92 WILD FLOWERS. 



their attention to a story so overflowing with the 

 elements of both pursuits. This Polish physician, 

 who was the friend of the Sieur de la Violette, 

 kept, as he tells us, the ashes of almost every plant 

 bottled up in phials ; and when he wished to pro- 

 duce any particular flower, he simply held its ashes 

 over a lighted taper. The warmth thus gently com- 

 municated soon caused a movement in the phial ; 

 shewing the applicability of the following line to 

 vegetable structures ; 



" E'en in their ashes live their wonted fires ;" 



for soon, in the quaint language of our author, " one 

 could perceive a small, dark, cloud, which dividing 

 itself into little parcels, came at last to represent a 

 rose (or whatever plant might be under experi- 

 ment), so fine, so fresh, so perfect, that one would 

 have thought it could be handled, and must smell 

 like one that is pluckt from the rose-tree." The 

 Sieur de la Yiolette, as he himself tells us, became 

 very desirous to perform similar prodigies ; for some 

 time, however, all his experiments failed, until, at 

 length, in making some chance experiments on the 

 salts drawn from the ashes of burnt nettles, he 

 exposed them to the dew in winter. In the morn- 

 ing he found them frozen, but "with this wonder- 

 ful circumstance, that the species of the nettles, 

 their form and figure, were so naturally and per- 

 fectly delineated upon the ice, that they seemed to 

 be true nettles/' Du Chesne, continues the account, 

 was " overjoyed " at a success, " the excellency of 

 which made him cry out in these words : ' Secret dont 



