88 MEMOIR OF DR. HARVEY. 



public spirit induces thee to clear the streets of drunkards, mine 

 may rise from its clods of indolence, and be useful in some other 

 way. 



Treasury, Cape Town, April 6th, 1837. 

 I have been fussing about most of the morning, and there- 

 fore desire to refresh myself with some nonsense, before I turn 

 the keys in my big iron chest for the day. I have rambled once 

 or twice since I wrote last, and having bought a horse, may 

 ramble yet again, and as often as leisure affords. As the season 

 wears on things will come into blossom. Mosses are the reigning 

 favourites for the while. They begin to tire. Probably algae 

 will supply their place, as I have just received a letter from 

 Greville, and a letter always acts on me in inducing to the 

 favourite pursuit of its writer. Poor man ! He has been suffering 

 from his eyes — a threatening of blindness — the greatest mishap 

 a botanist could receive, for who has more work for his eyes 

 than he ? He was better, but still unable to use the microscope. 

 I have been, and am still reading " Coleridge's Remains." They 

 are, as might be expected, interesting ; but in his lectures made 

 up from the recollections of his friends, you have not the comfort 

 of thinking you receive his own words. I am a lover of his 

 prose almost as much as of iris poetry, but cannot help con- 

 tinually grieving at the innumerable half-finished columns and 

 arches you meet Bcattered about, like the national monument on 

 the Carton Hill — a noble plan, but left half-finished. He 

 certainly had a wonderful mind, but how little is posterity the 

 better for it. The weather cools, but the days shorten, and I 

 have prepared but little winter's work as yet. The races and 

 race ball commence next week, neither of which will I patronise, 

 but I suppose I must go to the Government House parties on 

 the 13th and 14th ; however, I do not mind that much. I stole a 

 holiday on Saturday for Paradise, where I spent the day poking 

 after mosses. I got three species of Hookeria, all lovely, and 

 one of them appears to be quite new. Its nearest ally is a 

 species from New Holland, but 'tis quite distinct. I passed 

 through a superb forest of Hemitelia (tree fern), which I gaze at 

 every time with new delight. It never can look common ; its 

 loveliness is too surpassing to associate the idea of vulgarity with 

 it : though in some places the steins were so dense I could hardly 



