less moisture is given to the soil, and a situation more or less exposed to heat and light, selected. The window recess of an ordinary room affords as much of the two last as most plants require that do not need stove-heat. The watering is not renewed for months-as the perspired vapor condenses on the surface of the glass, and reaches the mould again. It will be seen that all the conditions needed for the growth of the most delicate plants are here provided. They are saved from refrigerating currents of air, by their atmosphere being enclosed. The sooty impurities of London, or any coal burning districts, which constitute a perfect obstacle to the healthiness of vegetable life, by choking the stomata of leaves, are filtered from the air entering the cases. The due degree of humidity is secured to the soil, and also to the atmosphere of the plants, and when it becomes deficient it can be increased. Light and warmth can be supplied according to the exigencies of the particular species, at their different seasons of growth. All the ventilation which is required, will be sure to take place through the imperfectly closed crevices, and the upper stratum of the soil over which the cases are inverted, by the alternate expansion of the enclosed air when heated, and its contraction on cooling. And as this will be proportional to the heat enjoyed by the plants, and consequently to their excitability, it will be exactly regulated to their real necessities. The facility which this method gives to the transport of foreign species from the most distant parts of the world, through the extremest changes of climate, perhaps confers its chief value upon it in the eye of science. The seeds of many species cannot be or have not hitherto been, brought to this country in a state fit for germination. The moisture of their envelopes has been sufficient to cause their decay, or in their passage through the tropics, to bring on their germination under circumstances adverse to the preservation of the young plant. Seed packing is superseded by Mr. Ward's plan, for they may be sown in their native climates, and the young plants not be injured by low temperature even on rounding Cape Horn. Or if vegetation has only commenced in crossing the line, it will not perish, as would otherwise happen, as soon as the ship arrives in colder latitudes. The locality where this plan was first used and has been perfected, is one extremely unfavorable to vegetation of any kind; the atmosphere being loaded with carbon from the numerous chimnies of sugar-refineries that surround Mr. Ward's premises in Wellclose Square. The courteous zeal of that gentleman permits all those who are curious in the matter, to witness what he has there achieved by its means. Few exhibitions can vie in beauty or rational interest with the luxuriant vegetation of his cases and glass-houses.

It is a property of all plants to form vital points similar to that which originally produced the individual. The usual situation of these is at the axils of leaves, or of any part which is really equivalent to a leaf, as scales, hooks, tendrils, and the floral organs, which are all modifications of leaves. But they may be found on the stem between the leaves, when they are termed adventitious. These minute points may not be visible, but they are there, and may be developed into leaf buds, capable of becoming, under fitting circumstances, new and independent plants. Man has profited by the example which nature often sets him, of making these leaf-buds, or eyes, as they are called, propagate their species without resorting to the germination of its seed. Whether he employs for this purpose the distinct bud or eye, or the same in its adventitious form of a 'knaur' in the bark, leaves, cuttings, layers, which are cuttings only partly separated from the parent stem; suckers, which are branches thrown from the base of a plant when its upward development is stopped and its vital forces consequently determined to and its nutriment expended by some bud which otherwise would have remained latent; budding or grafting; he only seeks, as well as his knowledge enables him, to provide what is necessary to the assumption of an independent existence by this vital point. To do so with success, it is requisite that the embryo plant should have nutriment prepared for its use in its separated state, or be assisted in maintaining its vitality until it is capable of providing this for itself. Nature furnishes us with the means of securing the first, by constantly producing a greater quantity of elaborated sap than the immediate demands of vegetation require. It is, therefore, laid up in the alburnum, or young wood, as in a reservoir, to be expended on the fruit, or in the rapid evolution of leaves in the ensuing spring. In propagating by cuttings, as in the vine and potatoe (where the aliment is contained in the esculent tubes of its root), the bud or eye is separated from its parent with a sufficiency of nutriment attached to it to support the young plant in its earlier stages. Vine cuttings were found by the late Mr. Knight to set more vigorously if part of the shoot contained the accumulation of two years. When it is attempted to reproduce the species from its leaf, as may in some few cases be done, the stalk end of the leaf is placed in soil, and covered with a bell glass partly shaded, to give it enough solar light to excite the functions of the leaf-tissues, but not so much as the leaf would bear if it were still receiving an ascending current of sap. For this purpose also, the atmosphere in the glass is kept moist, preventing the plant from dying of perspiration before it has power to renew its fluids from root spongioles. The stimulus of bottom heat is moreover given to it. The surface by which it was

attached to the parent stem becomes covered with cellular tissue, and from this root-fibres proceed, and take up sap from the earth, which is elaborated in the leaf. The leaf increases in size, and at last the bud which it would have formed in its axil if left on the plant, is produced, and becomes the new plant. In the layer no new individual is produced, but its roots have to thrust themselves into the earth from the tongue; the prevention of the return of the sap, by partially injuring the wood vessels, contributing to such a mode of expending the sap and vital forces of the plant. Afterwards the buds which the branch thus inrooted happens to possess, will extend it, and it becomes thus independent of its parent. In budding and grafting, one plant is, so to speak, made to strike root into another, by union being produced between the similar parts of each. The result is a new compound individual. The student of Dr. Lindley's book will find a very interesting account of the principles on which the various modes of producing these results depend for their success, and to that we refer our readers.

Our limits admonish us to close. We do so with a hearty recommendation of the volume before us, which, though not professing to contain a complete Theory of Horticulture, is the nearest approach to it that has yet appeared.

Art. III. The Book of the Prophet Isaiah, translated from the Original Hebrew, with a Commentary, Critical, Philological, and Exegetical: and an Introductory Dissertation. By the Rev. E. HENDERSON, D.Ph. London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co. 8vo. pp. xxxvi., and 450.

THE appearance of this work must be hailed with consider

.able satisfaction by all to whom the sacred oracles possess an interest, either of a literary or of a higher kind. For even those who regard with indifference the spiritual truths presented to us in this portion of the prophetic volume, can hardly fail to appreciate the exquisite imagery, and the sublime poetry in which they are embodied. But hitherto, and the remark extends even to those who have possessed some knowledge of the original, that imagery has been defrauded of its full lustre -robbed in a measure of its life and its beauty, owing to the obscurity in which the explanation of the text has been involved. It is of the highest importance that the text of the prophetic books generally should be carefully illustrated, if only that justice may be done to a most important branch of the evidences of a divine revelation, which has long continued in a grievously marred and mutilated condition. For while

the commonly received interpretation of the text is in so many places evidently unmeaning or erroneous, and while each expositor proposes a different, and some even a two-fold application of it; to what purpose is it to refer the sceptic to a document of this kind, as furnishing proof of divine authority? And those even who are disposed to make every allowance that candor and devout humility can dictate, are frequently compelled, if of an inquiring mind, to desist from the perusal of many portions of these books, from their inability to comprehend the connected meaning of the writer. Doubtless many pious persons use the common version of the prophecies with no small benefit and satisfaction, though they may trouble themselves very little about history or criticism, and are content if they can derive some spiritual instruction from the drift of the whole, and from the sense which they attach to particular passages. Indeed it is one peculiar excellence of these writings, that even when we cannot clearly discern the sense of particular passages, or the true application of the whole, the grand principles of the divine government stand out so prominently, and the great truths in which man is interested are so definitely presented, and repeatedly insisted on, that it is impossible for any one whose spirit is in harmony with them, to be blind to their beauty, or to mistake their significance. Advantage may thus be derived from the study of the prophecies even when they are very partially understood. But one who has imbibed any taste for critical investigation, cannot proceed with comfort in the perusal of a record, so imperfectly intelligible; especially if he knows enough of the original to discover where our translation is lame and defective, but is not possessed of resources which will enable him to elicit a better sense. A person in this condition will confine his study to those portions of revelation which are not beset with like difficulties, rather than be continually stumbling amidst doubt and obscurity.

Our common version, though couched in beautiful and forcible language, manifestly labours under serious deficiencies. It is clear that in many passages the translators were quite at a loss for any definite and intelligible rendering. Nor can we imagine that it should have been otherwise in their lack of the necessary helps for the right performance of their task. Had their translation been far more accurate, much would have remained to embarrass the reader. The division into chapters, interrupting the connexion of continuous portions, the want of a proper separation of the distinct sections of each book and of titles indicating the various subjects of prediction, are obstacles more serious than might at first sight be supposed, in the way of the student of prophecy. These defects were suffered by Bishop Lowth to remain in his translation of Isaiah,

though they may to a certain extent be remedied by a reference to his notes; and the evils consequent upon them must be experienced by all who content themselves with the result of his labours. Where some predictions, utterly different in their subjects, run on to all appearance as one; and others, which form a grand and continuous whole, are broken up into fragments, divided by as wide a space as those which are quite unconnected, the mind will never grasp each separate prediction in its distinct and palpable integrity: the eye will run along a confused panorama, where one scene trenches upon another, and will find the representation, though imposing in parts, as a whole, incongruous and unmeaning. But this deficiency is the least fault which is chargeable upon the bishop's translation. His mind was not fitted, either by its constitution or by its previous training, for the task which he undertook. He was possessed of an elegant taste and of great ingenuity, but was sadly wanting in that caution and diffidence which should ever characterize the critical expositor of an ancient and obscure composition, especially when there is contained in it the element of inspiration. He had long been conversant with classical models, and his taste was completely conformed to their style of thought and expression. Though he could in a measure appreciate and descant with rapture upon the beauties peculiar to Hebrew poetry, yet the murmurs of the waters of Siloah were, to his ear, mingled with the flow of the Ilissus. Had it been otherwise, how could he ever have thought of transfusing the nervous couplets of the Hebrew seer into those frigid paraphrases of modern Latin verse, of which, in his lectures on Hebrew poetry, he has given us some specimens―elegant and well turned indeed, and in their kind superior, but 'oh! quan'tum mutatus ab illo !' Let one but compare the commencement of his translation of the ode of triumph in Isaiah xiv. 4, with the original :

! How hath ceased the oppressor אֵיךְ שָׁבַת נֹגֶשׂ

Ceased the gold-exacting queen,'

There is the living, fiery, energy of nature, the true prophetic tone. Now let us turn from the prophet to the bishop; from the simplicity of truth to the refinement of an imitated classical style:

'Ergo insolentis corruit imperî
Insana moles? occidit urbium
Regina victrix, nec subacto

Effera jam dominatur orbi?'

How hath the gold become dim, and mixed with alloy ! Mark the childish astonishment of the interrogation; the po