in
conjecture. But he is ambitious, daring, and unscrupulous--the idol of
the army, and the wonder of the people. He may shrink, like Caesar, from
the diadem, or he may assume, like Cromwell, the power of a king,
without the name; but the field is open before him, and France can offer
no competition.

Darwin, the author of the "Botanic Garden," has just died at the age of
seventy-one. His death will leave a chasm, though one not incapable of
being filled up, in our didactic poetry. His "Loves of the Plants" was a
new idea, thrown into agreeable verse; and a new idea is always
popular. For a while his poem obtained great celebrity: but Nature alone
is permanent; and after the first surprise wore off, the quaintness of
his inventions, and the minute artifice of his poetic machinery,
repelled the public taste. The Linnaean system, partly indecent, and
partly ridiculous, was felt to be wholly unfitted for the blazonry of
versification; and his poem, the labour of years, sank into obscurity as
rapidly as it had risen into distinction. It is now wholly unread, and
almost wholly forgotten; yet it contains bold passages, and exhibits
from time to time happiness of epithet, and harmony of language. Its
subject degrades the poem; its casual allusions constitute its merit.
Vegetable loves must be an absurdity in any language; but Darwin's mind
was furnished with variety of knowledge, and he lavished it on his
subject with Oriental profusion. He had eloquence, but he wanted
feeling; knowledge, but he wanted taste; and invention, but he wanted
nature. The want of any one of the three would have been dangerous to
his fame as a poet, but his deficiency in the three together left him to
drop into remediless oblivion.

A curious attempt hast just shown the popular opinion of ministerial
honesty. The Attorney-General has prosecuted, and brought to conviction,
a fellow in some low trade, who, hearing that Mr Addington was prime
minister, and thinking of course that a prime minister could do all
things, sent an actual offer of L2000 to him for a place in the Customs,
on which he happened to set his heart. Unluckily for the applicant, he
was a century too late. However those matters might have been managed a
hundred years ago, less tangible means than money now rule the world.
Besides, no man who knew any thing of Addington, ever attached a
suspicion of the kind to him. Erskine made a speech in the defence, the
best that could be mad