HOME LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE. 225 



a shilling on common days, and sixpence on Mondays, you may 

 judge the number of visitors. 500Z. in sixpences has been taken 

 in one day, and a corps of police are obliged to be in attendance 

 to regulate the pressure of the crowds, and all to see a great 

 ugly beast with a big mouth. Well, I suppose you prefer the 

 Nightingale ; l but the Londoners are not particular, and would 

 crowd as much after anything else if it were the fashion. I should 

 think that if Cardinal Wiseman were to exhibit in his robes at 

 sixpence per head, he would soon clear the cost of his pallium ; 

 and perhaps have sufficient left to build a palace. 



January SOth. Have you seen a book called "Durand's 

 American Algae ?" One of my Brooklyn friends writes me that 

 such a book has appeared, destined to forestal me. I suppose 

 Mr. D. could not brook that a foreigner should write on "free 

 and independent seaweeds" I have just finished drawing twelve 

 quarto plates for the Smithsonian Institute, and shall begin the 

 letter-press as soon as I return from Lurgan, where I go in 

 February, to give a course of lectures for the Royal Dublin 

 Society, which will keep me from home about three weeks. 



To Mrs. Gray. 



Trin. Coll. Dublin. 

 Feast of St. Theodosius the Cenobiarch, 



Jan. 11, 1851. 



Don't you wonder where I find my saintly knowledge? 

 In a queer book called " The Pocket Encyclopaedia of Natural 

 Phenomena," by T. Forster, M.B., F.L.S., &c, which I found 

 on a stall for 2s. 6d. It tells about all the flowers that blow 

 and the birds that sing on every day in the year, and gives a 

 saint to each day besides ; and when they are very droll, I write 

 on those days. Had I written yesterday, it would have been 

 St. Williams day. Some days have half a dozen patrons. On 

 the 18th of this month would be a good time to write to Lady 

 Morgan, as it is styled " St. Peter's chair at Kome ! " 



I have had such a nice long letter from Bailey, who is greatly 

 better in health, and hopes to get through the winter and 

 spring at West Point. He has 275 species of Biatomacese from 

 his Florida tour. This for Gray. 



1 Jenny Lind, then in New York. 



Q 



