"My health is very good—I sleep at my country house, and return to town at five in the morning; I am engaged till six in the evening in visiting the sick. I know something of chemistry—I amuse myself with reading—I revere, I love, I adore God alone. On my return to the country, I visit my plants—and gratefully acknowledge and admire the liberal presents of my friend Bassend. My garden appears proud of the variety and vigour of its trees. I waste my life in contemplating my plants, and grow old with the desire of possessing new ones—Pleasing delusion! who will give me the large-leaved linden tree of Bohemia, and that of Silicia, more extraordinary, with folio cucullato. Thus riches serve only to increase the thirst for wealth, and the covetous man abuses the liberality of his benefactor. Pardon the dotage of an old friend, who wishes to plant trees, the beauty and shade of which can charm only his nephews. Thus my years glide on without any chagrin, but that of your absence."
How much is there in these few lines! what activity, what zeal for suffering humanity, what piety; what innocence and vivacity in his taste, at an age when they are nearly extinct in most men.
[Literary Panorama.
Mummies.
Under the mountains adjoining Kiow, on the frontiers of Russia and in the deserts of Podolia, are several catacombs or subterranean vaults, which the ancients used for burying places, and where a great number of human bodies are still preserved entire, though interred many ages since, having been better embalmed, and become neither so hard nor so black as the Egyptian mummies. Among them are two princes in the habits they used to wear. It is thought that this preserving quality is owing to the nature of the soil, which is dry and sandy.
[London Paper.
A correspondent, who observed some time since a publication relative to the extraction of oil from pumpkin seeds, has recently, from curiosity, made an experiment of the same on a very limited scale. He assures us, the extract obtained, is of equal flavour and sweetness with the best of olive oil. Our correspondent is of opinion, that the publication alluded to above, originated with the "Harmony Society," in the state of Pennsylvania; and if so, is desirous of knowing the best method in practice for extracting the oil from the seed.
[Bost. Pat.