GASEOUS CONSTITUTION. 



317 



"NYlien Shakspeare made his charming Ariel sing 



" Full fathom five thy father lies, 



Of his bones are coral made, 

 Those are pearls that were his eyes: 



Nothing of him that doth fade, 

 But doth suffer a sea change 

 Into something rich and strange," 



he painted, with considerable correctness,, the chemical 

 changes by which decomposing animal matter is replaced 

 by a siliceous or calcareous formation. 



But the gifted have the power of looking through the 

 veil of nature, and they have revelations more wonder- 

 ful than even those of the philosopher, who evokes them 

 by perpetual toil and brain-racking struggle with the 

 ever-changing elements around him. 



The mysteries of flowers have ever been the charm of 

 the poet's song. Imagination has invested them with 

 a magic influence, and fancy has almost regarded them 

 as spiritual things. In contemplating their surpassing 

 loveliness, the mind of every observer is improved, and 

 the sentiments which they inspire, by their mere exter- 

 nal elegance, are great and good. But in examining 

 the real mysteries of their conditions, their physical 

 phenomena, the relations in which they stand to the 

 animal world, " stealing and giving odours" in the mar- 

 vellous interchange of carbonic acid and ammonia for 

 the soul-inspiring oxygen all speaking of the powers of 

 some unseen, in-dwefling principle, directed by a supreme 

 ruler the philosopher finds subjects for deep and soul- 

 trying contemplation. Such studies lift the mind into 

 the truly sublime of nature. The poet's dream is the 

 dim reflection of a distant star : the philosopher's reve- 

 lation is a strong telescopic examination of its features. 

 One is the mere echo of the remote whisper of nature's 

 voice in the dim twilight; the other is the swelling 



