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which we are now alluding. This quality, however, occasionally 

 leads Mr. Henfrey into the solecism of making too much display of 

 knowledge lately acquired : thus he reads, is struck with the beauty 

 of a theory or hypothesis that comes suddenly under his notice : he 

 devours and digests it, and then serves it up to every one who falls 

 in his way. We recollect once telling a little boy the Guy Fawkes 

 legend, greatly to his astonishment ; and we heard him many, many 

 times within the next day or two repeating the mystery to every one 

 he talked to, — children, servants, even graybeards who had seen fifty 

 fifths of November, were informed " There was once a very wicked 

 man," &c, &c. Mr. Henfrey is the exact counterpart of this child; 

 he is delighted with every new acquisition of knowledge, and sup- 

 poses it as new to others as to himself. After all, this weakness, if it 

 be one, is a pleasing weakness, and but that hypotheses thus im- 

 plicitly received, and thus constantly intermingled with fact, occa- 

 sionally obscure what would otherwise be extremely clear and simple, 

 we would not hold up so much as a little finger against it. Now cer- 

 tainly a proof of our allegation must be given ; and although the truth 

 of the allegation has forced itself on us all along, as we read from title- 

 page to colophon, or rather to lion, for the book ends with the effigy 

 of a lion rampant, still there is no salient point to cite as an apt illus- 

 tration. However, beginning the book again, the first description — 

 that of the flower — offers a sufficient, though perhaps not forcible ex- 

 ample of our meaning. It would appear our author has lately found, 

 devoured and digested Dr. Lindley's striking remarks on Morpho- 

 logy : it will be seen how those remarks are served up for our benefit 

 in the following few lines, which we extract consecutively : — 



" The flowers are composed of a number of different parts, and as 

 these are considered to be in reality peculiar forms of leaves, like 

 them they are, in the first instance, combined and folded up in buds. 

 A flower-bud is to be compared with the leaf-bud, which afterwards 

 unfolds into a stem bearing leaves. In the flower no internodes are 

 formed between the leaves, and they thus remain grouped in circles 

 or a close spiral. The flower of the Wall-flower presents us with 

 four leaves in the outer circle, and these will be best examined on a 

 bud, as they fall off soon after if. opens. These are green, like the true 

 leaves, but are smaller and much changed in their general appear- 

 ance. They are called sepals, and collectively they form the calyx, 

 or cup of the flower, which is always known from the other parts by 

 being the outermost circle. To the calyx succeeds another circle of 

 four bodies, which still retain in some degree the character of leaves, 



