22 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN. 
have tried to form some probable conjecture of the mental 
phase of its author; and of the nature of the motives 
which may have prompted the thought. The will in its 
inception was of grand and noble birth; and in the variety 
and multitude of its provisions, must have occupied, not 
merely days and weeks, but months in its elaboration. It 
involves careful and comprehensive thought, to put in 
order and proper proportion the varied considerations to be 
embraced, in answering the demands of the present, and 
providing for the ever-increasing and ever-varying devel- 
opments growing out of the passage of years, and in all 
probability of centuries. Here was a princely estate, and an 
exceptional field for the exercise of a public spirit, devoid of 
all selfishness, and looking forward to a kindly provision 
for the pure pleasure and harmless enjoyment of genera- 
tions to come, and for the permanent protection of a 
science, second to none in interest and importance; and 
that too with a munificence and far-reaching wisdom, of 
which the history of this country has furnished no 
precedent. 
How often, as he took his seat in his fairy-like Garden, 
with the flowers smiling all around him, yielding their 
grateful fragrance as incense for their loving culture — how 
often, must his thoughts have traveled onward to the time 
when another father would be there to look after his chil- 
dren. And how naturally then, would arise the wish to per- 
petuate himself in such case; and doubtless it was from 
such a wish, that the thoughts grew and took shape, which 
were afterward embodied in distinct clauses of his last will 
and testament. Was it not one of these little preachers, 
or it may be, a bright company of them blooming at his 
feet, that lifted his thoughts heavenward ; chanting in his 
ears the praises of the High and Lofty One, inhabiting 
eternity, who yet beautifies His footstool by painting the 
petal of the lily and the rose, and covering the checkered 
surface of the earth with its carpet of emerald? It must 
have been a consonance of thought and feeling with such 
