than a Sabbath-breaker; but if there were no sin in man's heart, he would neither be one nor the other: each is enough to show that the heart is wrong.

I was weeding in my garden one day, when I saw a small young dock-weed. I pulled it with my hands, but it would not come up. I then dug at its root with a little spud, but only part of it gave way; so that I was obliged to take more pains, and use more strength; and at last I dug up a large old root, which had been cut down and cut down, but never rooted up, and now again sent out a young shoot. I thought directly that this great old root was just like sin in the heart. It may only show itself in a little fault, but still it is there; and the only cure is to root it out altogether, which you must ask God to enable you to do.

TO UNIVERSITY STUDENTS.

On the installation of Lord Eglintoun as Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow, his Lordship delivered an eloquent address to the Principal, Professors, and Students. His advice to the last is admirable, and we commend it to careful perusal.

"And now, gentlemen, allow me to address a few words of advice and exhortation to you; to you, my young friends, who by your kindness have not only given me the right, but have made it a duty that I should speak to you with some authority and without reserve. The few years which you spend in this place are the most important in the whole history of your lives. The choice which you make here will probably rule your future destiny; on the principles which you here imbibe will probably depend your state in eternity. There may be some individual exceptions, which prove the rule, but in the great majority of cases the character of the after-man springs from the character of the youth; his career in afterlife is foreshadowed by his career at school and college. Every one of you is as much engaged in the formation of your character as the sculptor is with the shapeless clay; every one of you has an immortal soul committed to your keeping. There is not one who cannot make for himself respectability, at least, if not fame. It is for you to decide whether you will be

hereafter respected and honoured, or whether you will be a pest to society and a burden to yourselves. I trust you will all accept the first offer that is held out to you by the advantages you now enjoy, and that few indeed will take the latter course. There are, no doubt, some among you with better intellects and keener perceptions than the rest, and every one cannot hope to attain to excellence, or to climb the highest pinnacle of human ambition; but there is not one of you who cannot, at least, attain to mediocrity, and if you cannot gain the admiration, you will at least claim the esteem, of your fellow-creatures. Never allow yourself to despair of anything being within your reach; never think that any branch of knowledge is beneath you; for there is no intellect which cannot be sharpened, there is no memory which cannot be improved, there are no bad habits that cannot be rectified, in the plastic season of youth. There may be some of you whom I am addressing who are not destined to cross the threshold of that busy life on which you are now standing, and to realise those expectations they and their friends have formed of the youthful promise of them. I will say especially to them, 'Remember your Creator in the days of your youth;' and, if you do, there is no happiness which any imagination can conjure up, no brilliant destiny which talent and application could give to you, or no honour which any earthly power could bestow upon you, which will equal those blessings which this will bring you. For some of you there is probably in store long life and chequered circumstances. To them I will say, Seize upon the present advantages you enjoy as a drowning man seizes on the last hope of his preservation, and profit by the excellent education which is here afforded to you."

His Excellency concluded with some further kindly exhortations to the students, and offered them two prizes of £20 each.

PHOTOGRAPHY: THE FIXATION OF COLOURS. M. NIEPCE DE SAINT-VICTOR laid before the Paris Academy of Sciences, at the sitting of the 8th of November, daguerreotypes upon which he had succeeded in fixing, in a manner

more or less permanent, colours by the camera obscura. M. Niepce states, that the production of all the colours is practicable, and he is actively engaged in endeavouring to arrive at a convenient method of preparing the plates. "I have begun," he says, "by reproducing in the dark chamber coloured engravings, then artificial and natural flowers, and lastly dead nature; a doll, dressed in stuffs of different colours, and always with gold and silver lace. I have obtained all the colours; and, what is still more extraordinary and more curious is, that the gold and the silver are depicted with their metallic lustre, and that rock-crystal, alabaster, and porcelain, are represented with the lustre which is natural to them. In producing the images of precious stones and of glass we observe a curious peculiarity. We have placed before the lens a deep green, which has given a yellow image instead of a green one; whilst a clear green glass placed by the side of the other is perfectly reproduced in colour." The greatest difficulty is that of obtaining many colours at a time : it is, however, possible, and M. Niepce has frequently obtained this result. He has observed, that bright colours are produced much more vividly and much quicker than dark colours: that is to say, that the nearer the colours approach to white the more easily are they produced, and the more closely they approach to black the greater is the difficulty of reproducing them. Of all others, the most difficult to be obtained is the deep-green of leaves: the light-green leaves are, however, reproduced very easily. After sundry other remarks, of not peculiar moment, M. Niepce de Saint-Victor informs us, that the colours are rendered very much more vivid by the action of ammonia, and at the same time this volatile alkali appears to fix the colours with much permanence. These results bring much more near than hitherto the desideratum of producing photographs in their natural colours. The results are produced upon plates of silver which have been acted upon by chloride of copper, or some other combination of chlorine. The manipulatory details have not been published; but we understand they are very easy.-Athenæum.

THE FLOWERS OF GREAT BRITAIN.

LONG ere Homer sung the tale of Troy divine, there wandered many a wild hunting-tribe over the grey hills of Hellas, in search of plunder or subsistence. Living in a climate of surpassing beauty, and gifted with a far more imaginative temperament than falls to the lot of more northern nations, they, in their ignorance of God and revelation, deified all the blessings of Providence. The cooling spring had its naiad; the gloomy forest its fauns and satyrs; and the flowers that sprang up in wild luxuriance were bounteously flung from the lap of Flora.

"The nightly hunter, lifting up his eyes

To the bright crescent moon, with grateful heart
Call'd on the lovely wanderer, who bestow'd
That timely light, to share his joyous sport;
And hence a beaming goddess, with her nymphs,
Across the lawn, and through the darksome groves,
Swept in the storm of chase.

His thirst from rill or gushing fount; and thank'd

The naiad. Sunbeams upon distant hills,

Gliding apace, with shadows in their train,

Might with small help from fancy be transform'd

Into fleet oreads, sporting visibly.

Wither'd boughs grotesque,
Stripp'd of their leaves and twigs by hoary age,
From depth of shaggy covert peeping forth,
In the low vale, or on steep mountain-side,
And sometimes intermix'd with stirring horns
Of the live deer, or goat's depending beard,
These were the lurking satyrs, a wild brood
Of gamesome deities; or Pan himself,

The simple shepherd's awe-inspiring god."

Such was the birth of mythic fable, from whose stores almost every science has borrowed some of its terms. Botany, among others, owes to it the name given to a descriptive catalogue of the flowers, trees, and shrubs of any country. Such a list is termed a "Flora," from the name

of the rural goddess beneath whose care and tutelage were supposed to flourish the flowers and fruits of the earth.

The following pages contain the first portions of our little Flora, in which only those plants have been admitted that are generally distributed over Great Britain, or demand especial attention from peculiarities of structure.

CLASS I. DICOTYLEDONS.

SUB-CLASS I. THALAMIFLORE.

Order I. Ranunculaceæ, or the Ranunculus Tribe. The plants composing this order are herbaceous, or very rarely shrubby, with amplexicaul and usually alternate leaves, and a very variable mode of flowering. The sepals vary from three to six; the petals from five to fifteen, or are sometimes wanting. Stamens numerous, springing from the receptacle below the ovaries (hypogynous). Ovaries, or more strictly carpels, numerous, generally loosely combined into a more or less globular head, around a central axis or receptacle, and situate above the insertion of the stamens.

The only genera which are sufficiently common to be admitted into our little Flora are the following:

GENERIC CHARACTERS.

1. CLEMATIS. Calyx 4 to 5 sepalled; corolla wanting; carpels tipped with a recurved feathery awn.

2. ANEMONE. Calyx of from 5 to 9 coloured petal-like sepals; corolla wanting; carpels tipped with the persistent styles.

3. RANUNCULUS. Calyx 5, rarely 3 sepalled; petals 5, each with a pore or hollow at the base.

4. CALTHA. Calyx of 5, highly-coloured, petal-like sepals; corolla wanting; seed-vessels 5 to 10, many-seeded.

SPECIFIC CHARACTERS.

I. CLEMATIS. Linn.

1. C. vitalba L. Stem woody, angled, climbing by means of the twisted petioles; leaves pinnate; leaflets ovate

* A name given to the first twenty-three orders, and implying that in all the plants composing them the stamens rise from the receptacle (thalamus). Thalamifloræ, then, means " receptacle-flowered."