n a ditch there
would be nobody to cover me with earth. Fortunately, by virtue of the
heavenly (_i.e._, Imperial) compassion, having been graciously permitted
to give up my office, all that remains of me, protractedly wearing out
my failing breath, is due to the overflowing grace of the Holy Lord (the
Emperor). During the two years I have been abroad I have passed under
the hands of foreign doctors not a few, who felt my pulse and
administered medicine in a manner very different from native
practitioners. In relieving my indigestion and removing the torpor [of
my liver] they occasionally produced some little effect; but my
constitution became weaker every day, and there was no restoring it.
After casting about this way and that, there seemed but one resource
left to me--to take advantage of a steamer bound for Fu (_i.e._,
Shanghai), and then to return by way of the Yangtsze River to my native
place and put myself under medical advice. Prostrate I implore the
Heavenly Compassion to grant me three months' leave of absence, in order
to establish a complete cure, so that perhaps I may not contract disease
that will prove incurable. After your servant has got home it will be
his duty to report early the day of his arrival, and he earnestly
desires that he may be restored to health. Then I will return to the
capital to resume my functions, and implore that some trifling post may
be given me that I may testify my gratitude by strenuous exertions, like
a dog or a horse. Wherefore I, your humble servant, now beg for leave of
absence on account of my ill-health, and respectfully present the
petition in which my request is lucidly set forth, entreating with
reverence that the sacred glance may rest upon it."

ANIMALS AND PLANTS.

In the first of the present series of Essays it was pointed out[4] that
the number of kinds of living creatures is so prodigious that it would
be a hopeless task for any man to attempt to grasp the leading facts of
their natural history, save with the help of a well-arranged system of
classification. Such a system enables the student to consider the
subjects of his study collectively in masses--masses arranged in a
series of groups, which are successively smaller and more and more
subordinate. By "subordinate groups" are meant groups which are
successively contained one within the other. As an example of such
subordinate grouping we may take the group of familiar objects denoted
by the word "mon