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cise we have gladly sat down to the bread and cheese of the unlooked- 

 for road-side hostelry — astonished the good wife of the half public, half 

 farm-house by our exploits in the way of putting the delicious bacon 

 and eggs out of sight — or, more delightful still, remembering the 

 congregating of kindred spirits around the social board at night, 

 each recounting the events and displaying the acquisitions of the 

 day — we can scarcely avoid exclaiming with Horace (who, by the 

 way, we are almost inclined to claim as a brother naturalist), — 



" O rus ! quando ego te adspiciam ? quandoque licebit, 

 Nunc veterum libris, nunc somno et inertibus horis, 

 Ducere sollicitae jucunda oblivia vitae ? 

 O ! quando faba Pythagorae cognata, simulque 

 Uncta satis pingui ponentur oluscula lardo ? 

 O nodes coznceque Deum ! quibus ipse meique, 

 Ante larem proprium vescor, vernasque procaces 

 Pasco libatis dapibus. Prout cuique libido est, 

 Siccat inaequales calices conviva, solutus 

 Legibus insanis ; seu quis capit acria fortis 

 Pocula, seu modicis uvescit lsetius. Ergo 

 Serrno oritur, non de villis domibusve alienis, 

 Nee, male necne Fabbri saltet ; sed quod inagis ad nos 

 Pertinet, et nescire malum est, agitamus." 



Just such a party as Horace describes can we imagine these old 

 herbalists to have been : and truly delightful companions without 

 doubt were they. Contented with the highways of life as of Botany, 

 they thankfully plucked the fresh flow'rets as they presented them- 

 selves to their hand; and little disposed were they to explore the 

 byways in search of the more occult treasures of the woods and 

 groves. There was not, it is true, in their days, that necessity for in- 

 dependent and original research which now exists; theirs was the 

 apostolic age of natural history, when naturalists yet had all things 

 in common ; when no one, more enterprising than his compeers, 

 feared the receipt of a legal epistle, filled with threats of pains and 

 penalties incurred by diffusing information collected from less acces- 

 sible and more costly sources without permission, and plainly inti- 

 mating that permission would not be granted even if asked ; in short, 

 when science was loved for its own sake, rather than for the honours 

 and emoluments it might bring to the professor. To the unsophisti- 

 cated naturalists of those bygone days we must now say adieu ;— peace 

 to their ashes ! L- 



