202 REVIEWS. 



print the imperfect statement, as I can independently shape it." 

 To get at the facts, " I should have to write a dozen of letters 

 before I could print a line, and the line at last would be only 

 like a bit of any other botanical book — trustworthy, it might 

 be perhaps, but certainly unreadable." The converse is pre- 

 ferred. Readable it certainly is, and in its way interesting, 

 not so much for what it tells about botany as for what it tells 

 about Mr. Ruskin; and the art student, out of the abundance 

 of golden chaff, may pick some grains of knowledge that might 

 not otherwise fall in his way. But the seeker of botanical 

 information must glean warily, especially where the author 

 grows positiv^e. For almost the only instance in which he 

 does pronounce decidedly happens to be a vexed question in 

 vegetable physiology, and there is reason to fear that he de- 

 cides it wrongly. At least the recent investigators who have 

 had the matter in hand in the way of experimental inquiry, 

 will not agree wdth him that the plant can get water from the 

 atmosphere directly and " for the most part does so ; though 

 when it cannot get water from the air, it will gladly drink by 

 its roots." Still " our natural and honest mistakes will often 

 be suggestive of things w^e could not have discovered but by 

 wandering." Very likely ; but why invite learners to go forth 

 with him upon his wanderings ? In many a book the want of 

 sufficient knowledge is pleaded as an excuse ; in this, it is 

 paraded as a recommendation. Ignorance, no doubt, has its 

 uses ; but it is questionable whether teaching is altogether 

 the best use to put it to. As the member of Parliament w^ho 

 yawned desperately while delivering his speech was thought 

 to trench upon the privilege of his hearers, so the students of 

 "Proserpina" may complain that the playing of the role both 

 of teacher and learner at once involves some incongruity and 

 inconveniences. 



The second part of " Proserpina " has just come to hand. 

 It treats of the leaf and the flower, in a discursive and oracular 

 way, leading into sesthetical questions, where we need not 

 follow and do not greatly admire. Now and then a scientific 

 topic is taken up, and the point missed, as usual. Treating 

 of foliage and its office, we are bid " to think awhile of its dark 



