Archytas who is supposed to ask for this boon, v. 23. If this latter supposition were correct, then, of course, the first few verses, in which Archytas is addressed, must be attributed to some other person, and a dialogue necessarily would result. But let us for a moment consider the words and the sense of the original. How ludicrously absurd is the notion of a corpse lying on the shore to be recognised by a passing sailor as the body of Archytas! But let this be explained by some supernatural agency, do the expres sions of the original warrant the notion that the philosopher lay unburied on the shore? "Te cohibent, Archyta, pulveris exigui parva munera." Surely this means, "The small boon of a little sand, Archytas, confines thee;" and until yes means no, and no means yes, we cannot, instead of "The small boon," say the absence of the small boon." There would be an end of all logical interpretation, if at our will and pleasure we were allowed thus to convert any sentence into the very opposite by adding or removing a negative. The expression cohibent (confines), moreover, clearly conveys the idea of sepulchral rest.* Thus Horace uses it again in the same sense, Od. ii. 20, 8. "Nec Stygia cohibebor unda."† We must, therefore, abide by the conclusion, that whoever addresses Archytas in these lines does not see his nnburied body, but his tomb, which in a well-known locality "prope litus Matinum," was familiar to all who frequented the coast of Southern Italy. In confirmation of this view we find that stress is laid on the concluding word morituro, not on the supposed misfortune of Archytas, viz: his lacking the funeral rites, but on the fact of his being obliged to die, though, like Tantalus and Minos, he penetrated the secrets of Jupiter in trying to measure the bounds of the universe. The last remark leads us to discover another flaw in the usual inter pretation of this poem. It points out the close connexion between verse 7 et seq. and those which precede. The first six verses state a fact, and the following adduce some striking examples in illustration of it. By what perversity of ingenuity can anybody break in two this natural sequence of reflexion, which is all of one piece, in order to make a dialogue of it! There is no question and answer-no argument and refutation-no attack and repartee. The whole flows down like a smooth stream without the least interruption; so that, even if we ⚫ Baxter has a very good rote on this expression: Cohibent bene et emphatice, per totum mundum antea vagatum scilicet. + The primary signification of cohibere is to confine forcibly. Thus it is used Hor. Od. 3. 4. 80. Pirithoum cohibent catena. Id. Ep. ii. 255; Claustra cohibentia Janum. The idea of forcible detention is common of death; as Hor. Od. 1. 4. 16. Jam te premet nox fabulæque manes et domus exilis Plutonia. were accustomed to dialogues in the odes of Horace, we should not be justified in supposing this to be one. We might as easily make dialogues of Thomson's "Seasons," or Pope's "Essay on Man," by simply marking every new paragraph with dramatis persona, as it has been done in this ode. The difficulty and perplexity of the dialogue theory is still further increased by verse 14. The shade of the philosopher speaks of Pythagoras, and, addressing the sailor, says of him, "Judice te non sordidus auctor Naturæ verique”— Not meanly skilled, even by your own applause, In moral truth and Nature's secret laws. This is rather too much. Imagine the philosopher appealing to a sailor's judgment of Pythagoras. As well might a member of this Society ask a captain of a river flat what he thought of Lord Bacon's "Novum Organon," or Newton's "Principia." The absurdity presented in such a supposition is so great, that some editors have adopted the easy process, by which all hermeneutical difficulties are at once removed, viz.: an alteration in the text. What was easier than to change te into me, and thus to make the spirit of Archytas say, that in his (not the sailor's) opinion, Pythagoras was a great philosopher. I need hardly say no MSS. warrant this arbitrary alteration of the text, and that the good sense of modern editors has discarded it altogether. But thus the difficulty remains, and we must try to remove it without violence to the text, by a simple and natural interpretation. As we can discover in the poem itself no traces of a dialogue, the only thing we have to do is to find out the person into whose mouth the poet places the address to Archytas, and the various reflections resulting from it. Nor is this discovery difficult, for v. 21 designates the person most distinctly as some other shipwrecked traveller. Me quoque devexi rapidus comes Orionis Illyricis Notus obruit undis. I too was o'erwhelmed in Illyria's sea by the south wind, Boist'rous companion of setting Orion. The It is clear that these words cannot be attributed to Archytas. quoque points to another person, and surely it would be too absurd if Archytas here took the trouble to inform of his misfortune a man who, as the first few lines of the poem indicate, knew all about him so well. The body of the person then, designated v. 21, we must imagine cast ashore near the well-known grave of Archytas. He recognises it, and then addressing the philosopher, descants on the inevitable fate of death. Then, v. 23, he abruptly turns with At tu to a mariner, and implores him to perform the funeral rites on him, and by this act of piety to earn the reward of the gods. It This conception of the poem is extremely simple and natural. does no violence to any part of the original, requires no forced interpretation, no change in the text; it is not open to any objections on the score of inconsistency, improbability, or obscurity; and I, therefore, unhesitatingly recommend it to general acceptation. The second paper of the night was then read, UPON THE "SPHEROBOLUS STELLATUS," BY THE REV. H. H. HIGGINS, M.A., V.P. The author exhibited a drawing of this plant, in various stages of development, the several processes of which the reverend gentleman had had an opportunity of witnessing. He had found the plant, a minute species of fungus, in the neighbourhood of Huyton Quarry, on the 20th of September. It was growing on the flat surface of a stump, near the ground. He took it home, with a portion of the wood on which it was growing, and placed it on a bed of damp sand, covered with a glass shade. A cluster of similar plants soon sprang up, and the mode of growth in a single specimen was this: - At first appears a little patch of reticulated fibres, the centre of which becomes elevated from beneath by the growth of the young plant, which at length burst through the web and assumes the colour and size of a grain of mustard seed. Subsequently it becomes egg shaped, and attains a height of about a line. A star-like fissure now divides the apex of the plant into five or six equal segments, which fall back like the petals of a flower and discover the inner or lining membrane, resembling a minute egg cup, and containing a sporangium or ball of spores. At the period of maturity this inner membrane suddenly turns itself inside out, with an audible snap, projecting the sporangium to a distance of several inches. The inside of the glass shade used as a cover for the plants became spotted with forty or fifty of these sporangia, which had been ejected with such force as to flatten them against the glass. A portion of the spore pulp, under a high magnifier, exhibited innumerable minute particles, displaying with great activity the ordinary Brownian movements. When the pulp was taken from an unripe sporangium there were also to be seen, by the aid of iodine and a magnifier with very good power of definition, certain other bodies of a linear or slenderly oblong shape, many times the size of the moving particles, and quite pellucid. These appeared to be attacked and entered by the particles, but whether the linear bodies afterwards became developed into perfect spores the observer was not able to ascertain. FOURTH ORDINARY MEETING, Held at the ROYAL INSTITUTION, 1st, December 1856, THOMAS INMAN, Esq., M.D., PRESIDENT, in the chair. The resignation of Mr. James Miller Shain was received. The Rev. H. H. HIGGINS exhibited some prepared specimens of Foreign and English Fancywoods, which led to conversations on the strength of various timbers, and the advantages of poplar for flooring, that wood being a bad conductor of heat. Mr. T. C. ARCHER exhibited sections of the Phytolacea decandia and Phytolacea arborea, showing that the concentric rings were not, as in "exogens," of annual growth. Dr. THOMSON exhibited one of a pair of saddle-bags, captured at the Redan, of Sebastopol, remarkable for its capaciousness and strength, the property of the Hon. Major Plunkett. Also a Hussar's Cloak of great weight and impervious to cold, taken from a Russian in the Crimea. The exterior was of brown coloured leather ornamented with stripes of bright red, and the inside was lined with sheep-skin. The Rev. JOHN ROBBERDS, B.A., read a paper entitled "A Manchester Newspaper a Century Ago;" quoting to the Society numerous passages of local interest, and pointing out the peculiarities of the publication, and style of newspapers at the time. FIFTH ORDINARY MEETING, Held at the ROYAL INSTITUTION, 15th December, 1856, THOMAS INMAN, Esq., M.D., PRESIDENT, in the chair. The resignation of Mr. James McCann was received. Rev. JAMES ENGLAND, M.A. CARL RETZLAG, Ph.D. Rev. F. MALLESON, B.A. Dr. THOMSON exhibited a model of Goodhall's Patent Grinding and Levigating Machine. Mr. RICHARD RATHBONE exhibited a unique and beautiful walking stick, fabricated on board a south-sea whaler, of rings of tortoise-shell upon an iron rod, with an ivory handle made from the tooth of the whale of the Pacific. The Rev. J. ROBBERDS exhibited a leather ring with a case appended, which, on being cut open, discovered a manuscript written on bark. It was brought to the country by a Guinea captain, and was supposed to be a charm. Mr. T. C. ARCHER exhibited several curious products of the fern tribe. One called Pu-lu, or vegetable silk, grown by Lady Dorothy Nevill; another was a styptic, and believed to be a Cibotium, similar to the former; the third consisted of rhizomes of the Polypodium calaguala. The paper of the evening was then read :— ON THE PROBABLE PERIOD OF THE EXTINCTION OF WOLVES, IN ENGLAND. BY RICHARD BROOKE, Esq., F.S.A. "Cruel as death and hungry as the grave! Or shake the murd'ring savages away."-Thomson's "Winter." SEVERAL descriptions of savage animals were at one period inhabitants of Great Britain, which, with the increase of population and civilization, have become extinct; amongst which may be mentioned the wolf, bear,' and wild boar." We may, however, perhaps regret the extinction of other animals which were not of a destructive kind; for example, the beaver is generally admitted by naturalists to have been, 1 Pennant's" British Zoology," vol. 1, p. 65. Bell's "British Quadrupeds," p. 122; Goldsmith's "Natural History," vol. 3, p. 180; Coke's "Institutes," vol. 4, p. 316; Pennaut's "British Zoology," vol. 1, p. 48. By our cruel forest laws after the conquest, the penalty for killing a stag or boar was the loss of eyesHallam's "View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages," vol. 2, 8th edition, Svo. p. 94. Charles I. turned out wild boars in the new forest, Hampshire, but they were all destroyed in the civil wars-Pennant's "British Zoology," vol. 1, p. 48. An attempt was made in the last century to reintroduce wild swine into England, for some were turned loose by General Howe, in his forests in Hampshire, but the attempt was a failure, for the country people destroyed them-Bingley's "British Quadrupeds," p. 449. * Pennant's "British Quadrupeds," vol. 1, p. 86. Holinshed, in his Chronicles written in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, states that the beaver was to be met with in Scotland at the H |