law has become all. The lines are reduced to an easily counted number, and their arrangement is little more than a decorative sequence of pleasant curves cut in porphyry,—in the phe part of their contour following the outline of a woman’s face in profile, over-crested by that of a hawk, on a kind of pedestal. But that the sign-engraver meant by his hawk, Immortality, and by her pedestal, the House or Tavern of Truth, is of little im- portance now to the passing traveller, not. yet preparing to take the sarcophagus for his place of rest. | 147. How many questions are suggested to us by these transitions! Is beauty contrary to law, and grace attainable only through license? What we gain in language, shall we lose in thought? and in what we add of labour, more and more forget its ends ? Not so. Look at this piece of Sandro’s work, the Libyan Sibyl.* It is as ordered and normal as the Egyptian’s ;—as graceful and facile as Gainsborough’s. It retains the majesty of old religion ; it is invested with the joy of newly-awakened child- hood. Mind, I do not expect you—do not wish you—to enjoy Botticelli’s dark engraving as much as Gainsborough’s aerial sketch ; for due comparison of the men, painting should be put beside painting. But there is enough even in this copy of the Florentine plate to show you the junction of the two powers in it—of prophecy, and delight. 148. Will these two powers, do you suppose, be united in the same manner in the contemporary Northern art? That Northern school is my subject to-day ; and yet I give you, as * Plate X., Lecture VI. 2 of ihe nteretin condition bolween Egypt and Eng- und ; Holbein, but Botticelli. Iam obliged to do this; cause in the Southern art, the religious temper remains un- ‘Luther wished to be, but could not be—a re- former still believing in the Church : his mind is at peace ; and his art, therefore, can pursue the delight of beauty, and yet remain prophetic. But it was far otherwise in Germany. ee oeeie of manners became the destruction of auendert therefore, not a prophecy, but a protest. It is -work of the greatest Protestant who ever lived,* ‘which Task you to study with me to-day. 149. I said that the power of engraving had developed itself ‘during the introduction of three new—(practically and vitally new, that is to say)—elements, into the minds of men: ele- prone, eg briefly may be expressed thus : j sedi dea ae Classicism, and Literary Science. 5 2. Medicine, and Physical Science.+ | 8. Reformation, and Religious Science. Bt oeis ye 9:3 - ‘ d first of Classicism. 4 =i feel, do not you, in this typical work of Gainsbor- ugh’s, that his subject as well as his picture is ‘artless’ in a love y Sense ;—nay, not only artless, but ignorant, and un- scientific, in a beautiful way? You would be afterwards ren orseful, I think, and angry with yourself—seeing the effect produced on her face—if you were to ask this little lady 2 a T do not mean the greatest teacher of reformed faith; but the | protestant against faith unreformed. eigen become the permitted fashion among modern mathemati- ci: iapanaiges; and apothecaries, to call themselves ‘ scientific men,’ as sed to theologians, poets, and artists. They know their sphere to a separate one ; but their ridiculous notion of its being a peculiarly ie ae one ought not to be allowed in our Universities. There is a mee of Morals, a science of History, a science of Grammar, a science es. and a science of Painting; and all these are quite beyond ison higher fields for human intellect, and require accuracies of observation, than either chemistry, electricity, or geology. 329 pcenapensd by the doctrines of the Reformation. Botticelli — 330° ARIADNE FLORENTINA. . to spell a very iin word? Also, if you wished to dindebisse! many times the sevens go in forty-nine, you would perhaps — wisely address yourself elsewhere. On the other hand, you do not doubt that dis lady* knows very well how many times: the sevens go in forty-nine, and is more Mistress of ‘Arts see any of us are Masters of them. . | 150. You have then, in the one case, a beautiful simplicity, . and a blameless ignorance ; in the other, a beautiful artful- ness, and a wisdom which you do not dread;—or, at least, even though dreading, love. But you.know also that we may remain in a hateful and culpable ignorance; and, as I fear too many of us in competitive effort feel, ee poate of a hateful knowledge. Ignorance, therefore, is not evil slooabatiste : buts innocent, r may be loveable. 4 Knowledge also. is not good absolutely ; put, guilty, may s be hateful. So, therefore, when I now repeat my former statement, that the first main opposition between the Northern and. Southern — schools is in the simplicity of the one, and the scholarship of the other, that statement may imply sometimes the superiority of the North, and sometimes of the South. You may have a heavenly simplicity opposed to a hellish (that is to say, a lust-_ ful and arrogant) scholarship; or you may have a barbarous” and presumptuous ignorance opposed to a divine and aise ciplined wisdom. Ignorance opposed to learning in both” cases ; but evil to good, as the case may be. 151. For instance: the last time I was standing before mi phael’ s arabesques in the Loggias of the Vatican, I wrote down in my pocket-book the decenbnn: or, more modestly speak ing, the inventory, of the small portion of that infinite wilder-— ness of sensual. fantasy which happened to. be opposite me.” It consisted of a woman’s face, with serpents for hair, and a virgin’s breasts, with stumps for arms, ending in blue butter- flies’ wings, the whole changing at the waist into a goat’s body which ended below in an obelisk upside-down, to the apex at. * The Cumezan Sibyl, Plate VII., Lecture VL 4] SCHOOLS OF ENGRAVING. 331 ottom aE ieiticla’ seeks appended, by graceful chains, an \d two bunches of grapes. a know in a moment, by a glance at this ‘design — ; struck with free hand, and richly gradated in colour, —that the master was familiar with a vast range of art “and literature : that he knew all about Egyptian sphinxes, and ; about Egyptian obelisks, and Hebrew altars; 3 about Hermes, and Venus, and Bacchus, and satyrs, and goats, any iehiiawe also—or ought to know, in an instant,—that all _ this learning has done him no good ; that he had better have known nothing than any of these things, since they were to _ be used by him only to such purpose ; and that his delight in armless breasts, legless trunks, and obelisks upside-down, has been the last effort of his expiring sensation, in the grasp of _ corrupt and altogether victorious Death. And you have thus, _ in Gainsborough as compared with Raphael, a sweet, sacred, _ and living simplicity, set against an impure, profane, and para- lyzed knowledge. _ 152. But, next, let us consider the reverse conditions. _» Let us take imstance of contrast between faultful and _ treacherous i ote me and divinely pure and fruitful knowl- 7 ine SAluibiAplaie of honour at the end of one of the rooms of q Eyal Roped Academy—years ago—stood a picture by an Eng- lish Academician, announced as a representation of Moses sus- tained by Aaron and Hur, during the discomfiture of Amalek. In the entire range of the Pentateuch, there is no other scene (in which the visible agents are morta! only) requiring so _ much knowledge and thought to reach even a distant approxi- mation to the probabilities of the fact. One saw in a moment _ that the painter was both powerful and simple, after a sort ; that he had really sought for a vital conception, and had orig- ' inally and earnestly read his text, and formed his conception. And one saw also in a moment that he had chanced upon this subject, in reading or hearing his Bible, as he might have chanced on a dramatie¢ scene accidentally in the street. That he knew nothing of the character of Moses,—nothing of his 332 ARIADNE FPLORENTINA, law,-—nothing of the character of Aaron, nor of the nature of p a priesthood,—nothing of the meaning of the event which he was endeavouring to represent, of the temper in which it would have been transacted by its agents, or - ite ~~ to modern life. 153. On the contrary, in the fresco of the cali ined in the life of Moses, by Sandro Botticelli, you know—not ‘in a moment,’ for the knowledge of knowledge cannot be so ob- tained ; but in proportion to the discretion of your own read- ing, and to the care you give to the picture, you may know,— that here isa sacredly guided and guarded learning; here a Master indeed, at whose feet you may sit safely, who can teach you, better than in words, the significance of both Moses’ law and Aaron’s ministry ; and not only these, but, if he chose, could add to this an exposition as complete of the highest — philosophies both of the Greek nation, and of his own; and could as easily have painted, had it been asked of him, Draco, or Numa, or Justinian, as the herdsman of Jethro. 154. It is rarely that we can point to an opposition between faultful, because insolent, ignorance, and virtuous, because gracious, knowledge, so direct, and in so parallel elements, as in this instance. In general, the analysis is much more com- plex. It is intensely difficult to indicate the mischief of in- v oluntary and modest ignorance, calamitous only in a measure ; fruitful in its lower field, yet sorrowfully condemned to tay lower field—not by sin, but fate. When first I introduced you to Bewick, we chobéds our too partial estimate of his entirely magnificent powers with one sorrowful concession—he could draw a pigs | but not a Venus, brary Eminently he could so, because—which is still more sorrow- fully to be conceded—he liked the pig best. I have put now in your educational series a whole galaxy of pigs by him ; but, hunting all the fables through, I find only one Venus, and I think you will all admit that she is an unsatisfactory Venus.* There is honest simplicity here ; but you regret it; you miss something that you find in Holbein, much more in * Lecture III., p. 57. é ——— ee wed a ee Me ~ “<= ‘a = y ewe eS ee sist ‘SCHOOLS OF BNGRA VING. 333 ‘Botticelli. You eae ina thorewd that this man Sadao nothing _ of Sphinxes, or Muses, or Graces, or Aphrodites; and, be- _ sides, that, knowing nothing, he would have no liking for them even if he saw them ; but much prefers the style of a well-to-do English housekeeper with corkscrew curls, anda a portly person. _ 155. You miss something, I said, in Bewick which you find — in Holbein. But do you suppose Holbein himself, or any ” _ other Northern painter, could wholly quit himself of the like - accusations? I told you, in the second of these lectures, that the Northern temper, refined from savageness, and the South- ‘erp, redeemed from decay, met, in Florence. Holbein and Botticelli are the purest types of the two races. -Holbein isa - # civilized boor; Botticelli a reanimate Greek. Holbein was _ polished by companionship with scholars and kings, but re- mains always a burgher of Augsburg in essential nature. Bewick and he are alike in temper; only the one is untaught, the other perfectly taught. But Botticelli needs no teaching. _ He is, by his birth, scholar and gentleman to the heart’s core. Christianity itself can only inspire him, not refine him. He is. as tried gold chased by the jeweller,—the roughest part of him is the outside. _ Now how differently must the newly recovered scholastic 4 Jearning tell upon these two men. It is all out of Holbein’s -way ; foreign to his nature, useless at the best, probably cum- - brous. But Botticelli receives it as a child in later years re-' _covers the forgotten dearness of a nursery tale ; and is more himself, and again and again himself, as he breathes the’air — of Greece, and hears, in his own Italy, the lost voice of the ‘3 Sibyl murmur again by the Avernus Lake. 156. It is not, as we have seen, every one of the Southern race who can thus receive it. But it graces them all ; is at once a part of their being ; destroys them, if it is to destroy, the more utterly because it so enters into their natures. It destroys Raphael; but it graces him, and isa part of him. Tt all but destroys Mantegna; but it graces him. And it _ does not hurt Holbein, just because it does not grace him— _ never is for an instant a part of him. It is with Raphael as 334 ARIADNE FLORENTINA. ! with some charming young girl who las a new and beauti- fully made dress brought to her, which entirely becomes her, —so much, that in a little while, thinking of nothing else, she becomes it; and is only the decoration of her dress. But with Holbein it is as if you brought the same dress to a stout farmer’s daughter who was going to dine at the Hall; and begged her to put it on that she might not diseredit the com- pany. She puts it on to please you; looks entirely ridiculous in it, but is not spoiled by it,—remains herself, in “spite of it. ; 157. You probably have never noticed the extreme awk- warduness of Holbein in wearing this new dress ; you would the less do so because his own people think him all the finer for it, as the farmer’s wife would probably think her daughter. Dr. Woltmann, for instance, is enthusiastic in praise of the splendid architecture in the background of his Annunciation. A fine mess it must have made in the minds of simple German maidens, in their notion of the Virgin at home! I cannot show you this Annunciation ; but I have under my hand one of Holbein’s Bible cuts, of the deepest seriousness and import —his illustration of the Cantieles, show- ing the Church as the bride of Christ. You could not find a subject requir- ing more tenderness, purity, or dignity of treatment. In this maid; symboliz- ing the Church, you ask for the most passionate humility, the most angelic beauty: ‘Behold, thou art fair, my dove.” Now here is Holbein’s ideal of that fairness; here is his “ Church as the Bride.” I am sorry to associate this figure in your minds, even for a moment, with the passages it is supposed to illustrate ; but the lesson is too important to be omitted. Remember, Holbein represents the temper of Northeru Reformation. He has all the nobleness of that temper, but also all its baseness. He represents, indeed, the “AYAOSOTIY [BINjVN oUTyWAIOT,T ‘NOLLOY, JO AGO, V SV GHUACGISNOD LVAH—'’A ALVIg Sl ass cs has | GERMAN SCHOOLS or ‘ENGRA Vive. 335 of German truth against Italian lies ; but he represents t it of German animalism against Hebrew imagina- _ This ie of Holbein’s is half-way from Solomon’s a Rembrandt's wife, sitting on his knee while ne key of the question is not in this. Florentine s at this time, also, enough to say for itself. But ani , at this time, feels the joy of a gentle- of cburl. And a Florentine, whatever he does,— s or sinful, chaste or lascivious, severe or extrava- hit with a grace. i a ou think perhaps, that Holbein’s Solomon’s bride is $0 \e 1 chiefly because she is overdressed, and has too y feathers and jewels. No; a Florentine would have put F quantity of feathers and jewels on her, and yet never lost . Yon shall see him do it, and that to a fantastic _ degree, for I have an example under my hand. Look back, first, to Bewick’s Venus (Lect. IIL, p. 57). You can’t accuse | her of being oyerdressed. She complies with every received - modern principle of taste. Sir Joshua's precept that drapery should be ‘drapery, and nothing more,” is observed more strictly even by Bewick than by Michael Angelo. If the ab- _ sence of decoration could exalt the beauty of his Venus, here had been her perfection. Now look back to Plate IL (Lect. IV.), by Sandro; Venus ~ in her planet, the ruling star of Florence. Anything more g jue in conception, more unrestrained in fancy of orna- _ ment, you cannot find, even in the final days of the Renais- | - Vet Venus holds her divinity through all; she will a majestic to you as you gaze; and there is not a line 4 of her chariot wheels, of her buskins, or of her throne, which _ you may not see was engraved by a gentleman. _ 159. Again, Plate V., opposite, is a facsimile of another _ engraving of the same series—the Sun in Leo. It is even _ more extravagant in accessories than the Venus. You see the _ Sun’s epaulettes before you see the sun ; the spiral scrolls of "his chariot, and the black twisted rays of it, might, so far as of form only are considered, be a design for some 336 ARTADNE FPL ORENTINA. modern court-dress star, to be made i in aindbaaee re tyes al all this wild ornamentation is, if you will examine it, more purely Greek in spirit than the Apollo Belvidere. ; You know I have told you, again and again, that the soul of Greece is her veracity ; that what to other nations were fables and symbolisms, to her became living facts—living gods. The fall of Greece was instant when her gods again becaine fables. The Apollo Belvidere is the work of a sculptor to whom Apollonism is merely an elegant idea on which to ex- hibit bis own skill. He does not himself feel for an instant that the handsome man in the unintelligible attitude,* with drapery hung over his left arm, as it would be hung to dry over a clothes-line, is the Power of the Sun. But the Floren- tine believes in Apollo with his whole mind, and is trying to explain his strength in every touch, For instance ; t said just now, ‘ You see the sun’s epaulettes before the sun.” Well, don’t you, usually, as it rises? Do 4 : you not continually mistake a luminous cloud for it, or won- der where it is, behind one ? Again, the face of the Apollo Belvidere is agitated by anxiety, passion, and pride. Is the sun’s likely to be so, rising on the evil and the good? This Prince sits crowned and “alta look at the quiet fingers of the hand holding the sceptre,—at the restraint of the reins merely by a depression of the wrist. : 160. You have to look carefully for those fingers holding _ the sceptre, because the hand—which a great anatomist would have made so exclusively interesting—is here confused with the ornamentation of the arm of the chariot on which it rests. But look what the ornamentation is ;—fruit and leaves, abundant, in the mouth of a cornucopia. A quite valgar and: meaningless ornament in ordinary renaissance work. Is it so *T read somewhere, lately, a new and very ingenious theory about the attitude of the Apollo Belvidere, proving, to the author's satisfaction, that the received notion about watching the arrow was all a mistake. The paper proved, at all events, one thing—namely, the statement in the text. For an attitude which has been always hitherto taken tomean one thing, and is plausibly asserted now to mean another, must be in itself unintelligible. here, think yea ? Are not the leaves bites of earth in the ‘San’s hand ?* ~~ You thought, perhaps, when I spoke just now of the action _ of the right hand, that less than a depression of the wrist _ would stop horses such as those. You fancy Botticelli drew _ them so, because he had never seen a horse ; or because, able _ to draw fingers, he could not draw hoofs! How fine it would be to have, instead, a prancing four-in-hand, in the style of Piccadilly on the Derby-day, or at least horses like the real - Greek horses of the Parthenon ! _ Yes; and if they had had real ground to trot on, the Flor- " -entine would have shown you he knew how they should trot. - But these have to make their way up the hillside of other lands. Look to the example in your standard series, Hermes F Eriophoros. You will find his motion among clouds repre- q sented precisely in this labouring, failing, half-kneeling atti- tude of Jimb. These forms, toiling ’ up through the rippled _ sands of heaven, are—not horses _tliey are clouds themselves, _ like horses, but only a little like. Look how their hoofs lose _ themselves, buried in the ripples of cloud ; it makes one think of the quicksands of Morecambe Bay. And their tails—what extraordinary tufts of tails, ending in _ points! Yes ; but do you not see, nearly joining with them, what is not a horse tail at all ; but a flame of fire, kindled at - Apollo’s knee? All the rest of ‘the radiance about him shoots _ fromhim. But this is rendered up tohim. As the fruits of _ the earth are in one of his hands, its fire is in the other. And all the warmth, as well as all the light of it, are his. We had a little natural pliiloaophy, gentlemen, as well as "theology, in Florence, once upon a time. _ 161. Natural philosophy, and also natural art, for in this _the Greek reanimate was a nobler creature than the Greek _ who had died. His art had a wider force and warmer glow. I have told you that the first Greeks were distinguished from _ the barbarians by their simple humanity ; the second Greeks _ these Florentine Greeks reanimate—are human more strong- _ *Tt may be asked, why not corn also ? Because that belongs to Ceres, _ who is equally one of the great gods. + ee . ey . 338 ARIADNE FLORENTINA, ly, more deeply, leaping from the Byzantine death at the call of Christ, ‘“‘ Loose him, and let him go.” And there is upon them at once the joy of resurrection, and the Bares obihe rave. ; 162. Of this resurrection of the Greek, and the ‘oun of Pe tomb he had been buried in ‘ those four days,” I have to give you some account in the last lecture. I will only to-day show you an illustration of it which brings us back to our immedi- ate question as to the reasons why Northern art could not ac- cept classicism. When, in the closing lecture of Aratra Pen- telici, [compared Florentine with Greek work, it was to point out to you the eager passions of the first as opposed to the formal legalism and proprieties of the other. Greek work, I told you, while truthful, was also restrained, and never but under majesty of law ; while Gothic work was true, in the per- fect law of Liberty or Franchise. And now I give you in fac- simile (Plate VL) the two Aphrodites thus compared—the Aphrodite Thalassia of the Tyrrhene seas, and the Aphrodite Urania of the Greek skies. You may not at first like the Tus- can best; and why she is the best, though both are noble, again I must defer explaining to next lecture. But now turn back to: Bewiok’s Venus, and compare her with the Tuscan Venus of the Stars, (Plate IL); and then here, in Plate VL, with the Tuscan Venus of the Seas, and the Greek Venus of the Sky. Why is the English one vulgar? ‘What is it, im the three others, which makes them, if not beautiful, at least re- fined ?—every one of them ‘designed’ and aah sacar | bly, by a gentleman ? I never haye been so puzzled by any subject of analysis as, | for these ten years, I have been by this. Every answer I give, — however plausible it seems at first, fails in some way, or in | some cases. But there is the point for you, more definitely put, I think, than in any of my former books ;—at present, — for want of time, I must leave it to your own thoughts. _ 163. iI. The second influence under which engraving devel- — oped itself, I said, was that of medicine and the physical sciences. Gentlemen, the most audacious, and the most val- uable, statement which I have yet made to you on the sub. PLATE VL—FAIRNESS OF THE SEA AND AIR. In Venice and Athens. GERMAN somoons of: ae 339 al art, in these rooms, is that of the évil result- eainyes anatomy. It is a statement so audacious, scaninredn for some time I dared not make it to you, but _ for ten years, at least, I dared not make it to myself. I saw, - indeed, that whoever ‘studied anatomy was in a measure in- 5 but I kept attributing the mischief to secondary - eatuses: Tt can’t be this drink itself that poisons them, I said .! This drink is medicinal and strengthening: I see PY that it kills ‘them, but it must be because they dvi 46.661a _ when they have been hot, or they take something else with it ‘it into poison. The drink itself must be good. ‘Well, emen, I found out the drink itself to be poison at eer sae: breaking of my choicest Venice glass. I could not’ make out what it was that had killed Tintoret, and laid it long to the charge of chiaroscuro. It was only after my q ‘study of his Paradise, in 1870, that I gave up this _ idea, finding the chiaroscuro, which I had thought exaggerated was, in all original and undarkened passages, beautiful and eat And then at lust I got hold of the true clue: - gteonaaene di Michel Agnolo.” And the moment I had dared to accuse that, it éxplained everything ; and I saw that the s. demons of Italian art, led on by Michael Angelo, had not pleasure, but knowledge ; not indolence, but - ambition ; and not love, but horror. : 164) But when first I ventured to tell you this, I did not _ know, myself, the fact of all most conclusive for its con- _ firmation. If will take me a little while to put it before you > tette total force, and I must first ask your attention to a minor comm « In one of the smaller rooms of the Munich Gallery is _ Holbein’s painting of St. Margaret and St. Elizabeth of Hun- ; ,— standard of his early religious work. Here is a photo- j : “from ‘the St. Elizabeth ; and, in the same frame, a _ Fretich lithograph of it. I consider it one of the most im- _ portant pieces of comparison I have arranged for you, showing n ata glance the difference between true and false senti- Of that difference, generally, we cannot speak to-day, Este one special result of it you are to observe ;—the omission, _ in the French drawing, of Holbein’s daring representation of 340 ARIADNE PLORENTINA,