But we must remember that God made man, and that man is his noblest work. The discoveries and inventions of the human mind are really the most wonderful developments of nature.

truly said, that

-"nature is made better by no mean,

But nature made that mean. So ev'n that art,
Which you say adds to nature, is an art

That nature makes!

*

Shakspeare has

The art itself is nature."-(Winter's Tale.)

Our ships, beautiful and picturesque objects often in themselves, which come and go across the mighty ocean, between this port and the most distant climes, laden with the various produce and manufactures of all lands; our railways, stretching to all parts of the country, the engines snorting like living monsters, and, with the speed of a bird, conveying hundreds of human beings on their various errands of business, joy or sorrow; the post-office, communicating cheaply and swiftly between us and our friends, however distant, so that we approximate to the divine attribute of omnipresence, "knowing their thoughts afar off;" the electric telegraph, which reduces space to nothing, and enables men to speak to one another at a distance of hundreds of miles as if they were close together; -all these, and many other arts which busy man has invented, abound in elements of true poetical interest, moving the imagination with mysterious wonder. Shakspeare makes a fairy messenger exclaim

"I'll put a girdle round about the earth

In forty minutes."

Should the electric telegraph be extended, as we cannot doubt that it ultimately will be, from continent to continent, this dream of the poet will be more than realised, for we should then actually be able to send a message round the earth in forty seconds! It is sometimes interesting to read descriptions of things and scenes that we are familiar with, as they appear to men of genius, who seize upon their characteristic features and present them again to us with freshness and yet with strict truth. I remember reading a description of England by Emerson, addressed to an American audience, which was very striking in this way. I seemed never to have fully realised the wonders and beauties of my own country before. Of this kind, too, was a description in "Frazer's Magazine," of the General Post Office in London, just before the time of despatching the mails. To the writer's fancy it seemed like a huge animal, devouring in its capacious maw the heaps of letters and newspapers, the process of sorting which was likened to the digestion of the food, preparatory to its circulation through the

system.

Then again all poetry that appeals to human experience and affections—(and there is little true poetry that does not, more or less directly) -all genuine poetry that deals worthily with human joy and sorrow, life and death, childhood, youth, and age; love, friendship, home, with its cares and its delights; is intelligible and touching everywhere. Rogers has truly said of human life in general:

"Yet is the tale, brief though it be, as strange,

As full, methinks, of wild and wondrous change,
As any that the wandering tribes require,
Stretched in the desert round their evening fire;
As any sung of old, in hall or bower,

To minstrel harps at midnight's witching hour."

And James Montgomery has beautifully treated the same truth in his simple but expressive poem, "The Common Lot." There is much that breathes the same spirit in the heart-stirring poetry of Robert Burns, who, as it has been truly said, "made rustic life and poverty grow beautiful beneath his touch."

It would be easy to quote many passages of true poetry illustrating the grace, dignity and glory, of which human life admits, even under the humblest and homeliest guise. I must content myself, however, with a short poem by Caroline Bowles (now Southey's widow), on a subject of solemn but universal interest, which will form a fitting conclusion to my extracts.

"THE PAUPER'S DEATHBED."

"Tread softly-bow the head

In reverent silence bow

No passing bell doth toll

Yet an immortal soul

Is passing now.

Stranger! however great,

With lowly reverence bow; There's one in that poor shedOne by that paltry bed

Greater than thou.

Beneath that beggar's roof,

Lo! death doth keep his state:

Enter-no crowds attend

Enter-no guards defend
This palace gate.

That pavement damp and cold

No smiling courtiers tread;

One silent woman stands,
Lifting with meagre hands

A dying head.

No mingling voices sound-
An infant wail alone;

A sob suppressed-again

That short deep gasp, and then

The parting groan.

Oh! change-oh! wondrous change

Burst are the prison bars---

This moment there, so low,

So agonised, and now
Beyond the stars!

Oh! change-stupendous change!

There lies the soulless clod:

The sun eternal breaks

The new immortal wakes--

Wakes with his God."

66

To conclude, we may not be able, like Coleridge, to compose poetry; but we may so feel it in the writings of others, and in its reflection in our own hearts, as to be able to say with Coleridge, Poetry has been to me its own exceeding great reward; it has soothed my afflictions: it has multiplied and refined my enjoyments; it has endeared solitude; and it has given me the habit of wishing to discover the good and the beautiful in all that meets and surrounds me."

FOURTH ORDINARY MEETING,

ROYAL INSTITUTION, Nov. 26, 1855.

ROBERT M'ANDREW, Esq., F.R.S., PRESIDENT, in the Chair.

The resignation of Mr. G. M. Davis was received.

Mr. A. Böhtlingk was elected an Ordinary Member.

Mr. Foard presented copies of his photograph of the urn exhibited by Dr. Ihne, and received the Society's thanks. One of these was directed to be presented to Miss A. Hope, to whom the urn belongs, another to the President, and a third to Dr. Ihne.

Mr. Edward Fletcher exhibited a very handsome Fungus, polyporus versicolor; Mr. T. C. Archer, a specimen of the Shola stem; Mr. Marrat, the Encalypta ciliata, which he considered had been mistaken for the E. streptocarpa, a moss which he had not found in this place: and Dr. Ihne, several Roman coins, each possessing a peculiar interest. One was that of Nero, whose head was ornamented with a corona radiata, the symbol of divinity; another was of Claudius; and the third was of Julia Mamaea, the mother of Severus, whose face was singularly beautiful and expressive, and the head dress a diadem and wig.

The papers for the evening were

ON MAGNETIC VARIATION, AND THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE LIVERPOOL COMPASS COMMITTEE, by W. W. Rundell, Esq.; and

ON THE

CULTIVATION

OF MOSSES.

BY THE REV. H. H. HIGGINS, M.A.

THE cultivation of Mosses has probably very little to recommend it to notice if it be regarded only in a utilitarian aspect, none of our English species, so far as I am aware, being at all extensively used in this country, either in the arts, or in domestic economy, which may in some measure account for the little that is to be found written upon the subject. Here and there a warm admirer of Nature, even in her lowliest productions, has no doubt long ago found a delight in sheltering and watching a collection of these tiny plants-the author of the "Bryologia Britannica," for example, who the other day sent the writer a specimen of a fork moss which had been domesticated for fifteen years but until the comparatively recent invention of Wardian cases gave a happy impulse to this and many kindred adoptions, mosses were generally known only in their wild state, in the herbaria of the botanists, or as the unwelcome disfigurers of our gravel walks. Yet mosses have certainly many qualifications which give them an advantage over most other plants for cultivation, especially amongst the inhabitants of large towns. Some of these I shall now enumerate.

Their size requires but small space for the cultivation of a considerable number of species. An ordinary window case might well accommodate from fifty to a hundred kinds, allowing them to attain their full size and luxuriance. Whereas ferns or other plants, in a similar situation, must be restricted in their growth, or the number of species must be very limited.

Their tenacity of life ensures success with a very moderate degree of attention to their wants. In fact they are grateful little creatures, and reward the care bestowed upon them by readily putting on their best and freshest looks, as if they were mindful their protector in none of his walks should see any mosses looking better or prettier than his

own.

Their neighbourly habits place them within the reach of the collector in an ordinary walk. Instead of applying to the florist, or incurring the expense of importing plants from distant regions, he has only to pass the boundaries of the streets in any direction, and he will find them all around him. The screw moss and the silver thread moss will not even need his stooping to secure them; they wait for him upon the wall, at the level of his eye. The heather mosses, in profusion, creep along the bottom of the hedges, or scale the trees, or steep their foliage in the running streams. The beardless mosses are on every bank; the hair mosses are sure to be found in the stone quarry or if the collector

G

wish to extend his search, the river banks, the railway cuttings, the sand hills, the turf bogs, the heathery hill side, the gorse covered common, and even, in some places, the sea shore, below the tide mark, will each enrich his store with appropriate contributions; and all that any of the species require to reconcile them to their change of situation is a little of their own soil, and a somewhat corresponding degree of shade and moisture.

Again, the great diversity of their seasons of fructification affords them an advantage in which no other single class of plants participates. It would be easy to arrange even a small case of mosses so that some of their number should be in their highest state of perfection successively in every month throughout the year. Though naturally, and without such a selection, the case would be in its most flourishing state during the winter months, just at the time when it is of most value from the absence of other plants. And this I regard as a very great recommendation. For there is more or less of pain in looking

on a barren spot where flowers have been, even though we may know they will again come forth and flourish. But to see a constant succession of flower and fruit, one kind rising to maturity as another fades, this keeps up the interest, and renders a well managed case of mosses a never failing source of gratification.

These qualifications secure for the cultivation of mosses an interest which is of a popular kind; but if a more scientific end is desired, it will also afford an almost exhaustless field for microscopic observation and physiological research. Of the mode of fructification in mosses just sufficient is known to make it plain that it involves a great secret, waiting to be found out by the first explorer who may bring sufficient ability to bear upon the subject. Of the functions of the antheridia, says the author of the 'Bryologia,' nothing is known by actual observation, but it is a well established fact that whenever they are absent fruit is never produced from the archegonia. It is the impression of the writer that most of the great physiological discoveries in phanerogamic botany were made on plants more or less in a state of cultivation. Possibly one of the reasons why we know less of the re-productive economy of mosses is because they have been thought too insignificant to be taken and watched by man under his own peculiar care.

Many kinds of mosses may be grown freely in the open air, without any protection beyond a shelter from the direct rays of the sun; but they are liable to remain during the greater portion of the year in a shrivelled unsatisfactory state. We will therefore suppose that a Wardian case, of moderate dimensions, is to be provided, and apply ourselves to the question how it may best be procured and managed.