ained within impassable limits, and by inconceivable laws, that
from generation to generation, under all the clouds and revolutions of
heaven with its stars, and among all the calamities and convulsions of the
Earth with her passions, the numbers and the names of her Kindred may still
be counted for her in unfailing truth;--still the fifth sweet leaf unfold
for the Rose, and the sixth spring for the Lily; and yet the wolf rave
tameless round the folds of the pastoral mountains, and yet the tiger flame
through the forests of the night.

* * * * *

{205}

CHAPTER XII.

CORA AND KRONOS.

1. Of all the lovely wild plants--and few, mountain-bred, in Britain, are
other than lovely,--that fill the clefts and crest the ridges of my
Brantwood rock, the dearest to me, by far, are the clusters of whortleberry
which divide possession of the lower slopes with the wood hyacinth and
pervenche. They are personally and specially dear to me for their
association in my mind with the woods of Montanvert; but the plant itself,
irrespective of all accidental feeling, is indeed so beautiful in all its
ways--so delicately strong in the spring of its leafage, so modestly
wonderful in the formation of its fruit, and so pure in choice of its
haunts, not capriciously or unfamiliarly, but growing in luxuriance through
all the healthiest and sweetest seclusion of mountain territory throughout
Europe,--that I think I may without any sharp remonstrance be permitted to
express for this once only, personal feeling in my nomenclature, calling it
in Latin 'Myrtilla Cara,' and in French 'Myrtille Cherie,' but retaining
for it in English its simply classic name, 'Blue Whortle.' {206}

2. It is the most common representative of the group of Myrtillae, which, on
reference to our classification, will be found central between the Ericae
and Aurorae. The distinctions between these three families may be easily
remembered, and had better be learned before going farther; but first let
us note their fellowship. They are all Oreiades, mountain plants; in
specialty, they are all strong in stem, low in stature, and the Ericae and
Aurorae glorious in the flush of their infinitely exulting flowers, ("the
rapture of the heath"--above spoken of, p. 96.) But all the essential
loveliness of the Myrtillae is in their leaves and fruit: the first always
exquisitely finished and grouped like the most precious decorative work of
sacred paintin