SYSTEMS OF CLASSIFICATION. 
429 
letter; the central figure is the shoot of a mallow, with four leaves 
and their supporting stipulae ; (which adjuncts, I observe in passing, 
appear to me to act as an involucrum of defense prior to the growth 
and expansion of the leaf,)—one expanded flower, and one not yet 
uncoiled,—also a fruit. 2, the pistil with its seeds magnified : a 
separate, magnified, stamen is shown just above the pistil; 3 an imma¬ 
ture fruit, with its closed calyx ; 4 a ripe fruit; 5 one of the Carpels or 
seed-vessels separated ; 6 the same opened to exhibit the embryo of 
a future plant; and the radicle. Here is a plant and its organs of 
fructification dissected; and now let the author speak. 
“ Well do I remember the pleasure I used to have, when a little 
fellow just sent to school, in gathering cheeses out of the hedges : it 
was my first step in Botany; and it was not without pride that I 
found myself able to shew my less learned companions how to dis¬ 
tinguish the plants that bore those delicacies. Many years after, 
when the cares and pleasures of life had blotted out all remembrance 
of the joys of childhood, I was passing a few days in Normandy with 
my friend Mr. de P., when, one day, his little girls came running to 
me with their hands filled with fine plump fromageons ; I know not 
whether it was the association of ideas that the well-remembered 
word conjured up, or the sweet countenances of those dear children, 
joy painted in their black and sparkling eyes, and health in their 
rosy cheeks—but I ate their fromageons with as much delight as ever, 
and fancied them as superior to all the fruits of the garden in flavour, 
as they are in perfect symmetry of form.” 
Only compare a vegetable cheese with all that is exquisite in mark¬ 
ing, or beautiful in arrangement, in the works of man; and how poor 
and contemptible do the latter appear ! Not only, when seeing it 
with the naked eye are we struck with admiration at the wondrous 
perfection and skill with which so obscure a point in the creation is 
constructed; but, using our microscope, surprise is converted into 
amazement when we behold fresh beauties constantly revealed, as the 
magnifying power is increased, till at last, when the latter reaches its 
limit, we find ourselves still regarding a lovely prospect, the ho¬ 
rizon of which recedes as we advance. Nor is it alone externally 
that this inimitable beauty is to be discovered ; cut the cheese across, 
and every slice brings to view cells, and partitions, and seeds, and 
embryos, arranged with an unvarying regularity, which would be past 
belief, if we did not know from experience, how far beyond all that 
the mind can conceive, is the symmetry with which the works of na¬ 
ture are constructed. 
