thinking of them that bought her, how they'll be breakin' the back of their heads against the wall to-morrow, strivin' with their teeth to pull the mate off her ould bones!"

Mr. Aubrey de Vere, nurtured in a genial home near to the Curragh Chase, receiving a liberal education, and launched into distinguished social life, numbered among his friends eminent Irish and English men, Protestants, and Catholics, ultimately attaching himself to the faith of the latter, and notwithout remonstrance from friends, lay and clerical, including of all men, Carlyle, who came on a special errand of warning to de Vere, telling him not to do this thing. "You were born free. "Do not go into that hole." The answer was, "But you used always to tell me that the Roman Catholic Church was the only Christian body that was consistent, and could, defend her position." Carlyle replied, "And so I say still, But the Church of England is much better notwithstanding because her face is turned in the right direction." De Vere's answer was unanswerable: "Carlyle, I will tell you in a word what I am about. I have lived a Christian hitherto, and I intend to die one."

Few men have such interesting reminiscences of college days, nor can anyone tell them better than Aubrey de Vere, and the first here given refers to one of those characters full of learning and piety, but prosaic to a degree, all which was the subject of criticism by two undergraduates, who were sharply pulled up for their seeming irreverence, by a Fellow of Cambridge in these words: "You are probably ignorant, young gentlemen, that the venerable person of whom you have been speaking with such levity is one of the profoundest scholars of our age; indeed, it may be doubted whether any man of our age has bathed more deeply in the sacred fountains of antiquity." "Or come up drier, sir," was the reply of the undergraduate. Then to keep up the fun of the bathing question, and illustrating the simplicity of the venerable scholar, we are informed that on a visit to a country-house and. being placed at dinner next the young hostess, she mentioned how invigorating was the effect of a shower-bath, a luxury enjoyed by her every morning. "What is a shower-bath?" asks the guest. Due explanations follow of its shape, which was round, the bather standing in the centre, and pulling the

string, etc. Next morning the scholar, in his explorations found himself at the entrance of a very small circular housemaid's pantry in which, curiously enough, was a plaster cast of the Venus de Medici, seeing which he bolted outside to the park till summoned to breakfast, of which he would not partake until he had thus delivered himself:-"My lord, I can neither partake of tea or coffee, or any other refection, until I have first tendered my humblest apologies to the interesting young lady whom I now see dispensing the chocolate, and on whose sanitary ablutions this morning as she stood in her shower-bath I was so unfortunate as unwittingly to intrude."

In the days of de Vere's youth there was in Dublin University as Astronomer Royal, a man so absorbed in speculative thought, metaphysics, the reading of Greek, and other studies, and of so guileless a character that de Vere, adopting Wordsworth's phraseology descriptive of Coleridge, called him "the rapt one of the god-like forehead," and it need scarcely be said that from this text de Vere preaches an eloquent sermon on his devoted friend, the Astronomer Royal, Professor Sir William Rowan Hamilton, whose self-humility and courtesy to others was the theme on which de Vere and Wordsworth delighted to dwell, the former telling us of the remark made by one who knew this learned astronomer with minuteness. Hamilton is simply transparent. His thoughts are as visible to you as the leaves of a tree close by and sunsmitten. It would be impossible for him to tell a lie, even if he wished to do so, and he could no more conceal a thought than he could tell a lie." Wordsworth, knowing many men of ability and genius, declared that there was only one man he could term "wonderful," viz. Coleridge, but added to de Vere, "But I should not say that, for I have known one other man, a fellow-countryman of yours, who was wonderful also Sir William Rowan Hamilton, and he was singularly like Coleridge."

De Vere also tells us of a wilful horse named "Cornet," on which Hamilton used to take exercise at the gallop, sometimes round the lawn, occasionally on the roads outside. Musing on a mathematical problem one day, he had mounted "Cornet" in the city of Dublin, who, running away so that his rider

found it impossible to stop him, he remarked, "I gave him his head and returned to the problem. He ran for four miles, and stood still at my gate-just as the problem was solved."

In de Vere's graphic sketch of Sir Edward O'Brien, the direct descendant of Brian the Great, king of all Ireland, we have a delightful portrait of the strong Irish character, mixed with a child-like simplicity and reverence, and a hearty dislike of those odious class controversies which unhappily were so prevalent in his country. It is narrated of him that when the gentle sough of the wind over the corn was heard, he said : “I never feel so devout as when I hear a ripening corn-field murmur in the wind; it makes me say to myself, 'God is preparing bread for His people.' Lady O'Brien, a strong evangelist, though ardently devoted to her husband, did not find in him the sympathiser with her zeal which she desired, and the two had many playful conflicts, the best of which (in point of a story) was occasioned by the call of a priest at their house, Dromoland, to negotiate his intended purchase of Sir Edward's "little yellow pony"; Sir Edward and the priest were sitting together when Lady O'Brien appears on the scene armed with tracts, prepared for theological argument, and more especially as to St. Paul's meaning of a certain text, the elucidation of which his reverence declined as he had called on business only. In vain did she tackle him on another question of religion. Sir Edward, siding with the priest, and rebuking somewhat warmly, somewhat playfully, his better half, thus addressed her: "Lady O'Brien, I beg you will let this gentleman alone! He did not come to chop texts with you, but to see if he could buy my little yellow pony." The lady, however, was not to be daunted. Again and again the attack was renewed, and again the battle was respectfully declined. At last Sir Edward jumped up, and exclaimed, "Now, Charlotte, I'll tell you what it is! This reverend gentleman, as I informed you before, did not come here for a controversy with you, but to buy my little yellow pony, and he has been worried and molested in my house; and now I will not let him buy the pony for I will make him a present of it. He shall not pay me one farthing!" The lady departed with her tracts, and the priest with the little yellow ponythe latter, probably, the better contented of the two.

So much adored was Sir Edward O'Brien by his tenants, that on the occasion of the marriages of the daughters of the latter, they always previously asked his consent thereto, which he gave, in addition to the present of a wedding gown for the bride.

TRAVELS AND OBSERVATIONS OF A SEVENTEENTH CENTURY BOTANIST.

JOSE

By G. W. NIVEN.

"Ilyrian woodlands, echoing falls
Of water, sheets of summer glass,
The long divine Peneïan pass,
The vast Akrokeraunian walls.

"Tomohrit, Athos, all things fair,
With such a pencil, such a pen,
You shadow forth to distant men,
I read and felt that I was there.

"And trust me while I turned the page,
And tracked you still on classic ground,
I grew in gladness till I found

My spirits in the golden age."

-Tennyson.

OSEPH PITTON DE TOURNEFORT, one of the greatest botanists of his time, was born at Aix in Provence, on 5th June, 1656. He began the study of his favourite subject at a very early age, and as a boy was most enthusiastic in the pursuit of botanical knowledge. His eagerness in this direction frequently led him into scrapes. Once in a more than ordinary botanical fit," wrote Lauthier, one of his biographers, "having scaled a high wall in quest of something in that way, he had like to have paid for his curiosity with the loss of his reputation, and almost that of his life too; being taken for a thief by the owners of the ground, and warmly pursued with volleys of stones and brick bats. This accident made him indeed more wary, but not less ardent in his researches." His father intended him for the Church, but his inclinations were more strongly directed towards the study of science. It was not only in the study of plants that he derived pleasure, for he was almost equally enthusiastic in the study of anatomy and chemistry. He was much encouraged in the prosecution of his studies in science by an uncle who was an able physician. His father's death in 1677 left him greater

freedom in his choice of a profession, and the prosecution of his most favoured study. In the year following that event he perambulated the hills of Dauphiny and Savoy, where he collected a large number of plants and commenced his Herbal. At Montpellier, where he went in 1679 to study medicine, he contracted a fast friendship with M. Magnol, a famous botanist of his day. In April, 1681, he set out on further botanical travels, with Barcelona as the ulterior object of the tour. This journey was beset with many difficulties and dangers, and his life was often in jeopardy. He visited the Pyrenees en route, and in these wild mountain solitudes he was several times robbed and stripped by the bandits that infested that neighbourhood.

In self-defence he contrived a very ingenious method of circumventing the rapacious Spanish Miquelets, and was able ever afterwards to retain at least his money in safety. He enclosed his cash in a loaf of bread so black and hard that although the rogues might be ever so hungry they always declined to partake of the unsavoury looking viands.

Tournefort received a warm welcome from many lovers of botany in Catalonia when he arrived there, and discovered many plants that had been hitherto unknown to the local botanists.

His return to France was marked by an episode which might have been more eventful than his occasional capture by brigands on his outward journey. In a village near Perpignan the house in which he was lodged collapsed during the night, and our unlucky botanist was buried in the ruins for some hours before he was extricated. He returned to Montpellier at the close of 1681, and thence proceeded to his home at Aix, where he arranged his large collection of plants "in perfect good condition, orderly disposed in large books of white paper."

In 1683 Tournefort was presented to M. Fagon, the Queen's chief physician, who, the same year, procured him the position of Botanic Professor in the Jardin des Plantes, which, had been established in 1626 by Louis XIII. for the instruction of medical students. He still delighted, as a student of nature should, in extended botanical excursions. "In Andalusia, a country abounding in palm trees," wrote