BOYHOOD. 17 



It will be a great luxury when the plants are all in. I got the 

 cabinet chiefly for lichens, on which I am in daily expectation 

 of receiving two works, the " Methodus," aud the " Synopsis 

 Lichenum " of the great Acharius. These I have ordered, to fill 

 up the time till Hooker's second volume shall appear. In Cork 

 I had sundry luxury looking over books known before only by 

 hearsay. — Hooker's " Jungermannia " not among the least of the 

 delights. Oh, for Greville's '• Cryptoganiic Flora !" Alas ! the 

 price is 18?. or so. I escaped by " hairbreadth " going to 

 Killarney last month ; but " brighter hours may come." How 

 I should revel among the Kerry mountains ! 



The following extract may make our young naturalist appear 

 as a somewhat fierce democrat and revolutionist, while in fact he 

 was in disposition and temperament much more of the aristocrat 

 and conservative. His sympathy in the cause of freedom, here 

 so warmly expressed, may be looked upon merely as an outburst 

 of youthful ardour, kindled by his hatred of tyranny, injustice, 

 and wrong. 



It may be said besides that Moore and Byron then influenced 

 young poetic minds quite as strongly as Longfellow and Tenny- 

 son do in the present clay ; and " The Torch of Liberty," handed 

 from nation to nation, as depicted in the so-named poem, could 

 hardly be read by so enthusiastic an admirer of Moore's fas- 

 cinating poetry without awakening an echo. 



Mr. J. Harvey, New York. 



December, 1830. 

 I was in great fear when the first news came from 

 Paris, while the three days of July were progressing, that some 

 conciliatory measures would have been adopted which would 

 have spoiled all. But no. The Bourbons were never more 

 delightfully blind. They galled to the uttermost, and then 

 there was no retreating, and they have taken their farewell of 

 France for ever. Charles is pleasantly settled at Holyrood 

 House, where I believe they still make a show of royalty 

 pretty similar to that kept up by the ex-Stuarts. His unfor- 

 tunate ministers will probably forfeit their lives in a few days, 

 if they have not done so already. This severity is, I think, 



C 



