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have any acquaintance; but I dislike the name of a proficient, for a learned lady is a kind of monster."

"So is the garden rose," replied Tyler, "the queen of flowers, the flower of Venus,-a monster by the laws of the science;-but a lovely one."

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"I love flowers excessively," said Emily, “and I do not like to be without one at any season of the year. A work just finished is always engaging: they are the only things in nature which are always young-whose time of life is ever in the dawn. There is in them neither senescence nor decay, but death arrives without a precursor." "There is certainly," said Tyler, addressing himself solely to the lady, and speaking with more enthusiasm than from his ordinary manner I should have anticipated, "nothing more interesting than the world of flowers. With what careless prodigality earth throws them out, masterpieces of infinite finish; all different, each perfect. Their very frailty and evanescence is argument of nature's power; for how unbounded must be the resources of that artist who can lavish such ornaments upon the playthings of an hour. Perhaps nothing has afforded so much delight to so many, as these simple objects: nothing has gladdened so many bosoms, brightened so many eyes, cheered so many hearts; nothing has enlivened philosophy by so many allusions and enlightened truth by so many illustrations. Lord Bacon loved to have flowers near him when he wrote, saying they refreshed his spirits and memory, and in one of his essays he has expressed his fondness for seeing them growing together on their banks; with that infantile gentleness of taste which ever belongs to genius, he writes to one of his friends, in the darkest hour of his misfortunes, "I hope to be with you in a few days, and to gather some violets in your garden;" a beautiful and wise affection. Much as I always preferred Erasmus to any of his contemporaries, I have loved him better since I saw in Durer's portrait of the scholar, a small vase of fresh flowers standing on his desk."

"I never so fully realised," said I," how essentially stern and fierce was the temperament of Lord Byron, as when it once occurred to me, that saving one allusion to the rose for the purpose of mentioning the passion of the

nightingale, he has no reference whatever in his poetry to flowers. When we remember in the case of Wordsworth, how inwoven with every suggestion of his heart, and every conclusion of his intellect is the worshipping love of flowers, the circumstance affords an interesting evidence of the relation of these two poets to one another by showing their bearing and distance in reference to a common point "

"Yes," said Tyler, "Wordsworth's genius has been fed upon daisies; nor has the aliment been unsufficient. For, though to the unpurged mortal ears, there be neither voice nor language among them, yet to the soul how audible, how significant is their speech. Gay as their robes, they can discourse a deep divinity preaching in their silent seats; but the language which they best know, is the gushing language of love. How often have the tender stalk and frail cup of the lily borne the weight of a heart's deep affection, and delivered their burden safely! How often has the rose-bud expounded what the tongue could not tell, and interpreted between a beating heart and a downcast eye! Verily, it likes me not to see these bosom-cherished, world-worshipped treasures, these chaste pledges, which have been the honoured memorials of a Queen's affection, the hallowed testimony of a peasant's love, falling into the hands of a fingering slave,' who tears them to pieces, numbers their stamina, and flings them into the dust beneath his feet.”

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"I can scarcely bring myself," said I, “to believe that knowledge has this benumbing influence on feeling. The fault seems to be less the fault of learning than of its followers. It is not science which injures the nature of its cultivators, but its cultivators who injure the character of science. A professor's heart is the very altar of crea tion's choicest marvels. I cannot understand the coldness of one always i'the sun.'

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• Yet an altar may be of marble, and the sun may breed agues." replied Tyler. Natural want of sensibility is never so militant in its aversion as that disgust which succeeds the exhaustion of sensibility. When subjects of feeling become matters of business, a habit of ruthlessness is induced, by nature's instinct against pain, of which the mildest degree is apathy. Man does not seem

capable of deriving two distinct sorts of gratification from the same object at the same time; and when we begin to draw pleasure, which we soon do, from the mere perception of beauty in the order of a system, we cease to regard the independent attractions of the objects of that system. Scientific coolness is not less inevitable and scarcely less shocking than professional coolness. As there is no wickedness so remorseless as that which has marched over the ruins of virtue, so there is no insensibility so rampant as that which scowls above the wreck of tenderness. Who is the person that cares least for the sufferings of the sick? Precisely he who most frequently witnesses them; not the one from whom sympathy has never been evoked, but the one in whom it has been crushed by use. If inquiry were made for that person who should feel least emotion at the sight of any given scene of interest, a statue or a battle-field, it would be found to be he whose office it is to exhibit and describe its beauties. Ignorance may prevent the birth of sensibility, but familiarity strangles it when full-grown; and from that grave there is no resurrection. It is for this reason that I am inclined to doubt whether an intimate acquaintance with science will ever produce a favourable effect upon the moral system of even the most happily constituted natures, and whether the modern technical and artistic education of young ladies is likely to excite that generous enthusiasm, which, when rightly directed, is the mother of so many virtues. That which we understand, we are, unless we exert great caution and self-control, apt to deem commonplace; and inexhaustible in their impressiveness, as are the miracles of nature, I doubt whether, constituted as we now are, that appreciation which springs from intelligent comprehension will ever keep pace with that admiration which is the offspring of wonder. Hence the richer poetry and deeper piety of the popular mind of antiquity. And, let me tell you, the virgin instinct of downy feeling is the potentest guard of virtue, and the most inerrant guide of intellect."

Mr. Wilson, who had joined his daughter a few moments before, now entered into the conversation. He was something of a politician by nature,-men "are born so," and a good deal of a monarchist by education. An

ardent admirer of the Anglican form of government, he rarely suffered an opportunity to pass without contrasting its several merits with what he deemed the antagonist faults in the system of his own country.

"The study of which you speak,” said he, “in common with all the sciences and nearly all the arts, needs for its support in this country, all the assistance which ever misguided enthusiasm can lend to it. Under a policy which directly encourages study by providing its ancillaries, where the honours of its professors give dignity to the profession, men may speak with moderation of the advantages of mental effort without fear of degrading it in the eyes of the multitude; but under our unfortunate ungovernment it must be permitted to studious men to exaggerate the benefits of their occupation, if we would have it attract regard amid the din of "noiseful gain" and the distractions of commercial pursuit. To expect that the government of a large republic like ours, should be the foster-father of an abstract study, is idle. Such studies are countenanced, not by calculation, which is general, but by sentiment, which is individual; and monarchies always exhibit a personal form of feeling, republics a corporate want of it."

"You are a hopeless tory, Mr. Wilson," said Tyler, "and I feel that you are much beholden to my good nature for answering your objection quietly, which I am going to do, and not handing you over to the tender mercies of Sir Mob. The argument in the precise form in which you present it,-I regard merely the political face. of it, as the purport of your remark is manifestly to shift the conversation from a defence of science to an attack on the republic,-admits of no reply. That the American government will never show itself so generous a patron of all that is merely honourable and of good report, as the English government, is most true. But let us not be deceived by the misuse of terms, and infer from this any thing discreditable to the nation or discouraging to science. The word government has widely diverse meaning as applied in these two cases. The government of England does not signify a temporary assembly of two companies, variously gathered and slightly conjoined, for the purpose of passing a few general regulations:

it reaches more deeply, and numbers among its constituents all the interests of the people upon all subjects. The whole municipal, educational, and religious systems of the country, the wealth and the blood of the land, are integral parts and members of it, and not, as among us, things apart. It is so interwoven with the nation, that it expresses the whole feelings of the nation, and is the nation's own form and image,―its very body. The English people act on all occasions through the channel of government. In short, the British government is but the synonyme of the British nation. But the American constitution is a very different matter; it represents only so much of the general interest as shall remain in the crucible, after all individual feelings have been evaporated, and all partial predilections molten down. The great mass of the popular action remains with the people; it has never been put into representation. To demand. then, that the government should embody interests which have been formally discorporated from it, is to demand what it was not intended should be found. In England the public acts by the government; in America it acts apart from it. In one country the government purchases a museum; in the other an individual or a private corporation does it; in both, it is the public which does it, by authorizing the one and supporting the other. That patronage and countenance for which in England you look to the government, must in this country flow from societies, companies, or the general public. Hitherto the example of England has impeded the developement of the true character of the American system, by leading us to look for similarities, and even occasionally to force them, in the details of a policy, the principle of which is utterly distinct but when, in the course of time, the true nature of our constitution shall have been generally apprehended, and popular feeling and effort learn to flow through the proper and intended conduits, the result will be as honourable as in the rival land. A bird may reach the same end that its human owner does, but it cannot be expected to do it by the same means;-the principle of progression is dif ferent."

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Your notion," said Mr. Wilson, " is certainly deserving of consideration. I understand you to mean that, in

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