rent-rolls; and if an individual combatant sank in the battle, he was instantly replaced by another. The scale of victory turned in favour of the invaders, and the embarrassments of many an ancient family may, perhaps, derive their origin from this period of the contest.

The legitimate leaders of fashion now resorted to a more appropriate species of warfare, and took to heightening their natural pre-eminence by an elaborate and arduous process of education; so arduous indeed, that it in some measure answered the same purpose as the Spartan practice of immersing their new-born infants in the Eurotas:-none but the strong and healthy survived the operation. For a time the success was commensurate to the exertion. But, again we must cry alas! The indefatigable enemy discovered the cause of their discomfiture, and the same purses which could eclipse the fétes, could pay the music, dancing, drawing, French, and Italian masters of their adversaries. The daughters of the city intruded into even the first-rate establishments for finishing young ladies, and acquired, last and hardest to be gained, the arts of eating soup, and stepping into a carriage gracefully; whilst the sons, with equally meritorious and assiduous toil, emulated the achievements of the heroes they envied, guided by the scientific instructions of stagecoachmen and bruisers. It is true, to a practised eye, the difference between the originals and the copies, the inherent superiority of gentle blood, always remained manifest; but still copies to be distinguished only by the connoisseur came too near, and a new system of tactics was to be devised. But ere closing the account of this period of the eventful conflict faithfully narrated in these pages, it is proper to observe, that it was during this struggle of accomplishments, that genius, or, more correctly speaking, professional genius, first took any part in the war. Those who aspired to celebrity only through their talents, originally appeared in the field as the allies of the old established authorities, though they afterwards, in imitation of the Swiss, engaged on either side indifferently. It need scarcely be added, that the "exclusives" quickly learned to despise the genius that could be nourished upon turtle and turbot connected with the wrong side of Temple Bar.

Apathy, absolute and unvarying apathy, was next adopted as the distinguishing mark of superiority, and, like all the other measures, answered for a season; but apathy was yet more readily attainable than accomplishments. It now characterises both parties equally, although still with a difference discernible by the connoisseur, and the only class branded with vivacity, is that of the aforementioned persons of genius, who, having by their instability forfeited the confidence alike of their old and new employers, are entirely hors de combat, and instead of being courted, are barely tolerated by the belligerents.

Thus driven successively from every retrenchment, the haut ton were not yet routed, and they have made their last stand where it promises fair to be successful-upon the union of insolence with economy! Who could some years ago have anticipated a seven-shilling subscription to Almack's! Who could have believed that admission

to a seven-shilling ball would become the chief object of ambition to the nobles of the land! Yet who would not move heaven and earth to obtain admission, where the daughters of dukes are despised, where ministers of state and conquering heroes are turned away from the closed doors! And last and chiefest, how can any of the base intruders ever hope to penetrate into such a sanctuary!

The grand conception of amalgamating two such heterogeneous ingredients was as bold as it was original. It deserves to be fortunate; nor do we entertain any apprehension of its failure. Economy, indeed, is not difficult of imitation, but insolence necessarily requires either rank or profusion for its support. What then is to become of those who have not the one, if they give up the other? This case is to all intents and purposes desperate.

It may, therefore, be confidently pronounced, that the guardian sylphs (to whose inspiration, perhaps their, triumphant protegées are indebted for the glorious measure which has given them victory) may, after all their harassing vacillations between hope and fear, tranquillize their anxiety with the well-assurance, that the world cannot afford a second Almack's, that the ascendancy of legitimacy is secured, and that, although it may be impracticable to drive back the jacobinical crew to their native obscurity, a boundary-line has at length been drawn, beyond which they can never pass.

Before concluding, however, it may not be unadvisable to remind the "luminaries of fashion," that the most skilful plans are liable to defeat themselves, if the judgment with which they are executed be not equal to the ingenuity with which they are devised. Economy itself is not exempt from this law of nature, and appears upon a recent occasion to have been practised with somewhat more zeal than discretion. The august ceremony which has so lately been celebrated, seemed as if it must, at least for the day, restore to birth its just and lawful pre-eminence. Yet, even at the Coronation, to say nothing of the wits, poets, &c. scattered through the assembly, some very unknown, nobody sort of people were discerned, and that in situations which, from the exalted stations of those through whose means alone they were accessible, might have been expected to be appropriated solely to the use of the higher classes of society. And it was rumoured that their appearance might be traced to the agency of a certain bookseller of Opera notoriety, to whom persons of distinction and economy are in the habit of intrusting the beneficial management of their tickets.

spare

M. M.

BOTANY.

Of all the animate and inanimate productions of nature, flowers have the least reason to complain of the neglect or unkindness of man; and Esop, Gay, and La Fontaine in conjunction, would find it difficult to discover a grievance for them which they could lay, with any justice, at the foot of Jove's imperial throne. In every age and every nation they have been

honoured and cherished, loved and admired. In the olden time they graced the festivals, and adorned the altars, of the deities. A goddess, ever blooming and young, superintended their interests, and her marriage with the gentle Zephyrus must have singularly promoted the welfare of her delicate subjects. They have been showered on the heads of heroes, been twisted into the chaplets of Hymen, and chosen by Love as his most appropriate gifts, and most intelligible symbols. Affection has delighted to strew them on the graves of the departed, and poetry has sung their praise, till the wearied ear turns from the oft-told tale.

Who will assert that in modern days flowers are less honourably distinguished?—who that has seen the Epargne laden with their mingled blossoms; the most dainty dishes garnished with their brilliant tints; or the splendid drawing-rooms and gay boudoirs, where they grow in tubs, or float in vases, or stiffen in saucers filled with moistened sand-who, above all, that has beheld them in bunches, bushes, and arborets mingling with the tresses, towering high above the heads, or, as in recent times, hanging confusedly about the throats of our most fashionable females? "Flowers of all hues, and without thorn the rose."

With how much care, too, do we tend "the firstlings of the year," and endeavour to persuade them to expand their bright petals, and breathe their delicious scents a little earlier than the laws of nature permit. In the language of that exquisite poem, "The Flower and the Leaf," the choicest offering which Flora's altars ever received:

"When buds, that yet the blast of Eurus fear,

Stand at the door of life, and doubt to clothe the year," we tempt them forth, and promise them our fostering protection, "Then, at our call emboldened," the hyacinth, the narcissus, and the crocus burst their sheaths; we delight to deck our rooms with these children of early spring-we display them exultingly at our windows, and, "Qui possit violas addere, dives erit."

Faint, however, are the pleasures which flowers afford in cities, when compared with those which they bestow upon their admirers in the country. There, the florist rears them near his home, watches them, improves them by culture, takes a parental interest in their progress, and a lover's pride in their charms, while health and cheerfulness reward his labours. There, the botanist explores the hedges, and traverses the hills in pursuit of some new addition to his herbal or his knowledge, and the barren heath and dull common acquire interest and beauty in

his eyes.

"Oh! friendly to the best pursuits of man,

Friendly to thought, to virtue, and to peace,"

are tastes and studies of this description, when cultivated as the amusement, not the business of life, and kept in due subserviency to higher and more useful pursuits.

Botany appears to be peculiarly adapted to the study of ladies, as it tempts them to the enjoyment of air and exercise, which though the best friends to health and beauty, the most effectual remedies for nervousness and ennui, are yet very generally neglected by the flowers of the human race. It is a science, too, within the range of female acquirement, and is repugnant to neither humanity nor elegance. Entomology is cruel; mineralogy and geology difficult and laborious; conchology expensive; but botany is both cheap and easy, healthful and innocent, open to the pursuit of all, and requiring only just so much study and attention as may awaken interest, and occupy without wearying the mind. It is favourable, also, to the acquisition of habits of inquiry and observation, and sends the eye constantly abroad on expeditions of discovery. It is not a botanist "who can travel from Dan to Beersheba, and cry, all is barren;" on the contrary, wherever a blade of grass appears, he is on the watch for rarity or beauty, and seldom returns from a ramble without some novelty to relate, some treasure to display.

We know there are those who assert that the Linnæan system of botany is unfit for the study of innocence and modesty; but the accusation is a reproach to the mind of him who makes it, and savours of the spirit which in heathen days polluted the festivals of Flora. Those only who were already immodest could have first suggested the idea; for, to the good and the pure, it sounds monstrous and unintelligible. But, "the putrid spider converts that to poison which the bee works to honey;" and it is thus that man has, at different times, debased and injured all he has touched, and lowered the most glorious pursuits to the level of his own corruption. Music, fit amusement for angels, has ministered to voluptuousness; painting to the grossest impurity; poetry has forgotten its noble nature to sing of forbidden things; and even botany, a study which unfolds the wonderful economy of nature, displays its beautiful regularity, and is conversant with those lovely and harmless things, the flowers of the field, conveys to some unhappy minds thoughts most unlike the pureness of the lily, or the sweetness of the

rose.

There are minds, however, of a different stamp, minds which adorn and enrich all they touch, which can learn wisdom from a flower, piety from a blade of grass, can find sermons in stones, and good in every thing." The man thus happily gifted,

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walks forth into the fields-the daisy, "wee, modest, crimsontipped flower," the eye-bright, with its painted blossom, the golden tormentil, or the blue hare-bell spangles the turf on which he treads; while the hedges are covered with the clusterings of the wild rose, the garlands of the convolvulus and honeysuckle, or starred with the English geranium, the bright hypericum, or the fairy scorpion-grass. Astonished by the profusion of beauty, the wantonness of ornament which meet him wherever he turns his eyes, he asks their use and design, his heart rises in wonder and praise to the throne of the Great Creator, and he is answered.

On minuter inspection, how much of amusement and instruction may be derived from the study of flowers, that study in which Israel's wisest monarch delighted, he who "spoke of trees from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop on the wall." The daisy, insignificant as it apparently is, (yet immortalized by the pen of Dryden, and graced by the song of Burns) becomes, on closer observation, an expanse of wonders, a cluster of miracles. Scores of minute blossoms compose its disc and border, each distinct, each useful, each delicately beautiful. The convolvulus and honey-suckle appear to the careless eye to twist in a similar manner round every thing in their neighbourhood; but the botanist discovers that they are governed by different laws, the former always twining itself according to the apparent motion of the sun, the latter in a contrary direction; and when busy man attempts to alter this arrangement, he invariably injures, and perhaps destroys the plant.

The heath, so common in the northern parts of this kingdom, valuable to the poor as a substitute for more expensive fuel, and to the sportsman as a cover for grouse, affords to the botanist a striking instance of the care extended by Providence towards his creatures. Its seed is the food of numerous birds, in regions where other sustenance is scarce, and the vessels which contain it are so constructed as to retain their contents for a considerable length of time, instead of discharging them when they become ripe. Indeed, the more we study, the closer we observe the operations and provisions of nature, the greater will be our wonder, the higher our admiration. Every separate plant has doubtless its own history, its distinct uses, its peculiar inhabitants; and, like St. Pierre's strawberry, may furnish a study too diffuse, too deep, for the life of an individual.

The physiology of vegetables is a most curious and entertaining branch of the science of botany; and, owing to the great improvement of our microscopes, may be pursued to an extent far beyond the most sanguine hopes of former students. In some recent experiments, the growth of wheat was actually rendered visible to the eye; a bubble of gas was seen to dart forth,