present aspect of this question, it becomes | mechanical, rather than organic dehiscence.
a matter of the highest interest to man- Commercially, this technical point (by
kind that the even flow of their source which Chinchonas principally differ from
should not be interrupted.
Ladenbergias) is of the utmost value, as
all the Chinchonaceous plants, the capsules
of which open from the apex to the base,
may, in a practical point of view, accord-
ing to Howard's investigation, be consid-
ered as not producing alkaloids. The
seeds are flat, winged, and so light that
one would fancy that a breath of wind
could disperse them over large tracts of
country, and that by means of these pecu-
liarities the different species of Chinchona
enjoyed a very wide geographical range,
while exactly the contrary is the case, all
the species being extremely local.

The Chinchona trees range from the
nineteenth degree of South to the tenth
degree of North latitude, following the
almost semicircular curve of the Cordillera
of the Andes over seventeen hundred and
forty miles of latitude. The most favora-
ble conditions of their growth are, as
Markham has summed them up, a conti-
nuous vegetation, a mean temperature,
varying according to species, from sixty
to seventy degrees Fahrenheit, an almost
constant supply of moisture, and an eleva-
tion of from five thousand to eight thou-
sand feet; some species, however, descend-
ing below twenty-five hundred, and some
ascending to nine thousand feet. Their
favorite haunts are ravines and valleys, or
slopes of mountains. There they grow,
surrounded by the most magnificent scen-
cy-ery in the world, midst tree-ferns, arbore-
scent passion flowers, Melastomaceo, and
allied Chinchonaceous genera.

The genus Chinchona of Linnæus belongs to the Chinchonacea, the same natural order which embraces the Coffee, Ipecacuanha, and many other important productions. All the species, and there are a great number, are either trees or large shrubs, and the general aspect may be compared to our beech, whilst a flowering branch might be likened to that of a lilac. The bark is smooth, or in the older trees more or less rugged, often covered with various lichens, which at one time were thought to be excellent marks for distinguishing the different sorts of barks, but which are now accounted of little value in pharmacological determination. The wood is at first white, but afterward assumes a yellowish tinge; it is of beautiful grain, and takes a ready polish. The leaves are opposite, entire, either glabrous, or more or less covered with hair, and on the under side, in the axils of the veins, either covered with scrobiculo or destitute of them. A theory had gained ground that the absence of these scrobiculo proved the worthlessness of a species for all febrifugal purposes, but this theory has of late been demolished, some utterly worthless species having scrobiculo, and some really valuable ones, for instance Chinchona succirubra, the Red bark, not having them. The petiole is rather long, and supported by stipules. The flowers, arranged in mose panicles, are white, pink, or purple, and often sweetly scented. The calyx is five-toothed. The corolla hypocrateriform, five-lobed, and having inside five stamens. The capsule is ovate, oblong, or linearlanceolate, crowned with the remnant of the calyx-two-celled, many-seeded, and opening from the base to the apex. This latter technicality was first pointed out by Linnæus in his tenth edition of his Genera Plantarum; but in consequence of information, probably received from Mutis of Bogota, that the capsules opened sometimes from the top to the base, as well as from the base to the top, the character was disregarded until restored by Endlicher and Klotzsch; Dr. Karsten has called its validity once more in question, but many botanists are inclined to think that the exceptional cases brought forward in support of his opinion may be explained away by regarding them as the result of

There are five principal regions from which our present supply of bark is derived, namely, the New-Granada region, the Red-bark region on the western slopes of Chimborazo, the Crown-bark region in the province of Loxa (Ecuador,) the Graybark region of Huanuco in Northern Peru, and the Calisaya region in Southern Peru and Bolivia. The species inhabiting most of these regions have lately been studied with more than usual accuracy and minuteness. Those of New-Granada have been investigated for many years by Mr. Lindig, and the results have been made known by Dr. Karsten in his Flora Columbiana. The Red-bark region has visited by Messrs. Spruce and Cross, both of whom wrote excellent reports on it. Southern Ecuador and Northern Peru have been most ably handled by Mr. J. E.

1863.]

CONCERNING

From Fraser's Magazine.

CUTTING

AND CARVING:

WITH SOME THOUGHTS ON TAMPERING WITH THE COIN OF THE REALM.

I BEHELD, as in a vision, the following remarkable circumstances:

There was a large picture, by that great artist Mr. Q. R. Smith, hung up in a certain public place. It appeared to me that the focality partook of the nature of a market-place in a populous city; and numbers of human beings beheld the picture. A little vulgar boy passed, and looked at it; his words were these: "My eye! Ain't it spicy? Rather!" A blooming maiden gazed upon it; and her remark was as follows: "Sweetly pretty!" But a man who had long painted wagons for agricultural purposes, and who had recently painted a signboard, after looking at the picture a little, began to improve it with a large brush, heavily loaded with coarse red and blue, such as are used for painting wagons. Another man came, a house-painter; and he touched the picture, in several parts, with a brush filled with that white material which is employed for finishing the ceiling of rooms which are not very carefully finished. These persons, though horribly spoiling the picture, did honestly intend to improve it; and they fancied they had much improved it. Finally there came a malicious person, who was himself an artist; and who envied and hated the first artist for painting so well. As for this man, he busied himself upon the principal figure in the picture. He made its eyes horribly to squint. He put a great excrescence on its nose. And painted its hair a lively scarlet. having hideously disfigured the picture, he wrote beneath it, Q. R. Smith pinxit. And he pointed out the canvas to all his friends, saying: "That's Smith's picture: isn't it beautiful ?"

He

Into this vision I fell, sitting by the evening fire. The immediate occasion of this vision was, that I had been reading a little volume, prettily printed and nicely bound, purporting to be The Children's Garland from the Best Poets, selected and ar

ranged by Coventry Patmore. There I
had been pleasantly reviving my recol-
lection of many of the pieces, which I had
been taught to read and repeat as a boy
at school. And as I read, a sense of
wonder grew, gradually changing to a
feeling of indignation. I said to myself:
Surely Mr. Coventry Patmore's modesty
has led him to take credit on his title-page
for much less than he deserves. He has
not merely selected and arranged these
pieces from the best poets; he has also
(according to his own ideas) improved
them. We have (I thought) in this vol-
ume, the picture of Q. R. Smith touched
up with red and whitewash, and having the
eyes and nose altered by the painter of
signboards. Or to speak more accurately,
in reading this volume, we are requested
to walk through a gallery of paintings by
great masters, almost all improved, in
many places, by the same painter of
wagon-wheels, with the same large brush
As we go on with
filled with coarse red.
the book, we come upon some poem which
we have known all our lives, and every
word of which is treasured and sacred in
our memory. But we are made to feel
that this is indeed our old friend; but his
nose is cut off, and one of his eyes is put
out. Such was my first hasty and unjust
impression. Every poem of those I re-
membered from childhood, had a host of
verbal variations from the version in
which I knew it. In Southey's well-known
verses about The Bell on the Inchcape
Rock, I counted thirty-seven. There
were a good many in Campbell's two
poems; one called The Parrot, and the
other about Napoleon and the British
sailor. So with Cowper's Royal George;
so with Macaulay's Armada. So with
Scott's Young Lochinvar; so with Byron's
Destruction of Sennacherib; so with
Wordsworth's poem as to the dog that
watched many weeks by his dead master
on Helvellyn; so with Goldsmith's Good

people all, of every sort; so with Mrs. | reign plugged with lead, you had better Hemans's Graves of a Household. Mr. not try to pass it off upon people as a Patmore tells us in his Preface, that, "in a genuine sovereign. All this is as plain as very few instances he has ventured to sub- may be. But there are many collectors stitute a word or phrase, where that of and editors of little poems, who take a the author has made the piece in which it golden piece by Goldsmith, Wordsworth, occurs unfit for children's reading." But Campbell, or Moore, and punch out a on my first reading of his book, it appear- word here and there, and stick in their ed that he had made alterations by scores, own miserable little plug of pinchbeck. most of them so trivial as to be very ir- And then, having thus debased the coin, ritating. But I proceeded to investigate. they have the impudence to palm it off I compared Mr. Patmore's version of each upon the world with the superscription of poem, with the version of each poem con- Goldsmith, Wordsworth, Campbell, or tained in the last edition of its author's Moore. It is needful, I think, that some works, and though I found a few varia- plain principles of literary honesty should tions, made apparently through careless be instilled into cutting and carving editors. transcribing, and though I was annoyed Even Mr. Palgrave, in his Golden Treaby considerable disregard of the author's sury, is not free from some measure of punctuation and capitals, still it appeared blame; though his sins are as nothing that in the main Mr. Patmore gives us compared with those of the editors of the pieces as their authors left them; school collections and volumes of sacred while the versions of them, given in those poetry. Mr. Palgrave has not punched books which are put into the hands of out gold to stick in pinchbeck; but in one children, have in almost every case, been or two glaring instances, he has punched touched up by nobody knows whom. So out gold and left the vacant space. Every that when Mr. Patmore's book falls into one knows that exquisite little poem of the hands of men who made their first Hood's, The Death Bed. That poem acquaintance with many of the pieces it consists of four stanzas. Mr. Palgrave contains, in their schoolboy days, and who gives us in his book a poem which he naturally prefer the version of them which calls The Death Bed; and puts at the is surrounded by the associations of that end of it the honored name of Hood. But season, Mr. Patmore will be unjustly it is not Hood's Death Bed; any more accused of having cut and carved upon than a sovereign with one half of it cut off the dear old words. Whereas, in truth, would be a true sovereign. Mr. Palgrave the present generation has reason to com- gives us just two stanzas; Hood's first and plain of having been introduced to the last; leaving out the two intermediate ones. wrong things in youth; so that now we In a note, whose tone is much too confican not rightly appreciate the right things. dent for my taste, Mr. Palgrave attempts And for myself, my first unjust suspicion to justify this tampering with the coin of of Mr. Patmore, speedily dispelled by in- of the realm. He says that the omitted vestigation, led me to many thoughts upon stanzas are very ingenious, but that inthe whole subject of literary honesty and genuity is not in accordance with pathos. dishonesty in this matter. But what we want is Hood with his own peculiar characteristics; not Hood with the corners rubbed off to please even so competent a critic as Mr. Palgrave. In my judgment, the two omitted stanzas are eminently characteristic of Hood. I do not think they are very ingenious; they express simple and natural feelings; and they are expressed with a most touching and pathetic beauty. And on the whole, if you are to give the poem to the world as Hood's, they seem to have an especial right to stand in it. If you give a picture of a bison, surely you should give the hump; even though you may think the animal would be more graceful without it. We want to have

It seems to me quite essential that a plain principle of common faithfulness should be driven into those persons who edit and publish the writings of other men. If you pretend to show us Raphael's picture, let it be exactly as Raphael left it. But if your purpose be to exhibit the picture as touched up by yourself, do not mendaciously call the picture a Raphael. Call it what it is; to wit, Raphael altered and improved by Snooks. If you take a sovereign, and drill several holes in it, and fill them up with lead, you will be made to feel, should you endeavor to convey that coin into circulation, that though you may sell it for what it is worth as a sove