lesser one, which I did; but to my great astonishment, it grew again, and along with it the nail. The family afterwards went to reside in London, where his father shewed it to Mr William Bromfield, surgeon to the queen's household, who said he supposed Mr White, being afraid of damaging the joint, had not taken it wholly out; but he would dissect it entirely, and then it would not return. He accordingly executed the plan he had described with great dexterity, and turned the ball fairly out of the socket; notwithstanding this, it grew again, and a fresh nail was formed, and the thumb remained in this state."

In fishes this reproductive power is chiefly shewn in the fins, which are sometimes replaced after being lost by accident or disease. The teeth of sharks and other fishes are also renewed with the utmost facility when broken off. The power is more energetic in reptiles, and especially in the order to which the frog and toad belong (batrachia). In the salamander, for example, new legs with perfect bones, nerves, muscles, &c., are reproduced after the loss or severe injury of the original ones; and in the Triton, a perfect eye has been formed, to replace one which has been removed. In the true lizards, the tail, when lost, appears to be restored; the new part contains no perfect vertebræ, however, but merely a cartilaginous column, like that of the lowest fishes.

In the articulata, the regenerative power is very considerable. The spider and other arachnida (including the scorpion) may lose their legs with impunity, for new ones will grow to replace the old. So it is also with their brethren the crustacea. When the crab, lobster, or crayfish happens to have a limb or claw lopped off, a new one grows in its place. They frequently meet with such losses in the course of the strange operation of throwing off their shell, which they do periodically; and when such an accident takes place, kind nature never fails to repair it. The second articulation from the body is the part at which the fracture most frequently occurs,

and is probably the only one from which the new growth will issue; for, if the claw be broken off below that joint, the animal itself effects the removal of the upper portion, either simply casting it off by violent muscular contraction, or striking it against some hard body. Amputation of a limb seems to be a matter of the utmost indifference to this order of animals. It has often been observed in the Zoological Gardens, that when any person took hold of one of the land-crabs by a leg, the creature instantly threw off the limb in order to get free, and quietly walked away.

The larvae of many of the insects can reproduce a missing feeler or leg, when the perfect insect cannot. Among the lowest of the articulated division-for example, in the annelides or worms-segments of the body become complete animals; but in the highest of this class, the phenomenon only takes place in the segment which contains the head. The head of the snail has been known to be replaced after being cut off, provided an organ of particular consequence (the cephalic ganglion) is uninjured; but for this regeneration a constantly elevated temperature is said to be necessary.

When we arrive at the lowest department of the animal kingdom, we find this reproductive power in its greatest activity, insomuch that in some tribes (polypifera, asteria, &c.) any portion cut off becomes an entire animal. A single leg of the star-fish reproduces all the rest, and the minutest cuttings of the hydra acquire an independent existence. At the very extremity of the chain, there are creatures which regularly multiply by detaching portions of themselves, these detached portions being equivalent to a new generation. This, according to modern physiologists, is the simplest of all the modes of multiplication. 6 We meet,' says Dr Roget, with frequent examples of this process of fissiparous generation, as it is termed, among the infusory animalcules. Many species of monads, for instance, which are naturally of a globular shape, exhibit at a certain period of their development a slight circular groove round the middle of

their bodies, which by degrees becoming deeper, changes their form to that of an hour-glass; and the middle part becoming still more contracted, they present the appearance of two balls, united by a mere point. The monads in this state are seen swimming irregularly in the fluid, as if animated by two different volitions; and, apparently for the purpose of tearing asunder the last connecting fibres, darting through the thickest of the crowd of surrounding animalcules; and the moment this slender ligament is broken, each is seen moving away from the other, and beginning its independent existence. Each animalcule, thus formed by the subdivision of its predecessor, soon grows to the size which again determines a further spontaneous subdivision into two other animalcules; these, in course of time, themselves undergo the same process, and so on to an indefinite extent. The most singular circumstance attending this mode of multiplication is, that it is impossible to pronounce which of the new individuals thus formed out of a single one should be regarded as the parent, and which as the offspring, for they are both of equal size. Unless, therefore, we consider the separation of the parts of the parent animal to constitute the close of its individual existence, we must recognise an unbroken continuity in the vitality of the animal, thus transmitted in perpetuity from the original stem, throughout all succeeding generations.

"It is in the animal kingdom only that we meet with instances of this spontaneous division of an organic being into parts, where each reproduces an individual of the same species. All plants, however, are capable of being multiplied by artificial divisions of this kind: thus a tree may be divided longitudinally into a great number of portions, or slips, as they are called; any one of which, if planted separately, and supplied with nourishment, may continue to grow, and may in time, reproduce a tree similar in all respects to the one from which it had originated. This inherent power of reproduction exists even in smaller fragments of a plant; for, when all circumstances are favourable, a stem will shoot from the upper

end of the fragment, and roots will be sent forth from its lower end; and ultimately a complete plant will be formed.* These facts, which are well known to agriculturists, exhibit only the capabilities of vegetative power under circumstances which do not occur in the natural course of things, but have been the effect of human interference.'

LOUIS LE GRAND.

LOUIS XIV. of France, whose subjects bestowed upon him the title affixed to this paper, was a monarch marked by so many striking points of character, and spent a long life in circumstances altogether so remarkable, that we have resolved to make him the subject of a brief sketch. Born in the year 1638, he succeeded his father in his fifth year, and thus may be said to have scarcely ever known any other condition in life than that of a sovereign. His long reign of seventy-two years, during which Britain was governed by no fewer than eight successive potentates, was spent in almost uninterrupted wars, the chief purpose of which was his own aggrandisement; and few periods of equal duration in the history of any country, have produced so many men eminent in arms, in arts, and in letters. But the expenses of this monarch impoverished his country; his policy enslaved it; and his own personal qualities, so far from being its honour,

*Among the conditions necessary for these evolutions of organs are-first, the previous accumulation of a store of nourishment in the detached fragment, adequate to supply the growth of the new parts; and, secondly, the presence of a sufficient quantity of circulating sap, as a vehicle for the transmission of that nourishment. It has been found that when these conditions are present, even the leaf of an orange-tree, when planted in a favourable soil, sends down roots, and is capable of giving origin to an entire tree. According to the observations of Mirandola, the leaf of the Bryophyllum, when simply laid on moist ground, strikes out roots, which quickly penetrate into the soil. The leaves of the monocotyledonous plants often present the same phenomenon,

are in many respects its disgrace. The grand aim of Louis was to cause himself to be thought something above mortality-a kind of demigod; and in whatever way this end was to be brought about, whether by the extension of his dominions, or the cultivation of personal dignity, he was alike indefatigable. As a monarch, he was, or rendered himself, absolute; he had not even ministers, except of a merely subordinate kind. But on the death of his first wife, a Spanish princess, in 1683, he formed a secret matrimonial connection with Madame Maintenon, a beautiful woman, whose former husband was the celebrated Scarron, the novelist; and this person, in time, became a kind of prime-minister. The Duke de SaintSimon, in his memoirs, gives the following insight into the qualities and habits of Louis:

"Though a young man and a king, Louis was not altogether without experience. He had been a constant frequenter of the house of the Countess de Soissons, the niece of Cardinal Mazarin, the resort of all that was distinguished, both male and female, that the age could produce, and where he first caught that fine air of gallantry and nobleness, which characterised him ever afterwards, and marked even his most trifling actions. For though the talents of Louis XIV. were in fact rather below mediocrity, he possessed a power of forming his manners and character upon a model, and of adhering to it, which is often more valuable in the conduct of life than the very greatest abilities. By nature, he was a lover of order and regularity; he was prudent, moderate, secret-the master both of his actions and his tongue. For these virtues, as they may be called in a king, he was perhaps indebted to his natural constitution; and if education had done as much for him, certainly he would have been a better ruler. He had a passion, however, or rather a foible that was vanity, or, as it was then called, glory. No flattery was too gross for him-incense was the only intellectual food he imbibed. Independence of character he detested: the man who once, though but for an instant, stood up before him in the consciousness of manly integrity