ionable even in Shenstone's days, have still their products
favorably received in the very best society. The rosemary, whose
banishment from the gardens of the great he specially records, enters
largely in the composition of eau de Cologne. Of the lavenders, one
species (_Lavendula vera_) yields the well known lavender oil, and
another (_L. latifolio_) the spike oil. The peppermint (_Meantha
viridus_) furnishes the essence so popular under that name among our
confectioners; and one of the most valued perfumes of the East (next to
the famous _Attar_, a product of the Rosaceae) is the oil of the
_Patchouly_ plant, another of the labiates. Let me indulge, ere quitting
this part of the subject, in a single remark. There have been classes of
religionists, not wholly absent from our own country, and well known on
the Continent, who have deemed it a merit to deny themselves every
pleasure of sense, however innocent and delicate. The excellent but
mistaken Pascal refused to look upon a lovely landscape; and the Port
Royalist nuns remarked, somewhat simply for their side of the argument,
that they seemed as if warring with Providence, seeing that the favors
which he was abundantly showering upon them, they, in obedience to the
stern law of their lives, were continually rejecting. But it is better,
surely, to be on the side of Providence against Pascal and the nuns,
than on the side of Pascal and the nuns against Providence. The great
Creator, who has provided so wisely and abundantly for all his
creatures, knows what is best for us, infinitely better than we do
ourselves; and there is neither sense nor merit, surely, in churlishly
refusing to partake of that ample entertainment, sprinkled with delicate
perfumes, garnished with roses, and crowned with the most delicious
fruit, which we now know was not only specially prepared for us, but
also got ready, as nearly as we can judge, for the appointed hour of our
appearance at the feast. This we also know, that when the Divine Man
came into the world,--unlike the Port Royalists, he did not refuse the
temperate use of any of these luxuries, not even of that "ointment of
spikenard, very precious" (a product of the labiate family), with which
Mary anointed his feet.

[Illustration: Fig. 44.

CYCLOPHTHALMUS BUCKLANDI.

(A Fossil Scorpion of the Coal Measures of Bohemia.)]

[Illustration: Fig. 45.

FOSSIL DRAGON-FLY.

Solenhofen.]

Though it may at first seem a little out of plac