346 



TABLE-TALK AND VARIETIES. 



The most delicate and costly exo- 

 tics are to be found in the flower- 

 stalls of Covent Garden market; 

 and even some of the rarer and 

 more beautiful of the native wild- 

 flowers, such as the bee-ophrys, 

 not unfrequently appear in the 

 market, to which they are sent by 

 local collectors, to whom the bota- 

 nist owes a grudge for despoiling 

 the cherished and familiar stations 

 of his favourite plants. 



DOCTOR YOUNG. 



One day as Dr. Young was walk- 

 ing in his garden at Welwyn, in 

 company with two ladies (one of 

 whom he afterwards married), the 

 servant came to acquaint him that 

 u gentleman wished to speak with 

 him. " Tell him," says the doctor, " I 

 am too happily engaged to change 

 my situation !" The ladies insisted 

 he should go, as his visitor was a 

 man of rank, his patron, and his 

 friend; but, as persuasion had no 

 effect, one took him by the right 

 Jinn, the other by the left, and led 

 him to the garden gate; when find- 

 ing resistance in vain, he bowed, 

 laid his hand upon his heart, and 

 spoke the following words in that 

 expressive manner for which he was 

 so remarkable : 

 " Thus Adam look'd, when, from the 

 garden driven, 



And thus disputed orders sent from 

 heaven : 



Like him I go, but yet to go nm loth; 



Like him I go, for angels drove us 

 both. 



Hard was his fate, but mine still more 

 unkind: 



His Eve went with him, but mine stays 

 behind." 



BOOK-MAKING. 



La Bruyere, many years ago, ob- 

 served, that " 'tis as much a trade 

 to make a book as a clock; c'est 

 un metier que de faire un livre, 

 comme de faire une pendule." But 

 since his day many vast improve- 

 ments have been made. Solomon 

 said, that " of making many books 



there is no end ;" and Seneca com- 

 plained, that " as the Bomans had 

 more than enough of other things, 

 so they had also of books and book- 

 making." But Solomon and Seneca 

 lived in an age when books were 

 considered as a luxury, and not a 

 necessary of life. The case is now- 

 altered; and though, perhaps, as 

 Dr. Johnson observed, no man gets 

 a bellyful of knowledge, every one 

 has a mouthful. What would So- 

 lomon say now, could he see our 

 monthly catalogues, or be told that 

 upwards of a dozen critical ma- 

 chines were kept constantly at 

 work, merely to weigh and stamp 

 publications." 



ANCIENT VALUE OF BOOKS. 



In the year 1471, when Louis XL 

 borrowed the works of Basis, the 

 Arabian physician, from the Facul ty 

 of Medicine, in Paris, he not only 

 deposited in pledge a considerable 

 quantity of plate, but was obliged 

 to procure a nobleman to join him 

 as surety in a deed, binding him- 

 self under a great forfeiture to 

 restore it. "When any person made 

 a present of a book to a church, or 

 a monastery, in which were the 

 only libraries during several ages, 

 it was deemed a donative of such, 

 value, that he offered it on the 

 altar, pro remedia animce sues, in 

 order to obtain the forgiveness of 

 sins. (Belies of Literature.) 



DISCOVERY OF GALVANISM. 



The discovery of the effects of 

 electricity on animals, took place 

 from something like accident. 



The wife of Galvani, at that time 

 professor of anatomy in the Uni- 

 versity of Bologna, being in a de- 

 clining state of health, employed 

 as a restorative, according to the 

 custom of the country, a soup made 

 of frogs. A number of these ani- 

 mals, ready skinned for the pur- 

 I pose of cooking, were lying, with 



