52 NEW PUBLICATIONS. 
The amusement to a reader arises from an under-stratum of intense 
egotism, cropping out to the surface in unexpected localities, combined 
with the odd manner in which the author's own alleged facts either 
directly contradict his most emphatic assertions, or by fair process of 
reasoning can be shown utterly inconsistent therewith. And yet the 
work is not without its internal evidence of vigorous and independent 
thought in the writer, which some day may possibly give him a posi- 
tion in science, high enough to excuse the very dogmatic expression of 
opinions, occasionally much at variance with currently accepted notions, 
which his present kuowledge of botany appears inadequate to support 
him in. Meantime, he must first learn to look with a little more re- 
spect upon the recorded experience of other workers in like fields, and 
abate a good deal of the present egotism which makes him — quite un- 
consciously, it may be — parade his individual knowledge and opinions, 
as being more sound and more trustworthy than the combined kuow- 
ledge and balanced opinions of most other workers in the like field of 
botany taken together. 
* 
We know not whether any venders of cheap literature haunt the 
streets of Calcutta ; and it is only by a play of fancy that we can hear 
some hawker of books crying aloud: — "Hindoos and Anglo-Indians! 
Here you may buy for the small charge of three pennies (say, half a 
quarter of a rupee), a ■ List of Andover Plants, being a catalogue of 
the flowering plants and ferns observed by C. B. Clarke, within ten 
(nearly entirely within five) miles of Andover, during occasional visits 
from 1858 to 1865.' Andover, O men of ray caste and of all other 
castes, is a small town of no particular importance, situate somewhere, 
thousands of miles distant from Calcutta, in our Imperial Sovereign's 
island Queendom of Britain. Far away though the little town of 
Andover is, and maybe never before heard of by you, the book of its 
flora is printed in our capital of Calcutta, published only in Calcutta, 
and bearing the name of no British publisher on its title-page. O 
men of my caste, or whatever caste you be, encourage the literature of 
India, by expending the eighth of a rupee in buying the List of 
Andover Plants. Believe me, it is worth more than the author prices 
it at." 
Dropping the badinage, we will condense the author's own account 
of his district, which may serve to show that he has good notions as 
to what is appropriate and desirable information to give in connection 
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