the highest boon bestowed by Providence on our mortal estate, is surely more than adequate exchange for the aimless enjoyments of infancy. The power of doing good; the privilege of framing our ways according to the dictates of GOD; the capability of seeing with the eye of reflection all that is beautiful and well-ordered and wise in the universe, the work of His hands; and the permission to consecrate ourselves to His worship and glory, are among the rich blessings of our riper years, and with these in our possession we can scarcely sigh for the grey dawn that preceded the meridian splendour of day. Besides he who is for ever regretting the past, poisons the present, and sows the seed of bitterness and disappointment for the future: surely this is a poor philosophy and one by which Mr. Lees will scarcely venture to abide. And now a word or two on another topic: to apply the epithet “tastefully" to any emanation of the genius of Shakspeare, is to make a most unhappy choice of expression; the adjective pretty," used to characterise the magnificent visions of Michael Angelo, or the sublime conceptions of Milton, would not be more inappropriate. Where Shakspeare adorns, he flings the fiery grace of a master, or touches his outline with indescribable beauty; but the Swan of Avon to illustrate a subject "tastefully !" Again, Mr. Lees celebrates Dr. Darwin as "most poetically” illustrating the Linnæan system; to this we object also; Dr. Darwin was an ingenious and indefatigable botanist, an amiable man, a frequenter of tea-table coteries, an admirer of Anna Seward's muse, and a smooth and elaborate versifier, but we shake our head at his poetry, and recommend the term "tastefully" to be clipped out of the passage on Shakspeare, and delicately pasted over the more flattering epithet with which the lecturer (from his passion for botany, we suppose,) has eulogised the Doctor's effusions. In conclusion, we may affirm that this little pamphlet deserves to become popular, and ranks among the many honourable proofs of talent in a Society instituted for one of the noblest objects of human enquiry. The moderate price of the publication, when the style of the engravings and the typography is estimated, is an additional reason why its number of purchasers should be great; and we hope it will circulate widely among the lovers of Natural History, and those less ardent votaries who do not choose to bestow the necessary time and labour upon the perusal of more scientific and formidable volumes. To dismiss the writer without affording the reader an opportunity of judging of his authorship would be an injustice to the merits of his little work, and though our remarks have occupied more room than we originally designed, we present the following as fair specimens of his pages. "Plants have their peculiar social or solitary habits, similar to the solitary or gregarious animals. Some, like the heaths or the violets, associate in tribes or families; others, like the solemn yew, have dozed in moody solitude for ages. Some, like the drosera, the pinguicula, and the rose-pimpernel, delight in each other's society, and, in secluded spots among verdant hills and tinkling rivulets, hold sweet communion. ** On the other hand, lurid and poisonous plants, as the sullen Paris quadrifolia, the hyosciamus, or the Atropa belladonna, sternly refuse associates, and, like the speckled snake, appear meditating mischief within their gloomy holds. The localities of plants are as various as their habits, and become peculiarly interesting from their connecting associations. With what delight the wanderer beholds the white water lily of the mountain lakes, reclining like an Indian beauty upon the water, while its white tiara is surrounded by spreading leaves that flap and play as the zephyr curls the sparkling water. There too the buck-bean displays its pale fringed clusters, and the amphibious polygonum, launching its verdant boats on the waves, quickly decorates them with those pink * ensigns which were strangers to it while lingering on the barren shore. Some plants, as the tooth-wort, the primrose-root, or the wood-vetch, are confined to the deepest recesses of the shade; while the butter-cup riots gorgeously in the laughing meadow. * Some, like the sensitive plant, are ready even to shrink into themselves; or like the purple sandwort, close their flowers instantly, if plucked; while the hardy and officious thistle, thrusting himself every where in spite of rebuffs, displays his innumerable prickles, and seems to say in scornNemo me impune lacessit.' But delightful is the sandstone rock, in whose recesses the cotyledon or sedum have fixed their hermit cells; gracefully beneath them, the blue campanula waves her fairy bells; the yellow cistus sparkles upon the bright slope lower down, and the slender climbing fumitory clings among the rubbish at the very edge of the precipice; while, where that bush of roses shrouds the chrystal spring from view that faintly drops its tears down the steep, the forget-me-not, like a presiding Naiad, decorates the shaded solitude with its blue corymbs, and year after year delights the eyes of those who first pledged their faith in the summer twilight at that hallowed spot. Some plants, as the vervain, attend upon the footsteps of man, and only flourish about his habitation; others, as the elder and way-faring tree,' delight in the vicinity of roads; while the flaming poppy still denotes its association with eastern manners, and the worship of the goddess whose brow was adorned with a wreath of poppies and wheat. But I cannot, at present, enlarge here; suffice it to say, that the mountain, the valley, the wood, the plain, the cave, and the waters, have all their flowery inhabitants,-nor can man, universal claimant as he is, find a spot where the flower has not preceded him in his pilgrimage." (P. 45.) "The affinities presented by plants with birds are not the least pleasing, but I am compelled reluctantly to review them quickly. In their associations with flowers, birds present materials for a natural calendar. The snowdrop displays its pendant flakes of vegetable snow just as the birds are pruning up their feathers and thinking of pairing, and when the raven has actually commenced incubation. The daffodil comes before the swallow dares,'-the cowslip when he is come. The marsh marigold and cuckoo-flower diversify the moist meadows with the richest hues of gold and silver, marking the arrival of the cuckoo; and numerous other coincidences between the appearance of birds, flowers, and insects, might be easily shown and dilated upon. When the solstitial flowers appear, the woods are silent; but when the robin renews his melody, we at once anticipate the autumnal gust and the falling leaves. In Persian poetry the nightingale and the rose are perpetually associated; hence it is said- you may place a hundred handsful of fragrant herbs and flowers before the nightingale, yet he wishes not in his constant heart for more than the sweet perfume (or breath) of his beloved rose.' This eastern hyperbole arises from the singing of the nightingale and the flowering of the rose being simultaneous in Persia, and hence the rose and the nightingale are constantly united in the minds of the Persians." (P. 94.) One more extract and we have done. "Plants and insects are inseparable in their companionship. The first golden catkin of the vernal day calls them on rapid wing to repair humming to its embraces, and the last tuft of ivy that spreads its stamens in the declining sun of the dying year, witnesses their expiring ardour. Even in winter, amidst ice and snow, minute gnats hover in sportive flight about the evergreens, and their voice in summer sounds ceaseless from the first boom of the waking humble-bee to the droning evening horn of the beetle, winging his rounds in the solemn twilight: 'Nor undelightful is the ceaseless hum To him who wanders through the woods at noon.' "But when refulgent summer displays his brightest robes-when the garden blooms with its richest lustre-then every flower teems with insect hosts, and the utmost exertion of insect splendour seems put forth as if in competition with the resplendent tints of the odour-breathing flowers. The cetonia aurata, or rosebeetle, like a living emerald, carouses amid the beauties of the rose-the rubyspotted, or pure-white butterflies, delicately and coyly sport from flower to flower, as if uncertain on which to fix-while the humming-bird sphinx, darting like an arrow, quivers over the white jessamine, and extracts its luxurious sweets, as if by enchantment. Meantime, the bees, like men of business, relax not their duties for a moment-some are gathering honey, some are collecting the farina on their thighs, others are cutting the rose-leaves or poppy petals to line their curious habitations, and a strange, yet harmonious, amalgamation of sounds meets the ear. If we look a little closer upon the plants, we shall see sentinels, with red abdomens and quivering antennæ, guarding apparently the avenues to the leaves; these are the ichneumonide, who are preparing to deposit their parasitical offspring upon the various unfortunate caterpillars their different species assail. Here and there the curious white froth of the cicada spumaria appears shrouding the naked insect below. The ants are also upon the alert on the raspberry trees, bearing thence the aphides, that they may regale themselves at home on the honey dew these omnivorous feeders supply. All are active and awake; even the spider bustles about to add new meshes to his web, which the breeze or some rude humble-bee has broken from its hold upon the laburnum tree, and the swift dragonfly takes a passing glance at the scene as he hurries on to dash around the rushes and purple arrow-heads of his native pond. (P. 101.) In parting, we may suggest to Mr. Lees in any future essay of his pen, to adopt less metaphor, and indulge, at all times, very cautiously in its admission; he will thus secure a still further hold on the reader of taste, and we are persuaded that he will finally admit the truth of our assertion, that his simplest passages are invariably his best. STANZAS. "The sacrifices of GoD are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O Gon, thou wilt not despise." Psalm li. v. 17. Isaiah xlii. v. 3, "A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench." DEEP in my heart-my trembling heart, A sacred shrine that none may see, On that pure shrine is grav'd a name A broken, contrite heart that woe A bruised reed, tost to and fro, And smoking flax whose hidden glow These off'rings undespis'd I lay Upon that shrine of many fears, And HE whose mercy and whose sway "Will dry the Mourner's tears." C. "The apis papaveris, or drapery-bee, hangs her apartment with the splendid petals of the poppy, which she cuts out from the half-expanded flowers, and carefully fits them around the walls of her cell; here she deposits honey and pollen for her young brood, who thus awake to life in a beauteous apartment, surrounded with comforts, when the tender mother who provided it for them is no more." RUDHALL, HEREFORDSHIRE. To the Editor of the Analyst. SIR,-Conceiving the intention of your Magazine to be for the purpose of preserving from decay memorials of the manners and customs of past ages, I am induced to send you the bill of fare annually on new year's eve set before the tenants of the Westfaling family assembled at Rudhall, near Ross, in this county. The dinner was instituted by Herbert Westfaling, Esq. son of the Bishop of Hereford, who, in the latter part of Queen Elizabeth's reign, married Miss Rudhall, the heiress. The late Mrs. Westfaling, the last of the family, died between three and four years ago, and the reversion to the property having been purchased by Alexander Baring, Esq., M. P., the furniture and pictures were sold soon after. Here I bought the portrait of the above-mentioned Herbert Westfaling, the two table cloths used for this dinner, dated H. W., 1598, and H. W., 1601, and twentyseven napkins, dated H. W., 1622, with the pewter dishes and plates, but, I regret to say, the leathern jacks which held the ale had been destroyed. The dinner was spread on a large thicklegged table of the period, and there were four three-cornered ones placed in the angles of the room. The dinner was thus: FIRST COURSE. Six large fowls, replenished as often as wanted. Large mince pies, in patty pans, shaped like hearts and stars. Two of the corner tables held boiled legs of mutton, another a boiled rump of beef, and on the fourth was a large boiled plum suet pudding. The ancient house of Rudhall was burnt down in the latter part of the reign of James 1st, during the absence on the Con tinent of the young heir, with the exception of one side of the quadrangle, which still displays gable-ends with beautiful bargeboards, on which, among other devices, are the feathers of Edward, son of Henry VIII. as Prince of Wales, being seven in number, three in front and four behind. Some doors of beautiful open carvings of that reign are put up at Goodrich Court. This gentleman, however, began to rebuild it in the reign of Charles I., and the front, with its porch of entrance, at right angles to the side described, are of that period, but the remainder of the house is modern. The following account of the family is from a MS. written at different times by Herbert Rudhall Westfaling, Esq. who died in the year 1743, at the age of 73: "John Harbart, the first that I can find of my family, who, by oral tradition, was a younger brother, or descended from a younger branch of the family of the Herberts, Earls of Pembroke, the particulars of which, through the remissness of my trustees, is left much in the dark to me. This John Harbart as appears by his picture in Rudhall House, was a Knight of St. John of Jerusalem, supposed to be about the time of the dissolution of the order in the reign of Henry VIII. upon which he travelled beyond sea. My great aunt Elmhurst and others of my relations have told me that he then changed his name to Westfaling. I have no account whom he married, but he left issue one son Herbert, whom he bred up a scholar, and placed him a student in Christ-church College, Oxford. He being of the reformed religion in the year of Queen Mary, when those who separated from the errors of the church of Rome were persecuted, he fled for his religion into foreign countries. And others of my relations have told me that he then changed his name from the surname of Herbert to Westfaling, and called himself Herbert Westfaling. But of the truth of this I am wholly ignorant as is above mentioned. Anno Dom., 1585, he was made Bishop of Hereford (in the reign of Queen Elizabeth.) I shall not give any account of his life, there being several short relations of his life in print, which were done by those contemporary with him, and who, by ocular testimony, knew the truth of what they published to the world. He was certainly an extraordinary good man. He, in some part, beautified the Bishop's Palace in Hereford, and gave an estate to Jesus College, in Oxford, sufficient for the maintenance of two fellows and two scholars in the college. He left to his son a plentiful estate, viz., at Pomfret, in Yorkshire, houses in London, the lordship of Mansel, with leasehold and freehold lands in Hampshire, the great tithes of Marcle, the leases of Warham and Mills at Bromyard, and other estates in the counties of Hereford and Worcester-all, or most in Worcestershire and Herefordshire, with this Bishop's money. He had likewise an estate in the city and county of Oxford, |