overwhelm us by the palpable omnipotence which they display.

In this field of enquiry, our ideas of the creative power are not modified by the productions of art, which undoubtedly is the case in the higher branches of creation. Ladies, whose taste and ingenuity enable them almost to rival the rose in its beauty by means of wax and water colours, are perhaps in all cases, certainly in some, disposed to think less of the rose itself as a creation, much as they may admire its beauty. But no such feelings can intrude upon us when contemplating the wondrously minute organisms revealed to us by the aid of the microscope. In these atoms of vegetable life, there is no lack of beauty: indeed, many present a symmetry of form and beauty of colouring so marvellous as to challenge comparison with the most gorgeous denizens of the tropical forests; besides which, they are gifted with powers so new and strange, that they appear to rival the more perfectly developed powers of the animal kingdom, or, perhaps I might have said, to excel many of their companion animalcules.

Such being an outline of the principles and applications of the science of Botany, it will be my object in the ensuing lectures to convey, in simplest language, and by the easiest method I can devise, first, a general knowledge of physiological and structural Botany, in order to teach you, as far as is known, the chief phenomena of plant life; secondly, it will be my endeavour to teach the methods of classification at present in use; and, thirdly, the applications of the science to the wants of life. The fourth course I at present propose to consist of a series of elucidations of the application of this science to the arts of Decoration.

Modern German Poets,

WITH

AN INTRODUCTION ON LITERATURE IN GENERAL,

BY

DR. CARL RETSLAG,

PH. D. OF BERLIN, ETC., AUTHOR OF POLITICAL SKETCHES,"

ETC.

MODERN GERMAN POETS,

BY DR. CARL RETSLAG.

LADIES,

The true character of Literature is cosmopolitic. Though the literature of the different nations is the picture of their intellectual life, is the diary of their tenderest feelings and their most earnest thoughts, though we speak justly of an English, German, French, or of an Italian national literature, it is no less true that the highest productions of all these different literatures are cosmopolitic, that they have more or less freed themselves from those fetters which bind them to the soil on which they grow, have raised their heads into the empire of ideas, where there is no longer a nationality, but where the great spirits of all nations and all ages form one universal and indivisible republic. The learned world of the middle ages, convinced of this truth, used the Latin language as the tongue of this universal republic; and they would not have been so wrong, had not this language, in the latter part of those ages, too much fettered the flight of their ideas, cooled the ardour of their feelings, and widened the gap between the educated classes and the bulk of the people. This cosmopolitic character of literature seemed to be lost, when the Latin language became too tight for the heart and mind of modern Europe, and when the languages of the different nations obtained that degree of richness and flexibility, that they became an adequate means of expressing all that moved in the breast of the modern world. It was then to be feared that the nations would no longer understand each other, that whatever of the grand and beautiful the mind