222 PROSERPINA. 



and healing in sleep, or of strengthening, if not 

 too prolonged, action on the nervous power of life. 

 Of these, the first will be the DIONYSID^,— 

 Hedera, Vitis, Liana; then the DRACONID^, 

 — Atropa, Digitalis, Linaria ; and, lastly, the 

 MOIRID^E, — Conium, Papaver, Solanum, Arum, 

 and Nerium. 



33. As I see this scheme now drawn out, 

 simple as it is, the scope of it seems not only far 

 too great for adequate completion by my own labour, 

 but larger than the time likely to be given to 

 botany by average scholars would enable them 

 intelligently to grasp: and yet it includes, I sup- 

 pose, not the tenth part of the varieties of plants 

 respecting which, in competitive examination, a 

 student of physical science is now expected to 

 know, or at least assert on hearsay, sometliing. 



So far as I have influence with the young, 

 myself, I would pray them to be assured that it 

 is better to know the habits of one plant than the 

 names of a thousand ; and wiser to be happily 

 familiar with those that grow in the nearest field, 

 than arduously cognisant of all that plume the 

 isles of the Pacific, or illumine the Mountains of 

 the Moon. 



Nevertheless, I believe that when once the 

 general form of this system in Proserpina has been 



