U MEMOIR OF DR. HARVEY. 



fifty species. I have written a power of verses, and conse- 

 quently of nonsense, which, when you come, you- may laugh at. 



" The power of verses " to which he alludes he looked upon 

 in after years as a mass of juvenile folly ; nevertheless they con- 

 tain many striking similes and gems of thought, and have been 

 fondly preserved by the remnant of the domestic circle for 

 whom they were written. No better picture of his favourite 

 Miltown Malbay is to be found than that drawn in a poem 

 which six years afterwards lie severely condemned in a letter to 

 the cousin to whom he had dedicated it. " I have," he says, 

 "lately read ' Miltown,' and verily I know not how you tolerated 

 such trash. I should like to destroy every copy of it in existence. 

 It makes me groan. Behold how we change from year to year ! 

 Ten years hence let us see !" 



In August he writes to Dr. Hooker as follows : — 



"I have just returned from a short visit to the Western Sea, 

 in which I have had a very fair success. I intend forwarding 

 to thee a parcel from its proceeds, with whatever else I may 

 find in the interim. My visit was to Kilkee, a bathing shore, 

 fourteen miles from Miltown, where I had never previously had 

 an opportunity of botanizing. It appears to be rich in interest- 

 ing plants. I was prevented going to Connemara, so the Erica 

 may remain another season ungathered. 



" I have lately been dissecting our common Syperica (St. 

 John's wort) ; and it is really curious that such gross errors 

 should have crept into the description of one of our most 

 common and well-known plants, and that botanists should have 

 gone on copying from one another without using their own eyes. 

 If ever I write the " Flora Hibernica " I am determined to dissect 

 everything. Apropos of dissection, I am a miserable manipu- 

 lator, and should be very grateful for a few lessons. I am much 

 puzzled as to how you dissect minute seeds. I find them very 

 difficult to cut on the table of the microscope. 



kk I have had a very land letter from Agardh. He requests 

 to open a correspondence with me, to which, of course, I have 

 gladly acceded. 



" I have lately sent out to Ceylon a store of paper bags to 

 be filled with algae, by a young surgeon, sailing to that island 

 from Cork. He is a Mr. Cavet, and something of a botanist, 



