Dormeuil returned me no answer. Ne-present solitary situation at home was pain

vertheless, from the new proposals that were made to me, pursuant to his directions, I could not doubt but my epistle had moved him. It seemed, however, as if fatality had presided over his destiny. His agent offered me, in case I consented to oppose no obstacle to our divorce, to add to the reimbursement of my portion any sum that I might think proper to demand, with the avowal that my fortune had been the means of his repairing his own. Such was the only homage which that weak man thought I was entitled to; what would he have done less if I had been a vile interested wretch?

All my hopes and expectations being at an end, I felt a requisite courage to rise within me; I left the house from which my presence banished my husband, and went to settle in that which I had inherited from my mother. 1 carried you off, my dear child, without consulting any one. You was mine by the rights of nature, and I should have thought it forfeiting that sacred right, had I even consulted on its legality. 1 rejected every proposal. I never acknowledged, neither will I ever acknowledge that divorce, against which I entered a legal protest.

The sight of that house in which I had been brought up increased my affliction by bringing back to my mind a thousand recollections: such as were sad appeared to me the most soothing; but those that reflected, as it were, the ideas I had conceiv. ed of uninterrupted happiness, made me miserable. You, chiefly, my poor child, frequently added to my sorrows, when you would enquire what was become of your father. I was obliged to deceive you, to conceal from you the real cause of my tears; and the perusal of the present narrative will make you acquainted for the first time with the extent of my miseries.

ful to him; and although he frequently went out, whenever he returned home he appeared more pensive and low-spirited, and always carefully avoided going by my apartment. He, therefore, must feel some remorse on account of his former conduct, and apprehensions respecting what he farther proposed doing. I thought it accordingly incumbent upon me to try another attempt.

I wrote again a suppliant letter, which my tears rendered scarcely legible. I offered to bury the past in oblivion. What did I not offer to perform and allow! Never had my soul been so exalted as at that moment; and if I had possibly continued much longer in that same paroxysm, I am sure it would have cost me my life, or the use of my senses. I commissioned my friend, the faithful servant, to place my letter where Mr. Dormeuil could not fail seeing it on his return home. With what pangs and anxiety I waited for the effect it would produce! Yet all that I could learn was, that my husband had spent the night in great perturbation of mind, and that he had gone out earlier than usual.

Reduced to the necessity of leaving this measure untried, I determined to go to his house as soon as it was dark, to take my post in his apartment, to wait for him, and to die at his feet if he had the barbarity to reject me. To put this new scheme into practice, I consented to disguise myself, so that the servant who was in my interest might admit me without being exposed to his master's displeasure. My plan thus settled, I longed for the moment to put it in execution, as if I were convinced it would put a close to all my miseries.

It was already dusk before the man who was to introduce me had made his appearance. This proved to me an additional subject of inquietude. At last, however, I It seemed as if I were still to entertain saw him coming, but before he had informsome hopes, when I understood that Mr.ed me of what had occasioned his delay, Dormeuil had returned to his home alone, I had already guessed that I was ruined benotwithstanding our divorce had been pro-yond redemption. Mademoiselle Olivier nounced. One of the servants I had left with him, and who was devoted to me, used to come privately to inform me of whatever he could receive intelligence. My husband was sad and dejected; his

had dined at my husband's; men had been at work in my former apartment to remove the furniture, which was not sufficiently rich for that lady. I felt rather inclined to believe at first, that your father, through

delicacy, was induced to part from what- || sanction of the laws, assumed the name of ever might compel him to form a compa- | Madame Dormeuil. If she became the rison between the wife he had lost, and wife of my husband, from that moment that which he was going to procure.- then he had two wives, for I never ceased What shall I say to you? The whole bu- being his. siness was conducted with such expedition, that a week after, that woman, with the

THE NEW SYSTEM OF BOTANY;

WITH PRACTICAL ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF FLORA, &c. &c. &c.

Ir the subject of our present lecture || stems and branches, simple capsules, deaffords less of the beauties of Flora for our investigation, and is even less adorned or illustrated by the poet's lays, yet we ought to recollect that the humblest of nature's works are often those which, on investigation, afford the most curious matter for consideration; in proceeding, therefore, to the investigation of the humble

We may further add, the peculiarly It is needless to inform our readers, that pleasing external appearance, and curious Mosses are partial to shady and to moist internal organization, cannot fail to excite places: but, perhaps, they do not know in a polished and contemplative mind, the that nature has endowed them with such exmost lively interest, even though the fairtraordinary powers, as to thrive also in all botanist should as yet have made but small different kinds of soil, and even when exprogress in the science. posed to the intensest heat of the orb of day, and in the most arid situations.

In this, however, there is an obvious arrangement, for some are only found, in this "hemisphere, on the southern side of the

most barren rocks; others in all sunny places; some in pure dry sand; others again on bare quartz; on rocks of porphyry and granite; on calcareous rocks; on slate; on gypsous soil; on the sides even of coal-pits; again, on argillaceous soils; or in the deepest morasses.

We have made this enumeration the more particularly, in order to notice (for the purpose of guarding our fair readers against a common prejudice), the subject of Spontaneous vegetation," partly founded on the natural history of Mosses, and partly on plants of a larger growth.

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It has long been observed, that ground newly turned up will produce particular plants, without cultivation; that Mosses grow on brick walls, where no seed has been sown; nay, in some parts of North America, if the forests are burned down, as sometimes happens from lightning, or from fires left in the woods, an immense crop of young pine trees immediately starts up, though that tree had been unknown in such place before. But the variety of local || habitats which Mosses assume, appears to afford a clue to this seeming difficulty in natural history. We know that the seeds shed by plants since the creation of the world must be innumerable; we know that many of them are so minute as to escape the observation of the most curious eye; we know that many of them retain their vegetating powers to an almost indefinite extent; and we know also, that many of them will not vegetate except in particular

situations.

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tainous plants should be brought down with this artificial soil, and there remain in a quiescent state, until particular circumstances should expose them to solar influence, and to the excitement of the oxygen contained in the atmosphere.

These considerations, we trust, are sufficient to shew that all the phenomena of nature may be explained by the simplest causes; and that, in the present case, without having recourse to "Spontaneous ve getation," a subject so much dwelt on by the sceptic, who would fain believe that the world and all within it are the offspring of chance.

To return, however, more specifically to our subject, we may remark that Mosses grow most luxuriantly in morasses, or bogs, particularly such as are surrounded with trees. This is more especially the case in Sweden, Lapland, and Siberia; where it has also been observed that a subsoil of iron ore, or of marcasite, is always covered with these plants in the greatest luxuriance. In those cases, indeed, they seem to enjoy a middle temperature; for the morasses of this kind are seldom dry in summer, whilst in the winter they are seldom frozen, owing to the quantity of superincumbent snow, and more particularly, perhaps, to the high temperature produced by the sulphur and asphaltum of the minerals beneath : for the morasses of which we speak are those which furnish the turf and peat so well known as materials for fuel in the || northern regions and in Alpine tracts. It is unnecessary to mention the varieties which inhabit those situations in various countries; or to specify those whose fa

brooks, and springs; but we may mention, as a particular instance, that variety called Fontinalis Antipyretica, which is peculiarly partial to the immediate vicinity of waterfalls, nay, strikes its roots into the stones which are washed by the fall, and which even seems to shew that the vigour of its vegetation is proportioned to the violence of the water dashing around it.

Under these circumstances, we must consider the atmosphere as being always supplied with a portion of invisible seeds, whichvourite residence is on the banks of rivers, never vegetate until they alight and are fixed upon their proper habitat, which will always account for the apparently || spontaneous appearance of Mosses in various situations. Again, if we reflect that seeds, when buried in the earth to certain depths, will never vegetate; if we reflect that a great portion of the soil of the maritime provinces of North America, as well as of several other parts of the world, is alluvial, or a deposition of mud and sand and stones, brought down by the winter torrents from the mountains, and even by the constant attrition of the usual rains, it is not surprizing that seeds from the mounNo. 62.-Vol. X.

There are none of nature's works which will not admit of serious reflection, or of that species of apologue adopted by the earliest poets for the conveyance of truth; if we were disposed to moralize on this. subject, how easily might we compare the

obstinacy of this gentle plant in resisting || that the rocks are too naked to afford them nourishment: though it is a curious fact, that in some places Lichens are still met with even where no Mosses are any longer to be seen!

the opposing cataract, to that feeling which will sometimes prompt even the female breast to nourish an attachment in spite of the persuasions of parental love, or the denunciations of parental authority, when, if she had glided with the stream, instead of fixing her future fate on a barren and gloomy rock, she might have been wafted to happier shores, to sport amongst the flowrets on the river's gladsome banks, inhaling the opening day amidst daisied meads and under summer skies!

Of the Mosses, it is well known that some will only grow in watery situations, whilst others are only found on the stems and branches of particular trees; but it is also a curious fact, not generally known, that though the Lichens are a scale higher || than the Mosses, yet some species of the latter will only grow in that soil which has been prepared for them by the destruction and decomposition of the former.

The state of vegetation in the polar regions is yet but little known; but in the year 1771, a party of travellers were sent through Siberia to the coast of the Icy Sea, or Frozen Ocean, who affirmed that in those parts, where the soil never thawed to a greater depth than four inches, Mosses and Lichens were the only vegetable productions. These travellers stated the whole northern border of Siberia, towards the coast of that sea, to be for a width of some hundreds of miles, nothing but an immensely extended morass, destitute of trees, and where, even in the middle of summer, the heat of the sun never penetrated to the depth of a span. There the whole soil was covered by mosses, whose roots were only just above the eternal crust of ice which, in the middle of summer, was sufficiently hard to bear sledges drawn by rein deer.

Our Canadian travellers, Hearne and Mackenzie, give the same description of the northern tracts of America; and Phipps, in his voyage towards the north pole, states the same respecting Spitzbergen, whose rocks, consisting principally of schistus rising out of everlasting masses of ice, are thickly clothed with these humble mosses.

With respect to the genus in general, we may also observe, that they are contented with a much lower temperature than most other vegetables; a eircumstance that may in some instances render them of peculiar advantage to particular trees, whose branches and trunks being in a great measure covered by them, they not only extract less heat from these trees, but perhaps act as non-conductors of caloric, and thus preserve the tree itself at a temperature necessary for its preservation against the That in Greenland they should constirigour of winter: this may also be connect-tute the most numerous class of vegetables, ed with the fact, that the periods of their most vigorous growth and propagation are in the autumn and spring; whilst, in low countries, they are seldom or ever seen in the height of summer, as if it had actually impeded their vegetative powers.

It is not surprising, therefore, that they should always be found in the greatest abundance and vigour in Alpine regions, which naturally favour their growth by the humidity continually precipitated from the air, and perhaps by the thin layer of light mould there afforded them.

Sprengel, the celebrated botanist, notices that in Germany and in Switzerland the steep rocks of the Alps are clothed by mosses from the height of 3000 to 5500 feet; but that at the latter elevation they cease, either from the eternal snow, or because

is not surprising; but their variety must there be great indeed, if we are to credit the authority of Crantz, who says, that whilst sitting casually on a rock, he has counted above twenty species without rising from his seat.

Such being the case in northern regions, it may well be expected that in the southern hemisphere the same will take place. Hitherto, however, no lands have been discovered there so near to the pole as within the arctic circle; in fact, within the antarctic circle no land is known to exist; and as for the island of Georgia, and the southern Thule, discovered by Cook, neither time nor circumstances permitted a close or minute investigation of their frowning rocks beaten by the wintry billows of the Southern Ocean. In Patagonia, in Terra del

Fuego, and in the Falkland Islands, they are indeed found in great variety: and naturalists, ever anxious after novelty, still flatter themselves with a rich harvest, whenever individual enterprize shall open to their research the hidden treasures of Flora in the interior of Africa, where, on the summits of the Mountains of the Moon,

they hope to add to the already bountifu】 stock of vegetable nature.

In a succeeding lecture we shall examine some of the most curious points of internal and external conformation, in which we shall introduce some botanical anecdotes, neither uninteresting to the lover of science or even to the light summer reader.

NADIR.-A TALE OF FORMER TIMES.

guessed at, but they never expose." At these words all my little insects began to buz out: "In those superior regions, for

sense."

To such an exclamation I must needs reply with an epigram, which I have my particular reasons not to repeat.

"MANY men, many minds."—If I could have my own way, I should like to be carried over the whole universe on the wings of Eolus. On my return || certain, they know nothing of genteel manfrom my travels, I should then be reckoned || uers, and are quite destitute of common a man of importance in Babylon, my native town, where I now cut so poor a figure. Methinks I see myself surrounded by numbers, who at first gaze upon me in silent admiration. 66 'Pray tell me," lisps a young man of ton, "let me hear a description of the fair in Saturn ?"—" They are six feet high."- -“ In Jupiter ?”—“They are square shaped.”—“ In Mercury?" "They are born with two tongues.""-"And in Venus?" "Our Babylon is one of her colonies," replied I, to the blushing Delia.

A learned man now raising his voice, enquires what is thought, in the regions above, of eternity, or the creation of the world?" There," answered I," the inhabitants only think of what can procure instruction or amusement."-"Which is the predominant religion?" asks a bonze.

པ་

Every one worships the Deity as he thinks most proper."- "But there must infallibly be a missionary sent by the Supreme Being?"- Certainly, there is one; namely, Virtue." A crowd of fashionables now press upon me at a time:- "Do they indulge the most noble passions of gambling, banqueting, courting the fair, creating, or at least, adopting every new fashion?""No; motives of avarice have not yet taught them to grow pale or crimsoned over a card, or a box and dice; the cheerfulness and friendly intercourse of the guests, constitute the nicety of the banquet; || in company all women are equally paid regard to; in private every one cherishes his own wife; they dress as fits them best, with neatness and simplicity; the ladies will, perhaps, allow their charms to be

A grave sententious character now addresses the company as follows:-"If he could have found a more agreeable planet than ours, there he certainly would have continued. He returned to Babylon, from which I am authorised to proclaim, that Babylon is the most delightful place in the universe."-" Do you reckon for nothing the influence of habit? The Polander, we are told, prefers his humble cot to the princely palace; the wandering Massageter returns to breathe his last sigh under the cloudy sky of his native land; neither do I know whether you should like to spend your whole life-time in the planet of Babel." Hey-day! a new planet! Where have you made the discovery?" asked Urania.— In the famous library of Syrius; I read of it in a precious manuscript that was dropt one morning in the great square. I could make a fine history of it if I chose. I first perused a dedication, next ran over the introduction, then came a caution, followed by a preliminary discourse, after which was a preface; however, with the assistance of very scientific notes, I was enabled to go through the work, which I have had the pleasure of translating, in the space of seven hundred years,seven months,and seven days."

"Read it out," exclaimed every one present. With the utmost gravity I unfold my manuscript. The company being seated, and the ladies even having promised to keep silent, I began as follows, previously,