"Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet His orient beams, on herb, tree, fruit, and flower, Milton. On the study of this science some judicious observations and some curious facts will be found below, from a work on "Domestic Education," with which we conclude our brief remarks: "In Botany, a science singularly adapted for female study, how many subjects for surprise and admiration are continually appearing. One cannot open a volume of travels, but some shrub or plant is made known to us, peculiarly adapted to the clime. Bounding our views to one object, let us see what nature has done to meet the wants of man and animals in hot countries, where the heat, by evaporating moisture, causes thirst. "In the Brazils a cane is found, which, on being cut below a joint, dispenses a cool pleasant liquid, which instantly quenches the most burning thirst; and Prince Maximilian, when travelling in America, in 1816, quenched his thirst by drinking the water found within the leaves of the bromelia. "Mr. Elphinstone says the water melon, one of the most juicy of fruits, is found in profusion amid the arid deserts of western Asia; and adds, "that it is really a subject of wonder to see a melon, three or four feet in circumference growing from a stock as slender as that of a common melon, in the dry sand of the desert." "Mr. Barrow thus describes that curious vegetable, the pitcher plant:-'To the foot stalk of each leaf is attached a bag, girt round with a lid. Contrary to the usual effect this lid opens in wet dewy hours, and, when the pitcher is full, the lid closes; when this store of moisture is absorbed by the plant, the lid opens again.' Of course the thirsty traveller can take advantage of this beautiful provision of nature. "The stapelia is a singular plant found in Africa, and from its containing water amid the severest drought. has been called the "Camel of the Desert." YOUNG GENTLEMEN'S DEPARTMENT. THE AMERICAN CHARACTER. Written for the Monthly Repository and Library of Entertaining Knowledge, It is a matter of high moment to a young American gentleman to reflect, as he shapes his character for life, on the model by which he would be moulded to future distinction. The republican form of our government, the omnipotence of public opinion in this country of free, unshackled mind, and the high destinies allotted to the elder republic of the western continent impose peculiar rules of formation on the rising pillars of American empire. The scholar, the jurist, the statesman, the artist, the mechanic or the cultivator of the eastern continent may not be the models for those of the new world -a world happily disenthralled and aloof from the despotism of hoary error, the accumulations of many centuries of ignorance and encroachment on social rights. The young American must make religion the foundation of his character-for here, as to a refuge, the persecuted servants of God came when the green curtain of the wilderness covered the continent, and their prayers hallowed all the soil and dedicated their unborn posterity to a holier cause than that of earth. The young American should be generous-for here, as to an asylum from cruelty and the whirlpool of revolution, thousands have come, and millions must come as the old continents break up under the hammer of convulsion and melt down under the purifying fires of judgment to a fairer and holier type. He must be patient and persevering-for those who have ever breathed the tainted atmosphere of monarchy and hereditary power cannot in a moment be made to understand the nature and the full extent of our national freedom; the lessons of Washington to a young nation are often to be repeated. He must be brave for too much has been entrusted to him to be in the keeping of a coward. To him has been committed the world's last experiment for liberty-to him belongs the helm of the republican vessel, if his skill and patriotic virtues prove him worthy to guide the ship of state through seas of passion and under the adverse storms of external war. He must be energetic-for the men of America are self-made men and gather no honor from birth but the broad, proud honor of citizenship in a country where not a lord nor a lordling, as such, can throw contempt over their plebeian origin. But, as examples speak more persuadingly than precepts, we propose, in the future numbers of the Monthly Repository, to present lively and brief original sketches of American character-the characters of men who have grown up and flourished, or are now flourishing, in the midst of us, and under the genuine influence of republican institutions. Such models we need not fear to place before the mental vision of our youthful readers, and say to them, these are the jewels of America YOUTH AND MANHOOD. As in the succession of the seasons each, by the invariable laws of nature, affects the productions of what is next in course, so in human life every period of our age, according as it is well or ill spent, influences the happiness of that which is to follow. Virtuous youth generally brings forward accomplished and flourishing manhood; and such manhood passes off itself without uneasiness into respectable and tranquil old age. But when nature is turned out of its regular course, disorder takes place in the moral just as in the vegetable 'world. If the spring put forth no blossoms, in summer there will be no beauty, and in autumn no fruit. So if youth be trifled away without improvement, manhood will be contemptible, and old age miserable. If the beginnings of life have been vanity, its latter end can be no other than vexation of spirit. DIFFERENCES. It is remarkable that men, when they differ in any thing considerable, or which they think considerable, will be apt to differ in almost every thing else. Their differences beget contradiction. Contradiction begets heat. Heat quickly rises into resentment, rage, and ill' will. Thus they differ in affections as they differ in judgment; and the contention that began in pride, ends in anger. In Henderson's Biblical Researches in Russia, we find the following description of the monument, erected over the remains of HOWARD the Philanthropist. Ar the distance of five versts* to the north of Kherson, stands the criginal monument of the prince of Christian philanthropists, the illustrious Howard, who, after travelling fifty thousand Bri miles, to investigate and relieve the sufferings of humanity, fell a victim, near this place, to his unremitting exertions in benevolent cause. It is situate a little east of the public road leading from Nikslaief to Kherson, near the southern bank of a small stream, which here diffuses a A verst is about one mile and a half English. * partial verdure across the steppe. On the opposite bank are a few straggling and ruinous huts, and close by is a large garden, sheltered by fine lofty trees, which have been planted to beautify the villa once connected with it, but now no more. The spot itself is sandy, with a scanty sprinkling of vegetation, and is only distinguishable from the rest of the steppe by two brick pyramids, and a few graves in which the neighboring peasantry have interred their dead-attracted, no doubt, by the report of the singular worth of the foreign friend whose ashes are here deposited. One of the pyramids is erected over the dust of the Philanthropist, and the other over the grave of a French gentleman who re vered his memory, and wished to be buried by his side. The genuine humility of Howard prompted him to choose this sequestered spot, and it was his anxious desire that neither monument nor inscription, but simply a sundial, should be placed over his grave. This cenotaph is erected at a short distance from the Russian cemetery, and close to the public road. It is built of a compact white freestone, found at some distance, and is about thirty feet in height, surrounded by a wall of the same stone, seven feet high, by two hundred in circumference. Within this wall, in which is a beautiful cast iron gate, a fine row of Lombardy poplars has been planted, which, when fully grown, will greatly adorn the monument. On the pedestal is a Russian inscription of the following import: Died, Jan. 28, 1790, aged 65, HoWARD. The sun dial is represented near the summit of the pillar, but with this remarkable circumstance--that the only divisions of time it exhibits are the hours from X to II, as if to intimate that a considerable portion of the morning of life is past, ere we enter on the discharge of its active duties, and that, with many, the performance of them is closed, even at an early hour after the meridian of their days. In a subsequent number we design to furnish the reader a brief biographical sketch of the illustrious Philanthropist. *A steppe is a high, uncultivated plain, and for the most part, destitute of inhabitants. |