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Annuus,) belong to Rafflesia Arnoldi, Aristolo- | entirely wanting in the new continent, where it is chia, Datura, Barringtonia, Gustavia, Carolinea, replaced, as it were, by the guadua, about 60 feet Lecythis, Nymphæa, Nelumbium, Victoria Regina, Magnolia, Cactus, and the Orchideous and Liliaceous plants.

high, discovered by Humboldt and Bonpland. The Bambusa flowers so abundantly, that in Mysore and Orissa the seeds are mixed with honey, and eaten like rice. Dr. Joseph Hooker mentions it as a rare property of one of the graminea-the trisetum subspicatum-that it is the only Arctic species he knows which is equally an inhabitant of the opposite Polar regions.

Arborescent ferns, when they reach a height of above forty feet, have something of a palm-like appearance, but their stems are less slender, shorter, and more rough and scaly, than those of palms. Their foliage is more delicate, of a thinner and more translucent texture, and the minutely indented marTree gins of the fronds are finely and sharply cut. but in that zone they seek by preference the more ferns belong almost entirely to the tropical zone, tempered heat of a moderate elevation above the level of the sea, and mountains two or three thousand feet high may be regarded as their principal seat. In South America the arborescent ferns are usually found associated with the tree which has conferred such benefits on mankind by its feverhealing bark. Both indicate by their presence the happy regions where reigns a soft perpetual spring. Vol. ii., p. 28.

The Lianes, or tropical twining rope plant, correspond with the twining hops and grape-vines in the temperate latitudes. In the tropical region of the south these climbers render the forests so impenetrable to man, accessible to and habitable by the monkey tribe, and by the cercoleptes and small The form of Ferns, like that of grasses, is tiger-cats, who mount them and descend by them" ennobled in the northern parts of the globe." with wonderful agility, and pass by their help from The number of species amounts to 3250. tree to tree. In this manner whole herds of gregarious monkeys often cross streams which would otherwise be impassable. On the Orinoco, the leafless branches of the Bauhinias, often 40 or 50 feet long, hang down perpendicularly from the lofty top of the Swietenia, and they sometimes stretch themselves in oblique directions, like the cordage of a ship. Among the twining plants we may mention the Passifloras, with their beautiful and many colored blossoms, and the aristolochia cordata, which has a crimson-colored flower seventeen inches in diameter. In South America, on the banks of the river Magdalena, there is found a climbing aristolochia, with flowers four feet in circumference, which the young Indians draw over their heads in sport, and wear as hats or helmets. Many of the twining plants have a very peculiar aspect, occasioned by the square shape of their stems, by flattenings not produced by external pressure, and by ribband-like wavings. Adrian Jussieu has exhibited, in very beautiful drawings, the cruciform and Mosaic figures seen in cross sections of the Bignonias and Banisterias, arising from the mutual pressure and penetration of the circumtwining stems.

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The Liliaceous plants, which have their principal seat in Africa, are distinguished by their flag-like leaves, and superb blossoms. They are represented by the genera Amaryllis, Ixia, Gladiolus, and Pancratium. In Africa they are assembled into masses, and determine the aspect and character of the country; whereas, in the new world, the superb alstromeriæ and species of pancratium, Hemanthus and crinum are dispersed, and are less social than the Irideæ of Europe.

Regarding the form of Graminea as an expression of cheerfulness and of airy grace, and tremulous lightness, combined with lofty stature," our author considers the Aloe form "as characterized by an almost mournful repose and immobility." The groves of bamboo, both in the East and West Indies, form avenues and walks, shaded and overarching. "The smooth polished, and often lightly waving and bending stems of these singular grasses, are frequently taller than our | alders and oaks. Their glassy polish is owing to the quantity of silex in their bark, which, by a species of extravasation, as in the gouty secretions of the human frame, form that singular substance salicis) is distilled, and much used. called tabasheer, which may be heard rattling within the joints of the bamboo, when the plant has been cut down." We have ourselves frequently opened these joints, and taken out this beautiful opalescent and dichroitic mineral, which is blue by reflected, and yellow by transmitted light. We have been informed, on high authority, that in severe storms, forests of bamboo in India have been set on fire, by the mutual friction or collision of their flinty stems." The genus Bambusa is

The plants of the Willow form, represented generally by the willow itself, and on the elevated plains of Quito, and in so far only as the shape of the leaves, and the ramifications are concerned, by the Schinus molle. There are 150 different species spread over the northern hemisphere, from the Equator to Lapland. There is a greater similarity in the physiognomy of this tribe in different climates than even in the Coniferæ. From the catkins of the male flower of some Egyptian species, a medicine called willow water (aqua

*Our author has forgotten, for he is well acquainted with the subject, to notice these singular facts concerning

On the banks

of the Orange river in Africa, the leaves and young shoots of the S. hirsuta and mucronata form the food of the hippopotamus.

The Myrtacea, with their elegant forms, and their stiff, shining, small leaves, studded with transparent spots, give a peculiar character to the Mediterranean islands, the continent of New Holland, and the intertropical region of the Andes, partly low, and partly about 10,000 feet high. Tabasheer, and the silicious character of the bamboo. Our readers will find ample details respecting the optical and physical properties of Tabasheer, in a paper, by the author of this article, in the Phil. Trans. for 1819, p. 283.

bidium and fragrant vanilla enliven the trunks of fresh verdure of the Pothos leaves, and of the Drathe Anacardias, and of the gigantic fig-trees. The contias, contrasts with the many colored flowers of the Orchidea. Climbing Bauhinias, Passifloras, and yellow flowering Banisterias, twine round the trunks of the forest trees. Delicate blossoms spring from the roots of the Theobroma, and form the thick and rough bark of the Crescentias and the

Trees belonging to the group of Myrtaceæ, "pro- | vegetation displays its most majestic forms. In the duce partially, either where the leaves are replaced cold north the bark of trees is covered with lichens by leaf-stalk leaves, or by the peculiar disposition and mosses, whilst between the tropics the Cymor direction of the leaves relatively to the unswollen leaf-stalk, a distribution of stripes of light and shade, unknown in our forests of round-leaved trees. This optical effect surprised the earlier botanical travellers, but our distinguished countryman, Mr. Robert Brown, showed that it was owing to the leaf-stalks of the Acacia longifolia, and A. suaveolens, being expanded in a vertical direction and from the circumstance that the light, instead of falling on horizontal surfaces, falls on, and passes between vertical ones.

Gustavia. *

In the tropics vegetation is generally of a fresher verdure, more luxuriant and succulent, and adorned with larger and more shining leaves than in our northern climates. The "social" plants, which often impart so uniform and monotonous a character to European countries, are almost entirely lofty as our oaks are adorned with flowers as large absent in the equatorial regions. Trees almost as and as beautiful as our lilies.

The other forms to which our author attaches importance, in reference to the physiognomic study of plants, are the Melastomacea, comprising "the genera melastoma (Fothergilla and Tococca Aubl.) and Rhexia, (Meriana and osbeckia)," which have been superbly illustrated by Bonpland; and the The great elevation attained in several tropical Laurel form group, embracing "the genera of Lau- countries, not only by single mountains, but even rus and Persea, the ocoteæ, so numerous in South by extensive districts, enables the inhabitants of America, and (on account of physiognomic resem- the torrid zone-surrounded by palms, bananas. blance) Calophyllum, and the superb aspiring and the other beautiful forms proper to these latitudes to behold also those vegetable forms which, Mammea from among the Guttiferæ." belong to other zones. demanding a cooler temperature, would seem to Elevation above the level of the sea gives this cooler temperature, even in the hottest parts of the earth; and Cypresses, Pines, Oaks, Berberries and Alders, (nearly allied to our own,) cover the mountainous districts, and elevated plains of Southern Mexico, and the chain of the Andes at the equator. Thus it is given to his native land, all the forms of vegetation dispersed man in those regions to behold, without quitting over the globe, and all the shining worlds which stud the heavenly vault from pole to pole.

This interesting chapter of "The Aspects of Nature" is closed with some of those general views which our author never fails to clothe with the richest drapery of language and sentiment. After suggesting as an enterprise, worthy of a great artist, to study the aspect and character of all these vegetable forms, not only in hot-houses, and in botanical descriptions, but in their native grandeur in the tropics, and pointing out the value to the landscape painter, of "a work which should present to the eye, first separately, and then in combination and contrast, the leading forms which have here been enumerated," he concludes the subject in the following manner :—

It is the artist's privilege, having studied these groups, to analyze them, and thus in his hands, the grand and beautiful form of nature which he would portray, resolves itself, (if I may venture on the expression,) like the other works of men, into a few simple elements.

It is under the burning rays of a tropical sun that

Would it not be an enterprise worthy of the wealth and liberality of our public-spirited nobility and country gentlemen, to fill their hot-houses and green-houses, not with the rare plants, which all their neighbors have, but with groups of plants from particular zones, or regions of the globe, or belonging to different natural families or classes. Forest trees, and arborescent plants, which have been acclimated in our island, might in like manner be gathered into local groups, and in the private collections of a single county, botanists, landscape painters, artists, gardeners, and amateurs, might study the whole flora of the globe. A subdivision of labor has now become necessary in every department of intellectual culture. Omniscience in philosophy or science is knowledge in a state of extreme dilution, useless to the world, and gratifying only to the vanity of its possessor. The piles upon which rest the temple of science could never have been driven had they been endowed with many heads; he that has driven one to the rock beneath, may rest from his labor, and be sure that his works will follow him. A subdivis ion of toil in the collection of objects of natural history, of antiquities, and of art, would do much to promote the advancement of these important branches of secular knowledge.

These, and many other of the enjoyments which nature affords, are wanting to the nations of the forms-and of the latter those which are most North. Many constellations, and many vegetable beautiful, (palm-tree ferns, plantains, arborescent grasses, and the finely divided feathery foliage of the mimosas,) remain forever unknown to them. Individual plants, languishing in our hot-houses, can give but a very faint idea of the majestic vegetation of the tropical zone. But the high cultivation of our languages, the glowing fancy of the poet, and the imitative art of the painter, open to us sources whence flow abundant compensations, and from whence our imagination can derive the living images of that more vigorous nature which other climes display. In the frigid north, in the midst of the barren heath, the solitary student can appreciate mentally, all that has been discovered in the most distant regions, and can create within himself a world, free and imperishable, as the spirit by which it is conceived.-Pp. 29-31.

The chapter which closes with the preceding passage is followed by a dissertation of much interest," on the structure and mode of action of Volcanoes in different parts of the globe." Although the multiplication of voyages and travels has exercised a greater influence on the study of organic nature, viz., of botany and zoology, than upon the study of the inorganic bodies which compose the crust of the earth, yet each zone of the earth derives a peculiar physiognomy from the living

forms, which are either fixed or movable upon its of Pasto emitted a lofty column of smoke for surface. But we find on either hemisphere, from three months continuously, and that it disappeared the equator to the poles, the same kind of rocks at the very instant, when, at the distance of 240 associated in groups, and the traveller" often rec-miles," the great earthquake of Riobamba, and the ognizes with joy the argillaceous schists of his immense eruption of mud called Moya' took birthplace, and the rocks which were familiar to place, causing the death of between thirty and his eye in his native land." Geological science, forty thousand persons." In proof of the same however, has derived great advantages from its fact, he adduces the sudden emergence from the sea study under different climates. Although in any near the Azores of the island of Sabrina, on the single and extensive system of mountains we find, 30th of January, 1811, which was followed by more or less distinctly represented, all the inor- those terrible internal commotions which, from ganic materials which form the solid carpentry of May, 1811, to June, 1813, shook almost incessantly the globe, yet observations in distant regions are the West India islands, the plains of the Ohio and necessary in studying the composition, the relative Mississippi, and the opposite coast of Venezuela age, and the origin of rocks. Our knowledge of or Caraccas. In the course of a month after this, the structure and form of volcanoes was, till the the principal city of that province was destroyed. end of the last century, drawn principally from On the 30th April, 1811, the slumbering volcano Vesuvius and Ætna, though the basin of the Med- of the island of St. Vincent broke forth, and at iterranean afforded better means of studying the the very moment the explosion took place, a loud nature and action of these fiery cones. Among subterranean noise, like that of great pieces of the Sporades trachytic rocks have been upraised, at three different times, in three centuries. Near Methone, in the Peloponnesus, a monte nuovo," seen by Strabo and by Dodwell, is higher than the new volcano of Jorullo in Mexico, and Humboldt found it "surrounded with several thousand small basaltic cones, protruded from the earth, and still smoking." Volcanic fires also break out at Ischia, on the Monte Epomeo; and, according to ancient relations, lavas have flowed from fissures, suddenly opened, in the Lelantine plain, near Chalcis. On the shores of the Mediterranean, too, on several parts of the mainland of Greece, in Asia Minor, and in Auvergne, and round the plain of Lombardy, there are numerous examples of volcanic action. From these facts our author has drawn the conclusion," that the basin of the Mediterranean, with its series of islands, might have offered to an attentive observer much that has been recently discovered, under various forms, in South America, Teneriffe, and the Aleutian Islands, near the polar circle." "The objects to be observed," he continues, were assembled within a moderate distance; yet distant voyages, and the comparison of extensive regions, in and out of Europe, have been required for the clear perception and recognition of the resemblance between volcanic phenomena and their dependence on each other."

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orduance, which spread terror over an area of 35,000 square miles, was heard at the distance of 628 miles from St. Vincent. The phenomena which accompanied the celebrated earthquake at Lisbon, on the 1st November, 1755, lead to the same conclusion. At the very time it took place, the lakes of Switzerland, and the sea upon the Swedish coast, were violently agitated; and at Martinique, Antigua, and Barbadoes, where the tide never exceeds thirty inches, the sea suddenly rose upwards of twenty feet.

In the remaining portion of this interesting chapter, our author directs our attention chiefly to the phenomena which accompanied the last great eruption of Vesuvius, on the night of the 22d October, 1822. It had been supposed by several writers that the crater of Vesuvius had undergone an entire change from preceding eruptions; but our author has shown that this is not the case, and that the error had arisen from the observers having confounded "the outlines of the margin of the crater with those of the cones of eruption, accidentally formed in the middle of the crater, on its floor or bottom, which has been upheaved by vapors." During the period from 1816-1818, such a cone had gradually risen above the south-eastern margin of the crater, and the eruption of February, 1822, had raised it about 112 feet above the northwest margin. This singular cone, which from Naples appeared to be a true summit of the mountain, fell in with a dreadful noise on the eruption of the 22d October, 1822, "so that the floor of the crater, which had been constantly accessible since 1811, is now almost 800 feet lower than the northern, and 218 lower than the southern edge of the volcano."

In different parts of the globe we find assemblages of volcanoes in various rounded groups, or in double lines, and we have thus the most conclusive evidence that their cause is deeply seated in the earth. All the American volcanoes are on the western coast opposite to Asia, nearly in a meridional direction, and extending 7200 geographical miles. Humboldt regards the whole plateau of Quito, whose summits are the volcanoes of Pin- In the last eruption, on the night of the 23d to chincha, Cotapaxi, and Tunguragua, as a single to the 24th October, 1822, twenty-four hours after volcanic furnace. The internal fire rushes out the falling in of the great cone of scoriæ, which sometimes by one and sometimes by another vent; has been mentioned, and when the small but nuand in proof of the fact that there are subterra-merous currents of lava had already flowed off, the fiery eruption of ashes and rapilli commenced; it nean communications between "fire emitting open-continued without intermission for twelve days, but ings," at great distances from each other, he men- was greatest in the first four days. During this tions the circumstance, that in 1797, the volcano period the detonations in the interior of the volcano

mountains

were so violent, that the mere concussion of the air gases, and acids." There is, however, another (for no earthquake movement was perceived) rent and a rarer class, which are closely connected with the ceilings of the rooms in the palace of Portici, the earliest revolutions of our planet. Trachytic In the neighboring villages of Resina, Torre del Greco, Torre del Annunziata, and Bosche tre Case, open suddenly, emit lava and ashes, and a remarkable phenomenon was witnessed. Through close again perhaps forever. The gigantic mounout the whole of that part of the country the air was tain of Antisana on the Andes, and Monte Eposo filled with ashes as to cause in the middle of the meo in Ischia, in 1302, are examples of that pheday profound darkness, lasting for several hours; nomenon. Eruptions of this kind sometimes take lanterns were carried in the streets, as had often place in the plains, as happened in Quito, in Icebeen done in Quito during the eruptions of Pinchin- land, at a distance from Hecla, and in Eubœa in cha. The flight of the inhabitants had never been the Lelantine fields. Many of the islands upmore general. Lava currents are regarded, by those who dwell near Vesuvius, with less dread heaved from the sea belong to the same class. than an eruption of ashes, a phenomenon which had The communication of the external opening with never been known to such a degree in modern times; the interior of the earth is not permanent, and as and the obscure tradition of the manner in which soon as the cleft or opening closes, the volcanic the destruction of Herculaneum, Pompeii, and Sta- action wholly ceases. Humboldt is of opinion biæ, took place, filled the imaginations of men with that "veins or dykes of basalt, dolerite, and porappalling images.* The hot aqueous vapors which rose from the crater during the eruption, and spread themselves in the atmosphere, formed, in cooling, a dense cloud, surrounding the column of fire and ashes which rose to a height of between nine and ten thousand feet. * Flashes of forked lightning, issuing from the columns of ashes, darted That the earth is a melted mass at no very great in every direction, and the rolling thunders were distinctly heard, and distinguished from the sounds depth below its surface, is placed beyond a doubt, which proceeded from the interior of the volcano. not only by the preceding facts, but by a great In no other eruption had the play of the electric mass of observations collected by Humboldt and forces formed so striking a feature. Arago, on the increase of temperature as we descend into the bowels of the earth. "The primitive cause of this subterranean heat is, as in all planets, the process of formation itself, the separation of the spherically condensing mass from a cosmical gaseous fluid, and the cooling of the terrestrial strata at different depths by the loss of heat parted with by radiation.

phyry, which traverse almost all formations, and that masses of syenite, augitic porphyry, and amygdaloid, which characterize the recent transition and oldest sedimentary rocks-have probably been formed in a similar manner."

Elastic

thus be termed intermitting springs or fountains of earthy substances; that is, of the fluid mixture of metals, alkalis, and earths, which solidify into lava currents, and flow softly and tranquilly, when being upheaved they find a passage by which to escape.'

On the morning of the 26th October, a surprising rumor prevailed, that a torrent of boiling water was gushing from the crater, and pouring down the slope of the cone of ashes. Monticelli soon discovered that this was an optical illusion. It was in reality a flow of dry ashes, which, being loose and movable as shifting sand, issued in large quantities from a crevice in the upper margin of the crater.-Pp. 229, 230. vapors press the molten oxydizing substances upOwing to the thunderstorm noticed in this ex-wards through deep fissures. Volcanoes might tract, an abundant and violent fall of rain took place, and as the rain is heaviest above the cone of ashes, torrents of mud descend from it in every direction; and when the summit of the volcano is in the region of perpetual snow, the melting of the snow produces very disastrous inundations. At the foot of volcanoes, too, and on their flanks, there are frequently vast cavities, which, having a communication by many channels with mountain torrents, become subterranean lakes or reservoirs of water. When earthquakes, as happens in the Andes, shake the entire mass of the volcano, these reservoirs are opened, discharging water, fishes, and mud. On the 19th June, 1698, when the Carguairazo, to the north of Chimborazo, and upwards of 19,000 feet high, fell in, an area of nearly thirty square miles was covered with mud and fishes!

Vesuvius, and other similar volcanoes, have permanent communications, by means of their craters, with the interior of the earth. They alternately break forth and slumber, and often "end by becoming solfataras, emitting aqueous vapors,

* The thickness of the bed of ashes which fell during the twelve days was little above three feet on the slope of the cones, and only about eighteen inches on the planes. This is the greatest fall of ashes since the eruption of Vesuvius, which occasioned the death of the elder Pliny.

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Our author concludes this instructive section

with a speculation which he himself characterizes as bold; the object of which is to explain, by means of the internal heat of our globe, the existence, in a fossil state, of the tropical forms of animals and plants in the cold regions of the globe. This hitherto unexplained fact has been ascribed to various causes-to a change in the obliquity of the ecliptic by the approach of a comet, and to a change in the intensity in the sun's light and heat. We have been led to suppose that, as the two poles of maximum cold are nearly coincident with the magnetic poles, they may partake in their revolution, and thus make the warm and the cold meridians, which are now proved to exist, occupy in succession every position on the earth's surface; and that variations in the forces or causes by which that cold is produced, may produce a still further variation of temperature.*

world shows a distribution of organic forms at variEverywhere, (says our author,) the ancient * Edinburgh Transactions, vol. ix., pp. 211, 212.

ance with our present climate.

It

Genius as the personification of Spiritual Love forbidding the enjoyment of sensual pleasure; others said, that it was the assertion of the Empire

may be that, in the ancient world, exhalations of heat issuing forth from the many openings of the deeply-fissured crust of the globe, may have favored, perhaps, for centuries, the growth of palms of Reason over Desire." A collection of pictures and tree-ferns, and the existence of animals requir- having arrived from Rhodes, there was found ing a high temperature, over entire countries among them the companion or pendant of the where now a very different climate prevails. According to this view of things, the temperature of volcanoes would be that of the interior of the earth; and the same cause, which, operating through volcanic eruptions, now produces devastating effects, might, in primeval ages, have clothed the deeply fissured rocks of the newly oxydized earth, in every zone, with the most luxuriant veg

etation.

If, in order to explain the distribution of tropical forms whose remains are now buried in northern

regions, it should be assumed that the long-haired species of elephant now found enclosed in ice, was originally indigenous in cold climates, and that forms resembling the same leading type may, as in the case of lions and lynxes, have been able to live in wholly different climates; still this solution of the difficulty presented by fossil remains cannot be extended so as to apply to vegetable productions. From reasons with which the study of vegetable physiology makes us acquainted, palms, musaccæ, and arborescent monocotyledones, are incapable of supporting the deprivation of their appendicular organs, which would be caused by the present temperature of our northern regions; and in the geological problem which we have to examine, it appears to me difficult to separate vegetable and animal remains from each other. The same mode of explanation ought to comprehend both.-Vol. ii., pp. 239, 241.

The next chapter of the "Aspects of Nature" is one of seven pages, entitled, "The Vital Force, or the Rhodian Genius." It was first printed in Schiller's Hora for 1795, and contains "the development of a physiological idea in a semimythical garb." In an earlier work, our author had defined the vital force as "the unknown cause

Rhodian Genius. The Genius was still the central figure; but his head was now drooping. The butterfly was no longer on his shoulder; and his torch was inverted and extinguished. "The youths and maidens pressing around him had met and embraced. Their glance, no longer sad and subdued, announced, on the contrary, emancipation from restraint, and the fulfilment of longcherished desires."

solution of the problem; and in this crisis of The companion picture afforded no clue to the baffled ingenuity and disappointed curiosity, Dionysius ordered the picture, along with a faithful copy of the Rhodian Genius, to be carried to the house of Epicharmus, a Pythagorean philosopher, who fixed his eyes upon the picture, and thus addressed his disciples :

As living beings are compelled by natural desires to salutary and fruitful union, so the raw materials of inorganic matter are moved by similar impulses. Thus the fire of heaven follows metal-iron obeys the attraction of the loadstone-amber rubbed takes up light substancesearth mixes with earth-salt collects together from the water of the sea-and the acid moisture of the Stypteria, as well as the flocculent salt of Trichitis, love the clay of Melos. In inanimate nature, all things hasten to unite with each other, according to their particular laws. Hence no terrestrial element is to be found anywhere in its pure and primitive state. Each, as soon as formed, tends to enter into new combinations, and the art of man is needed to disjoin and present in a separated state substances which you would seek in vain in the interior of the earth, and in the fluid ocean of air and water. In dead inorganic matter, entire inactivity and repose reign, so long as the bands of affinity continue undissolved, so long as no third substance comes to join itself to the others; but even then the action and disturbance produced are soon again succeeded by unfruitful repose.

which prevents the elements from following their original affinities ;" and he endeavors to illustrate this position by the following story-A picture, called the Rhodian Genius, was brought to Syracuse from Greece, and was supposed to be the work of the same artist who cast the Colossus of It is otherwise, however, when the same subIt was placed in the Gallery of Paint-stances are brought together in the bodies of plants and animals. In these the vital force of power reigns supreme, and regardless of the mutual amity or eninity of the atoms recognized by Democ ritus, commands the union of substances which, in inanimate nature, shun each other, and separates those which are ever seeking to enter into combi

Rhodes.

ings and Sculpture, and excited much difference of opinion, both respecting its author and its object. On the foreground were youths and maidens, handsome and graceful, but unclothed, and expressing in their features and movements only e desires and sorrows of an earthly habitation. Their arms outstretched to each other

indicated "their desire of union;" but they turned their troubled looks towards a halo-encircled Genius who stood in the midst of them. On his shoulder was a butterfly, and in his hand a lighted torch. Though childlike in his form and aspect, a celestial fire animated his glance, and he gazed as with the eye of a master upon the gay throng at his feet. The object of the picture became a problem, which philosophers and con"Some regarded the

Doisseurs strove to solve.

nation.

Now come nearer to me, my friends; look with me on the first of the pictures before us, and recognize in the Rhodian Genius, in the expression of youthful energy, in the butterfly on his shoulder, and in the commanding glance of his eye, the symbol of vital force animating each individual germ of the organic creation. At the feet are the carthy elements desiring to mix and unite conformably to aloft his lighted torch with commanding gesture, their particular tendencies. The Genius, holding controls and constrains them, without regard to their ancient rights, to obey his laws.

Now view with me the new picture which the

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