stration upon April 17th is graphically told; but that of the 16th May is meagre and unsatisfactory in the extreme. We witnessed the march of the mob, and, watch in hand, counted it; we followed the 10,000 blackguards, who, under the cry of "Vive la Pologne !" nearly upset the government of France; and we saw the whole of the strange but awful farce by which a pseudo-revolution was made and unmade, without bloodshed, in a few hours. There was a connexion between these affairs of April and May still to be explained; and whatever Lord Normanby may say, there is also much to be explained as to the secret springs of the affairs of June. It is stated by the noble lord that English gold was found upon the persons of some of the democratic combatants; and we ourselves know that Louis Philippe was actually in treaty for a loan in London, immediately before this period. Many years will no doubt elapse before the whole truth of these matters is known.

In the meantime we advise our readers not to believe even the confidential gossip of ambassadors in all things. Those very fine gentlemen do not see all; and English ambassadors, especially, are not likely to dive into those classes of society which it is necessary to study during the course of democratic revolutions. The utter absence of an attempt to explain or to record the singular revulsion in the feelings of the inhabitants of the provinces during this year of revolution, is another remarkable illustration of the same unphilosophical spirit to be observed in Lord Normanby's remarks upon the events immediately preceding the Revolution of February; yet the violent hatred the provinces suddenly exhibited against a form of government they had at one period hailed with enthusiasm, must ever constitute one of the most remarkable phenomena of this eventful year. Lord Normanby's judgments of the public men he came in contact with, are substantially correct; but we must say that he seems, like the rest of the world, to treat the claims of de Lamartine and of Cavaignac to the gratitude of the whole world, with a flippant, pedantic description of faint praise. Those men saved Europe, on two momentous occasions, from falling into the hands of the Red Republicans, and they were personally "without fear, and without reproach."

It is an act of gross injustice to forget these services, because the men who rendered them were not heaven-born tatesmen; but, alas! Europe itself has been as unjust as the courtly historian; and it now worships - what? The despotic power which has secured the adhesion of the countless functionaries who had before flattered and served the Restora

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tion, the Monarchy of July, the Provisional Government, or the Executive Government under Cavaignac!

The real history of the Revolution of February still remains unwritten; and, notwithstanding Lord Normanby's official advantages, we consider that his production, costly though it be, adds very little to what was previously known. Perhaps it is too early for any statement of the stirring events of that year to be recorded with impartiality; for they who were most likely to know the hidden springs of events were too much interested to have kept their minds free from prejudices. But the movement itself was far too important, both in its immediate and in its contingent effects, to be allowed soon to pass from men's minds; and the cloud of pamphlets, to which it gave rise will no doubt soon be followed by more important studies of the strange events which took place at this particular period.

There was much that was great and noble in the conduct and in the aspirations of the people who rose at the call of the French republicans; there was, equally, much that was noble and great in the conduct of De Lamartine, Cavaignac, Marie, Dufaure, and some of the other men who rose to power on the ruins of the Orleans dynasty. How was it then that the sacrifices of the people could secure no more substantial result than the reconstruction of the old systems of government? or that the able men who stepped forward to defend society, could do nothing to advance its real interests? 'Tis a strange problem! and it is one which merits a far more logical investigation than it has yet received-certainly than the one it has received from the Marquis of Normanby,

in the work before us.

ART. II.-PROFESSOR FLEMING'S WORKS.

1. The Philosophy of Zoology. In Two vols. London. 1822. 2. A History of British Animals; exhibiting the Descriptive Characters and Systematical Arrangement of the Genera and Species, &c. Edinburgh. 1828.

3. The Temperature of the Seasons, and its Influence on Inorganic Objects, and on Plants and Animals. Edinburgh. 1851.

NATURAL HISTORY, in its various departments, has long been a favourite subject of study in Scotland. It was so at a time when natural history was scarcely known as a source of popular

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amusement in our great cities; long before iron rail had taught our citizens how pleasantly they might spend their summer holiday on hill and shore; long before" sea-side books," aquariums, microscopes, and nature-printed folios had rendered botany and zoology indispensable "requisites" of the drawingroom; and long before even naturalists themselves fully perceived the true bearings of their science on some of those great questions affecting man's temporal and spiritual interests upon which the world is divided.

Professor Walker, and subsequently his favourite pupil, Jamieson, occupied for a long period the Chair of Natural History in the University of Edinburgh, in a manner that gained for them a well-deserved reputation in the annals of science, while it reflected honour on the University itself; their private exertions in advancing this department of knowledge have left behind them many visible proofs.

It is not, however, to its prominence as a branch of academic learning in the Scotch universities, that the progress of natural history in the northern part of the kingdom is to be traced, so much as to the labours of private individuals, who, often in parts of the country where books were inaccessible, and means of communication imperfect, laboured zealously in their retirement, usually without other encouragement than that ample stimulus afforded by the delightful study itself, and without any hope of reward, save the gratification of advancing a department of knowledge which had suffered unjust neglect.

One of these early labourers was JOHN FLEMING, whose name became in later times one of the brightest ornaments of European science; and in whom we have lost one whose history served to connect, in an intimate manner, the naturalists of a by-gone generation with those of the present.

Dr. Fleming died in November, 1857. For a week or two. previous to his death, it appears that he had not enjoyed his usual state of health; but no apprehension was entertained of serious illness, and he continued to the last to fulfil his duties as Professor of Natural Science in the New College, Edinburgh; on the day preceding his death, he lectured to his class in the usual manner. Only a few days before, which was the last occasion of our meeting with him in life, he spoke hopefully of attending the opening meeting of the Botanical Society, of which he was president, as it was his turn to retire from that office at the following meeting. His death is thus alluded to in the Witness newspaper:

"On returning home on Wednesday (18th November), he became more seriously ill, and on Wednesday despatched a message to the college, to the effect that he would not lecture on that day, nor for

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some days succeeding. On the previous evening he had suffered considerably from pain, but for several hours on Wednesday be enjoyed great quietness. Mrs. Fleming was seated at his bed-side at two o'clock, when the medical man called. She was under the impression that her husband was asleep. The physician, on looking into his face, discovered that the spirit had already departed. The cause of death was a spasmodic affection of the digestive organs."

Although of a consumptive family, he was himself of healthy constitution, and attained the age of seventy-two. He has left a widow, and a son, now in India, who has distinguished himself there by geological researches.

Let us now recount some of the events of his long and useful life, and indicate briefly the bearings of his researches on the progress of human knowledge.

John Fleming was born in the year 1785, on the farm of Kirkroads, near Bathgate, of which farm his father was tenant. His ancestry were long resident in the parish. Mr. Taylor observes:

"The memory of his boyhood remaining amongst us is that of a quiet youth, curiously anxious about the birds, plants, and shells of the district, eager also to try hazardous experiments in the then new science of chemistry, with the doctor of the town."

He studied for the ministry of the Established Church of Scotland, and, accordingly, in the early part of the present century, he was licensed to preach the gospel in connexion with that church. He was first settled as minister of the parish of Bressay, in Shetland; a small parish, with comparatively light duties, and situated on a coast admirably adapted for the purposes of the naturalist. Here, accordingly, Fleming was placed under favourable circumstances for developing those powers of observation and research which he possessed in so eminent a degree.

The careful observations which he was assiduously making in this favoured spot, were not long in attracting the attention of fellow-labourers in other parts of Scotland, and the results of his investigations soon began to find their way to scientific circles in Edinburgh. In 1808 he transmitted to the Wernerian Natural History Society a careful and elaborate description of the Small-headed Narwal, a specimen of which had been cast ashore in Shetland. The minute accuracy of this account indicated that, while Fleming's powers of description were of a very superior order, and in advance of the time, he did not regard mere external characters as the end of science; and his smart critical remarks on Lacepède and others, who

had erroneously described and figured the animal, showed that he was not disposed to pass unnoticed the delinquencies of his contemporaries. This paper was followed by many others which appeared in the Wernerian Transactions from time to time.

Fleming remained at Bressay till 1811, when he was removed to Flisk, a parish in the north of Fife, close to the estuary of the Tay. This locality was also well suited for observation, and, in other respects, for facilitating his studies. It is correctly described by Mr. Murray as—

"A small, thinly-peopled parish, where the duty was easy; but less remote [than Bressay] from men, nearer to books, and nearer to the printer; and only supplied with a very meagre stipend,-no unim portant matter, for it is to the res anguste domi that we owe much of the most valuable literature we possess. It is certainly a most important qualification as a stimulus to exertion, but one, on the possession of which, notwithstanding its value (such is the perverseness of human nature), most of us would rather felicitate our neighbours than be felicitated ourselves.'

In 1821, Dr. Fleming accompanied Mr. Stevenson in the "Regent" yacht, during his annual inspection of the northern lighthouses, and was thus enabled to extend his observations on the natural history of the Scotch coasts. It would greatly exceed our limits in this place to afford an intelligible sketch of that interesting trip, but a few observations on some of the leading phenomena that met the inquiring eyes of the voyagers may not be unacceptable, seeing that many points were visited of which few naturalists have the opportunity to make a personal inspection.

The

The party embarked at Newhaven, near Edinburgh, on the 20th July, 1821, and bore away out of the Frith of Forth in a north-easterly direction, reaching, on the following morning, the Bell Rock lighthouse, well known as the scene of much engineering skill, and as the theme of many a poet's pen. lighthouse stands upon a dangerous rock, a portion of the great bed of old red sandstone, of which the lofty shore cliffs of the neighbouring county of Forfar consist. Before the erection of the lighthouse the reef was marked only by a bell, so placed as

It is also observed: "As he advanced in years, Providence became kinder to him in a pecuniary point of view." But, as he once jocularly expressed himself, a man takes a deal of filling up after starving for twenty years on ten chalders in the parish of Flisk.”