90 MEMOIR OF DR. HARVEY. 



understood that I dislike visiting, and people are so kind as to 

 cease to press me. 



May 3rd. I am reading " Evelyn's Diary," and mean to call my 

 next new plant Evelyna stjlvatica, provided it be " a wondrous 

 lovely simple of rare stupendous fabriq." 'Tis amusing to have 

 a peep at his times, but there is less of this than I expected ; 

 I am, however, only in Vol. II., and there are five. My 

 " Southey's Cowper," long since ordered, is not yet arrived. 



June 12nd. I hardly know what to think when I look back to 

 Ireland ; everything seems so sad among you, as I see by the 

 newspapers — failures, distress, sickness, and stormy politics. A 

 few years will tell much, but it often makes me very dull to 

 think what they may bring about. 



I have been edified by the reading over the old letters from 

 school, which I have not thrown into the fire, as I intend to 

 amuse myself with them at some future time ; but it is humiliat- 

 ing that my mind does not seem to have advanced a single jot 

 since I wrote them, though ten years have passed over my head, 

 with their changes and sorrows, and have transformed the idle 

 conchological schoolboy into the listless botanical treasurer of 

 South Afrcia. The button on my coat has altered, and the cut 

 thereof, but there is no other change ; I am still as ardent a 

 pursuer of folly as I then was, nor do I appear older, though 

 my hair has sundry grey tell-tales scattered through it. When 

 is the mind matured, I wonder ? Some men appear to have 

 progressive minds ; and to go on rising in the scale, and others 

 stick short at a very dwarfish growth, and years bring them no 

 wisdom . Of the latter class am I : I don't think I have added 

 anything since I was sixteen. Just as I had written so far, I had 

 to adjourn to the Legislative Council, to listen to the singularly 

 entertaining debate on the second reading of the " Orphan 

 Chamber Ordinance Bill," and to give my vote, though not to 

 speak thereon ; and now I resume in my bedroom, by a snug 

 little fire, whose only fault is that the chimney is so ill-natured 

 as not to exert itself without the aiding draught of an open 

 window or door, which is rather provoking. I live in the hope 

 of improvement from a mason the first fine day. 



My occupations are little varied. The last few days the rain 

 has poured in torrents, so of course I have sat by my fire reading 

 either Crabbe or Shakespeare, or some library book. The two 



