LINNAE U S. FRESH Nature, gentle nurse, we run to thee O fairy landscape,—fields, and wooded hills, Green valleys, mirrored lakes, and sunny rills, Young flowers, and blushing fruits, and tufted groves, How Eden-like a home of peace are ye Peopled with angel-guests, and infant loves!— So companied, and in a scene so sweet, High summer's gorgeous tribute would we bring, And lay them, priest of nature, at thy feet, While their white bells the wedded lilies ring, And kissing roses a Linnæus greet. Botany has been pleasantly called the science whose paths are strewed with flowers; but truly with little reason, if we look to the methods in which teachers and professors have generally expounded it. To the student unacquainted with the dead languages, and such are most of the fair disciples of Flora, the aspect of this science must appear perfectly alarming; endless Anglo-Grecian words, conveying to such a pupil no idea beyond mystery, and only pleasing because cabalistic, choke the rosy path as with thorns and briars; the harshest sounds become, by mere force of abused memory, emblems of the most beautiful ideas; and the humblest weed goes forth fearfully invested with "apopetalous angiospermous dicotyledons!" Now, really, for English purposes, this is most absurd; how much better to adhere where we can to the fine old Saxon names, at once poetical, exact, and telling out the special uses which herb-craft has discovered among its simples; and whenever in the progress of knowledge, these fail us, to coin in plain English those "sesquipedalia verba," for the uses of popular instruction. We want in fact a well translated botanical treatise; and perhaps these remarks apply, though scarcely in equal degree, to Entomology, Geology, and most other sciences. Let us write more for the education of our own people, and not be perpetually haunted with the catholicity of science. The life of Linnæus, a Swede of the last century, offers few salient points to touch upon, beyond the great theme of the science which has immortalized his name. His system is full of the choicest poetry and truth; his primary groups are most imaginative personations, where boors and slaves jostle with kings and tetrarchs; and his discovery of the beautiful analogy preserved by nature in the plan of reproduction even among the minutest scions of the vegetable world, is perhaps the crowning effort of his genius. It is an anecdote most creditable to the patriotic feelings of Linnæus, as well as worth mentioning to show how high was his European fame, that when the King of Spain invited him to preside over the college of Madrid, with a pension of two thousand pistoles, a patent of nobility, and the free exercise of his own religion, he declined the offer with fit acknowledgments, modestly saying, "If I have any merits, they are due to my own country." And Sweden was not ungrateful: when he died, after a life of distinguishing honours, at the age of seventy-one, a general mourning took place at Upsal, the whole university attended the funeral, medals were struck to commemorate his fame, and the king spoke mournfully of Sweden's loss, in a solemn speech from the throne. JOHNSON. STERN moralist, whose potent intellect Slave to no master, prisoner of no sect, Albeit disease, and want, and harsh neglect Were long the bitter portion of thy youth, Thine Atlas mind stood firm beneath the weight, Preaching the noble homily to men That poverty hath uses real and great, In quickening thought, urging the sluggish pen, Claiming due labours of the listless brow, Forcing its flowers of wit, and fruits of sense, And for man's wonder, bidding grandly flow The deluge of a Johnson's eloquence, Like thundering Niagára, strong and slow. The "sweet uses of adversity" find an illustrious example in Samuel Johnson. Truly, his "poverty and not his will" consented to those works which have so much enriched mankind: in him lack of energy was a real disease which nothing but necessity could cure. There is little occasion in this place to illustrate the fact by anecdotes, but perhaps it will be apposite to state that we owe Rasselas to the penniless piety of Johnson, who wrote it to defray the expences of his mother's funeral. His works are in every body's hands, and universally admitted to be, both for high principle and commanding talent, the first of our prose classics: his independence of mind is as well known as his often laborious poverty, and the unhappy 'evil' under which his body groaned In the poetical language of the North American Indians, the word Niagára, (so pronounced, and not Niágara,) means "thunder-water;" a truly magnificent expression. Johnson has given himself a character for that desultory kind of reading, which superficial judges in education are accustomed to condemn. He declared he had never read any book through except his Bible. His habit was to ramble from book to book, a bee among the flowers of literature, collect |