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'they trouble the sphere wherein they abide.' Raleigh, excusing his voice, now enfeebled by sickness, pleaded his Majesty's late commission, which having clothed him with the power of life and death, implied the pardon of him in. whom such confidence was reposed; a trust (said Raleigh) undertaken for the 'honour of my sovereign, and to enrich his kingdom with gold, ' of the ore whereof this hand hath found and taken in Guiana.' Then, proceeding to account for the miscarriage of that enterpize, he was interrupted by the Chief Justice, who very briefly told him that treason could not be pardoned by implication. Raleigh now threw himself upon the King's mercy, and expressed the hope that the old judgment, whose harshness his Majesty had himself admitted, would not now at this remote day be revived against him. The Chief Justice replied, that under that judgment Raleigh had long since been dead in law, but had been spared hitherto by the King's clemency; but that new offences had stirred up his Majesty's justice to revive what the law had formerly cast upon him. 'I know (said he) that you have been ' valiant and wise, and I doubt not you retain these virtues, for "now you shall have occasion to use them. Your faith bath 'heretofore been questioned, but I am resolved you are a good 'christian, for your book, which is an admirable work, doth testify as much, I could give you counsel, but I know you can apply to your self far better than I am able to give you. Yet, as if reluctant to quit so fair an opportunity of displaying his rhetoric, he proceeded, 'I give you the oil of comfort, though in respect 'I am a minister of the law, mixed with vinegar. Sorrow will not avail you in some kind; for were you pained, sorrow 'would not ease you; were you afflicted, sorrow would not re'lieve you; were you tormented, Sorrow would not content you; ' and yet the sorrow for your sins would be an everlasting com'fort to you. As to death, you must do as that valiant captain 'did, who, perceiving himself in danger, said in defiance of death, 'Death thou expectest me; but maugre this spite, I expect thee. Fear not death too much, nor fear death too little; not too 'much lest you fail in your hope, nor too little lest you die pre'sumptuously.'

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Of his witty consolation, the Chief Justice was not sparing; but the respite of some time to "settle his affairs and mind," 'which leisure (said Raleigh) I beseech you, think that I crave 'not to gain one minute of life, for being now old, sick and in disgrace, life is wearisome to me,' was refused to him; for though the King was then absent from London, a warrant for

* The History of the World

his execution, dated the day of his sentence, was immediately produced, and the execution ordered for the next day, the 29th of October, 1618. Thus as his son, Carew Raleigh, observed, his father was condemned for being a friend to the Spaniards,

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and lost his life for being their enemy.'

In the Gate-house that night he, probably, wrote the copy verses which were there found in his Bible

"Even such is Time! who takes in trust

'Our youth, our joys, and all we have;
'And pays us but with earth and dust:
'Who in the dark and silent grave,
When we have wandered all our ways,
'Shuts up the story of our days.

'But from that earth, that grave and dust,
'The Lord shall raise me up, I trust.'

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In a conversation with the divine who attended him on the scaffold, he expressed great contempt for death, which, he said, he had never feared; and declared that he would rather die on the block than by a fever. He ascribed his composure to his trust in the goodness of God. He eat his breakfast on the morning of his execution, and smoked his pipe with as much indifference, as if he was only going upon a journey.

He was taken to the Old Palace Yard, Westminster. He ascended the scaffold with a serene aspect, and saluted the persons present. He expressed some apprehension of being interrupted by the return of his fever, and hoped that those who were near him, would ascribe any failure of voice or paleness of countenance to that disorder, and not to the fear of death. Then looking towards a window, where were the Earl of Arundel and other noblemen, he raised his voice that they might hear him; upon which they left their seats and approached the scaffold. He then denied that he had been brought home as a prisoner by his crew, and calling upon his officers for the truth of his assertion, affirmed that, on the contrary, he had suppressed a mutiny in his ship, and, in the fearlessness of innocence, had brought back his men to their duty and to England; and, turning to the Earl of Arundel, he appealed to him whether he had not redeemed the pledge given in the gallery of his ship, of returning to England, whether successful or unfortunate. "Those (said Arundel) were the last words you said to me." He solemnly denied that the expedition to Guiana was a feint to procure his liberty.

His own condition reminding him now of the unhappy fate of Essex, he disclaimed the charge of having attended his execution from malignity or triumph; and only regretted that he had

not been seen by Essex, to have been reconciled to him, when that nobleman with that purpose inquired for him from the scaffold, for though of a contrary faction, he called God to witness that he had no hand in his death, nor bore him any ill affection.

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He concluded, to use his own words, and now I intreat you 'will all join me in prayer to that great God of Heaven whom 'I have grievously offended; (being a man full of vanity, who 'has lived a sinful life in such callings as have been most in'ducing to it, for I have been a soldier, a sailor and a courtier, 'which are courses of wickedness and vice, which his Almighty goodness will forgive me ;) that he will cast away my sins from me, and that he will receive me into everlasting life. So I take 'my leave of you all; making my peace with God.' Then saluting his friends, he said, 'I have a long journey to go, there'fore must take my leave.' When he had taken off his gown and doublet, he asked to see the axe; and repeating his request, said, 'Do you think I am afraid?' Feeling the edge of it, he said, 'This is a sharp medicine, but it is a sound cure for all diseases.' Upon being asked how he would lie on the block, he replied, 'if the heart be right, it is no matter which way the head lies.' Having reclined his head, after a short pause, he raised his hand; at which signal, his head was severed at two strokes; his body remaining unmoved.

ART. VII.-Prodromus Systematis naturalis Regni Vegetabilis, sive enumeratio contractu ordinum, generum, specierumque plantarum hucusque cognitarum, juxta methodi naturalis normas digesta. Auctore AUG. PYRAMO DE CANDOLLE. Paris. Pars I. 1824. Pars II. 1825. Pars III. 1828.

IN the rapid increase of knowledge which has distinguished the close of the eighteenth and the commencement of the nineteenth century, every department of science has felt the animating influence of improvement. The spirit of investigation is on all sides awakened and excited, and if its intensity has not increased, the circumference in which it moves, is constantly becoming more wide and more undefinable. The work before us may well suggest such reflections. It is scarcely a century

since botany began to claim any of the distinctions of science; at a much later period it was considered as so small a branch of the department of natural history, that it was generally included in it as a subordinate, although a favourite study. Even now it may be correctly viewed under the same aspect; but so wonderfully have the branches of this great stock expanded, that botany can be said now to comprehend mány ramifications dependent on itself, each of which may occupy and amuse the leisure hours of a long life. Vegetable physiology, the distribution of plants as well as of animals comprehending the principles of classification, descriptive botany, or an examination and description of all the species of which the vegetable kingdom is composed, and even the history of the science, are each of them inquiries of great extent. In descriptive botany, instead of the limit which was once supposed to circumscribe its objects, instead of the ten thousand species which Linnæus, with all his information and in the height of his enthusiasm, believed would comprehend all the existing forms of vegetable life, we will not say, in the language of poetry, that ten thousand times ten thousand are rising up before us, but it is well known that the ascertained species are rapidly approaching to one hundred thousand, and new species, we might almost say new genera if not families, are annually added to the long catalogue of recorded names. This immense multitude, while retaining the distinct and characteristic features of vegetable life, is yet subdivided by strong lines of demarcation into many separate tribes. The first and most obvious division is that which removes from the great mass-though we sometimes begin to doubt which is the larger portion-all those whose organs of reproduction are obscure or hidden, those cryptic races, which the great father of classification supposed to delight in secret wedlock, giving no manifestation of the mysterious law by which their forms are perpetuated, even in many of their modifications affording some support to the unphilosophical doctrines of equivocal or spontaneous generation. This class is itself distributed into several families, the Filices, Musci, Algæ, Lichenes and Fungi of the Linaæan school, each of which has exclusively occupied the attention of distinguished naturalists, and still offers to persevering and successful sagacity, the rewards which science bestows on those who raise the veil that conceals from common observers her arangements and her principles. Even among the phanogamic plants, where the characters are more obvious and intelligible, and the size and structure more conspicuous, the numbers are multiplying so rapidly, that the memory can scarcely pursue them, and the powers of discrimination, if not

lost, would be bewildered were it not for that spirit of system which has arranged and introduced order into this mighty mass, and is constantly endeavouring to trace out the minute but powerful chords which connect the segments together, while it assigns to each portion, to each group, to each individual member or being, its appropriate and characteristic qualities. Yet with all the aids that science can furnish, this division may increase so much, that it will become necessary to distribute the task of examination among many associates, and each, instead of grasping at the whole must be content with viewing distinctly and accurately a limited portion. Perhaps in a short time it will become common even for eminent botanists, to devote themselves to some of those large and prominent groups in the vegetable kingdom, that constitute the natural families or orders, and thus by studying minutely and critically the separate parts, the conjoined labours of many will finally render the whole science more correct, more complete, more distinct, and more harmonious.

Let no one be discouraged because his knowledge, though not his labours will appear to be circumscribed; because he cannot as his predecessors were supposed to do, view the vast domain of nature as well in its minute details as in its general outlines. It is not in one department only that the march of science is moving on, as if in an interminable progress. Audax Japeti genus, the aspiring race of man is always aiming at objects that seem beyond its powers. By these efforts to compass the unattainable, it is perpetually advancing, and though it is now become arduous even to reach the bounds which have already been explored, yet the humbler aspirant if he do not labour to extend those bounds, to become himself a discoverer, may hope to examine carefully and accurately the space which has already been traversed. In every branch of knowledge, in all, at least, which depend on facts for their support, the increase and improvement has been great and rapid. In every department of natural history, the same results which we have noticed in botany are also perceived. Zoology is no longer the study of one individual; quadrupeds, and birds, and fish, and insects, are become distinct pursuits. Even the different orders of insects, as of vegetables, have attracted and fully occupied different observers, and their forms, and habits, and splendid drapery have been noted and delineated, until the imagination is almost become wearied with contemplating the boundless variety of organized beings, and the variety scarcely less boundless of habits, instincts and qualities. Let no one, we repeat it, be discouraged if in this wide theatre his occupation

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