123 REVIEWS. [April, 



all as bearing witness to God's wisdom as displayed therein ; and 

 this is the spirit in which alone such wonders and beauties should 

 be read ; it is a spirit which, while it gives glory where alone 

 glory should be given, refreshes and improves the mind of the 

 giver, and brings it into closer communion with the Head and 

 Fountain of all things. 



"It may be assumed from these observations that 'Weeds and 

 Wild Flowers ' is a book that we can heartily approve and re- 

 commend; the errors are rather errors of judgment than of fact, 

 and we recommend the lady authoress in future editions to 

 appeal only to the general reader, and altogether eschew, instead 

 of seeking to conciliate, the patronage of the pedant. We extract 

 entire the history of a single genus ; because, by thus allowing 

 the authoress to speak for herself, we represent her more exactly 

 than by any abstract, however candid and faithful, and secondly, 

 because the passage is one which cannot be otherwise than 

 acceptable to the readers of 'The Friend.' The plant whose 

 biography is selected, is the lowly and most familiar but still 

 most interesting Sundew (p. 31) . The preface of mottoes is in 

 itself an amusing though not original conceit, and we think 

 these mottoes might have been largely extended without be- 

 coming wearisome. And here we may observe that many of the 

 mottoes, good in themselves, are not good here, because inappro- 

 priate ; for instance : — 



" And he who perpetually reads good books, if Ms parts be answerable, 

 will have a huge stock of knowledge. — Bishop Taylor. 



" It is an axiom, that while every locality, every natural situation, has 

 perceptible differences in the character of its several beauties, not one is 

 destitute of beauty of some description ; beauty perhaps, which may be 

 totally invisible to the distant surveyor, to the careless passer-by, to the 

 uninqiuring observer; but which yet grows more and more upon our 

 minds the more closely and the more intelligently we examine into it, the 

 more earnestly we seek to read in it the lessons which the Almighty 

 Creator has ' written for our learning,' in every natm-al object which exists 

 in his world, his earth, and his heavens. How chilled, how desolate 

 become our feelings, as we gaze on the sad monotony of some dreary 

 swamp, or unwholesome morass ; how monstrous in their dark sterility do 

 they appear ! And justly so, for it is just that whatever is left as an unculti- 

 vated blank, when it should be tilled with laborious and unwavering care — 

 whether it be in the moral or the physical world — should strike the heart 

 with emotions of sorrow or disgust. If, however, instead of contemplating 



