io THE MUSIC OF WILD FLOWERS 



may be recalled, those of Jean Jacques Rousseau and 

 of John Stuart Mill. Readers of Rousseau's Confessions 

 will remember the many allusions to the pursuit of 

 botany which beguiled, especially in his later years, so 

 many hours of the unhappy philosopher's life. He 

 often regretted that, as a young man, he had not availed 

 himself of the companionship of one Claude Anet, who, 

 like himself, was an inmate of the household of Madame 

 de Warens, and who, in his herbalising expeditions in 

 the neighbourhood of Chambery, would return home 

 laden with rare and interesting plants. But at that 

 time Rousseau considered botany as only " a fit study 

 for an apothecary." Claude Anet unfortunately died 

 of a pleurisy, caught while botanising in the Alps, and 

 the chance of becoming " an excellent botanist " was 

 lost to the philosopher. But in after years he became, 

 as he tells us, " passionately devoted " to the study of 

 plants, which filled up lys leisure hours, and in pursuit 

 of which he would wander for miles along the country- 

 side, " without a weary moment." During his sojourn 

 in the Isle St Pierre, a lovely spot in the middle of the 

 Lake of Bienne, he seems to have devoted most of his 

 time to his favourite hobby. " The different soils into 

 which the island, although little, was divided, offered," 

 he writes in his Confessions, " a sufficient variety of 

 plants for the study and amusement of my whole 

 life. I was determined not to leave a blade of grass 

 without examination, and I began to take measures 

 for making, with an immense collection of observa- 

 tions, a Flora Petrinsularis." The persecution, how- 

 ever, to which Rousseau was subjected followed him 

 to his beloved retreat, and before long he received 

 notice from the authorities to quit the island without 



