lichens, and tree-plants, sparkling over its trunk like an alighting of butterflies. The tropical sun loads his giants with his pigmies. Observe the rich contrast of the mound of vivid moss with the red trunk of the outermost tree. Each of these trees wears a splendid epiderm, but neither has had the leprosy, — an unpleasant malady which frequently attacks foregrounds. Mr. Church’s trees are too freshly alive, and show that they digest air and water too healthily to suffer with any cutaneous disease. A somewhat formal personage the leader of the pioneer trio may be, but his stiff dignity is invaluable in this sybaritic covert, and to the picture, as giving determined perpendicular lines after so much level and slope. Behind this picturesque group, two companions of theirs come striding out of the dusky woodland, each a standard-bearer of a new, unknown clan, and wearing new insignia of rank.
Let us enter this delightsome pleasaunce whence they come. Sunshine streams in with us a little way, and leaves us for a spot it loves among the choirs of blossoms. So we wander on into ambrosial darkness. And over us the trailers stream with innumerable tendrils; — our firmament is a gentle tempest of gold and green, — a canopy of showering clouds of verdure, — a rain of wreaths and garlands. A cascade of bowery intricacy shoots down inexhaustible, dashing into flowers at its foot, and pouring a slide of sparkling greenery among the ferns toward the pool. The cope of
