48 4j Natural History in Foreign Countries, 



while each priest, at the same time, sees that the children of his flock attend 

 regularly. After the child has been the appointed number of years at 

 Bchool, it receives from the schoolmaster, and the priest of the religion to 

 which it belongs, a certificate, without which it cannot procure employment. 

 To employ any person under twenty-one, without such a certificate, is ille- 

 gal, and punished by a fixed fine, as is almost every other offence in this 

 part of Germany ; and the fines are never remitted, which makes punish- 

 ment always certain. The schoolmaster is paid much in the same way as in 

 Scotland ; by a house, a garden, and sometimes a field, and by a small salary 

 from the parish j and by fixed rates for the children. 



A second law, which is coeval with the school law, renders it illegal for 

 any young man to marry before he is twenty-five, or any young woman be- 

 fore she is eighteen ; and a young man, at whatever age he wishes to marry, 

 must show, to the police and the priest of the commune where he resides, 

 that he is able, and has the prospect, to provide for a wife and family. 



There are minor causes, but these two laws, and the general possession of 

 land both by labourers and tradesmen, are the chief. Amongst the minor 

 causes are the general simplicity of their forms of religion, and universal 

 toleration ; even the Catholic faith, in Wurtemberg, is unattended with the 

 ceremony and spectacle with which it is exhibited in various parts of Ger- 

 many and France. The equal footing on which the different religions are 

 placed, is also favourable to liberality of sentiment and good neighbourhood. 

 That particular mildness of feature and character, so different from what is 

 met with in the labouring classes in England, is, no doubt, partly owing to 

 the greater proportions of vegetables and fruits which enter into the general 

 diet of the population ; the almost total abstinence from strong liquors or 

 spirits, the general drink being wine ; and, perhaps, to the almost unremitted 

 smoking of tobacco from morning to night. 



If we seem to have wandered a little from our direct path, in order to 

 bring these particulars into the view of our readers, it is because we think 

 similar laws, in respect to education and marriage, would be of the greatest 

 importance to Britain and Ireland. Nothing could be easier than for every 

 vestry and parish clergyman to see them executed. Such laws would be a 

 small infringement, it is true, on personal liberty; but an infringement 

 which, we should think, every reasonable parent would assent to, and for 

 which, we are sure, every child, on its arrival at the age of maturity, would 

 be thankful. We most ardently wish that the state of things in the three 

 countries mentioned, might attract the attention of some person of parlia- 

 mentary interest ; and that those who have doubts on the subject, would 

 consent to inform themselves by a residence of a few weeks in Wurtemberg, 

 and especially at Stuttgard, round which city will be found one of the richest 

 and most picturesque countries in Europe. If we have made any mis- 

 takes in this hurried relation, written without leisure to refer to the docu- 

 ments which we have in our portmanteau, M. ZoUer, one of the Commis- 

 sioners of National Schools, and our principal informant, will correct us, or 

 supply our omissions. — Cond. 



ITALY. 



Flora Virgiliana. — Sprengel of Halle, and Martin of London, have en- 

 deavoured to ascertain the identity of the plants mentioned by Virgil; and, 

 more recently, M. Fee of Paris, was employed upon the same subject by the 

 editor of the Latm Classics; but 8ig. Tenore of Naples, has not only had the 

 advantage of their remarks, but has travelled over Italy with his Virgilin his 

 hand, and has just published the result in a brochure entitled Osservazioni 

 tulla Flora Virgiliana. He only mentions eleven. 1. The .^rundo of 

 Virgil is not necessarily the ^rundo Donax, nor the J. Phragmites, as M. 

 F^e decides ; for Italy possesses other species of ^rundo. 2. The J?accar 

 is not the Valeriana celtica, as M. F^e thinks, but rather the ^'sarum. 3. The 



