He is at present engaged in his "Life of Frederick the
Great," whom he will hardly make a hero of, and with whom, we learn,
he is already very heartily disgusted. The first volume will shortly
appear.

And now we must close this imperfect paper,--reserving for a future
occasion some personal reminiscences of him, which may prove both
interesting and illustrative.

THE BUTTON-ROSE.

CHAPTER I.

I fear I have not what is called "a taste for flowers." To be sure, my
cottage home is half buried in tall shrubs, some of which are
flowering, and some are not. A giant woodbine has wrapped the whole
front in its rich green mantle; and the porch is roofed and the
windows curtained with luxuriant honeysuckles and climbing
wild-roses. But, though I have tried for it many times, I never yet
had a successful bed of flowers. My next neighbor, Mrs. Smith, is "a
lady of great taste"; and when she leads me proudly through her trim
alleys edged with box, and displays her hyacinths and tulips, her
heliotropes, cactuses, and gladioluses, her choice roses, "so
extremely double," and all the rare plants which adorn her parterre, I
conclude it must be that I have no taste at all. I beg her to save me
seeds and bulbs, get fresh directions for laying down, and
inoculating, grafting, and potting, and go home with my head full of
improvements. But the next summer comes round with no change, except
that the old denizens of the soil (like my maids and my children) have
grown more wild and audacious than ever, and I find no place for beds
of flowers. I must e'en give it up; I have no taste for flowers, in
the common sense of the words. In fact, they awaken in me no
sentiment, no associations, as they stand, marshalled for show, "in
beds and curious knots"; and I do not like the care of them.

Yet let me find these daughters of the early year in their native
haunts, scattered about on hillside and in woody dingle, half hidden
by green leaves, starting up like fairies in secluded nooks, nestling
at the root of some old tree, or leaning over to peep into some glassy
bit of water, and no heart thrills quicker than mine at the
sight. There they seem to me to enjoy a sweet wild life of their own;
nodding and smiling in the sunshine or verdant gloom, caring not to
see or to be seen. Some of the loveliest of my early recollections are
of rambles after flowers. There was a certain "little pink and yellow
flower" (so described to me by one of my