JlTLY 3. 1852.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



tvhether a passage in one of them, which has just 

 been brought under my notice, be a fair sample of 

 the whole ; but it is, at all events, so curious in a 

 literary point of view as to deserve some public 

 notice. 



The volume is entitled, Voices of the Night, 

 Seventh Thousand, 1852; and the subject of the 

 sermon or chapter in which the passage occurs is, 

 "Nature's Ti-avail and Expectancy" (Rom. viii. 

 19 — 22.). On this, then. Dr. Gumming discourses 

 as follows (pp. 158-9.) : 



" The celebrated German poet and philosopher 

 Goethe, who lived and died a sceptic, and whose testi- 

 mony, therefore, was not meant to confirm that of the 

 Bible, has said, ' When I stand all alone at night in 

 open nature, I feel as though nature were a spirit, and 

 begged redemption of me.' .... And again, he 

 says, ' Often, often have I had the sensation as if 

 nature, in wailing sadness, entreated something of me ; 

 so that not to understand what she longed for, has cut 

 me to the very heart.' .... But I present another 

 witness — that of a great and good man. Martin 

 Luther says : • Albeit the creature hath not speech 

 such as we have, it hath a language still, which God 

 the Holy Spirit heareth and understandeth. How 

 nature groaneth for the wrong it must endure from 

 those who so misuse artd abuse it ! ' Here we have the 

 sceptic Goethe and the eminent Christian Luther 

 concurring in the same thing. And the poet who is 

 supposed to tread nearest to the inspired, says very 

 beautifully : 



' To me they seem. 

 Those J^jV [far] sad streaks that reach along the west 

 Like strains of song still [long, full] yearning [,] from 



the chords 

 Of nature's orchestra. Weary [,] yet still 

 She sinks with longing to her winter-sleep, 

 Dreams ever of that birth from whose bright dawn 

 The whole creation groans. Fair, sad companion ! 

 I join my sighs [sigli] with thine ; yet none can be 

 Our sighs' [sigh's] interpreter, but that great God 



[Good] 

 Who breathes eternal wisdom, made, redeemed, 

 yind [O,] loves us both ; and ever moves as erst 

 On thy dark water's [waters'] face.' 



[November.]" 



To begin with the latter part of this e.Ktract. 

 The reader may perhaps ask, Who is " the poet 

 who is supposed to tread nearest to the inspired ? " 

 I cannot tell who may have been in Dr. Cumraing's 

 mind; but the verses were really written by an 

 excellent friend of mine, quite unknown to the 

 world as a poet ; and are to be found at p. 298. of 

 a translation of Olshausen On the Epistle to the 

 Romans, Avhich was published by Messrs. Clark, of 

 Edinburgh, in 1849. I do not think that Dr. 

 Gumming has improved them by substituting the 

 words in Italics for those which I have restored 

 within brackets, or by his changes in the punctu- 

 ation, one of which turns the substantive yearning 

 into a participle, while another makes au adjective 



of the adverb still. And I am unable to imagine 

 how he can have been led to attribute them to any 

 celebrated writer, since the translator of Olshausea 

 very sufficiently intimates that they are of his own 

 composition. 



Next, I have to remark that for the quotations 

 from " the sceptic Goethe and the eminent Chris- 

 tian Luther," as also for another quotation from 

 the latter (p. 145.), and for very much besides, 

 Dr. Gumming is indebted to Olshausen, Avhose 

 name he never condescends to mention, although 

 at pp. 134-5. lie parades a host of other commen- 

 tators, including " Ghrysostom, Jerome, Theo- 

 doret, and almost all the ancient lathers, with 

 scarcely a single exception." 



Lastly, the words which are fathered on Goethe 

 are not his. Olshausen (Germ. iii. 314., Eng. 284.) 

 gives a reference to Goethe's Brief wechsel mit einem 

 Kinde, and introduces them as something which 

 " Bettina writes." Dr. Gumming would seem 

 never to have heard of the Correspondence, and to 

 have mistaken Bettina for a creature of the poet's 

 imagination ; but, if so, was it quite fair to tell 

 his hearers and readers that the words supposed to 

 be put into her mouth were the expression of 

 Goethe's personal feeling ? J. C. Robektson. 



Bekesbourne. 



PROGHESSIVE DEVELOPMENT AND TBANSMUTATION 

 OP SPECIES, 



I think it is high time that experiments, con- 

 ducted on scientific principles, should be made oil 

 the transmutation of species in tiie vegetable king- 

 dom. The fact of such transmutation, if not cer- 

 tain, appears to be the only solution of several 

 remarkable phenomena already brought to light. 

 It is now a matter of fact, capable of easy experi- 

 ment, that if oats be sown in the spring, and be 

 kept topped during the summer and autumn 

 (without wounding the leaves), a crop of rye 

 makes its appearance at the close of the summer of 

 the following year. An analogous fact, equally 

 well known, though not so significant, is the seeds 

 of an immense number of flowers and trees in- 

 variably give birth to varieties apparently distinct 

 from their parent plants. (For instance, the dahlia, 

 laburnum, and fuchsia.) But the fact I wish to 

 introduce to your pages is one quite as remark- 

 able as the first I have mentioned. It is this. If 

 a stock of yellow laburnum (Cytisus laburnum) be 

 grafted upon the common purjde laburnum (C^*- 

 tisus Alpinus), the resulting tree frequently bears 

 three distinct species of Cytisus, viz. : 



I. And abundantly, the purple laburnum. , 



II. More sparely, the yellow laburnum. 



III. Still more sparinjily, a beautiful plant, 

 known by the name of the purple Cytisus, but 

 specifically distinct, and in appearance totally 

 diiferent from a laburnum. 



