to whom Latin was vernacular. Yet doubtless the whole series of lectures was a much more adequate treatment of the subject; and we will close this article, which is already a kind of pot-pourri, with an extract from a letter written by one of that small audience, and which vies well with the eloquent passage that Dr. Bushnell has quoted from Prof. Gibbs, in the 31st page of his essay:—
“Language, before apparently a mere ordinary vehicle, became in his hands the chariot of Ezekiel, ‘celestial equipage instinct with spirit,’ the fabric not behind the noble uses. His science is to all who have the boon of speech what anatomy is to the painter. His descriptions of the structure and nature of vocal sounds charm like the explanations of Egyptian hieroglyphics. Indeed, they display a scheme of more subtle symbolism, and one which, if in its own region less beautiful, is richer than music.
“The common enjoyment of the study of languages, arising from their social character, their revelations of community of thought and sentiment, is greatly enhanced by Dr. Kraitsir's lively and penetrating methods. The identity of roots presented by him affects the imagination with a sense of the closest fraternity, and recalled to my mind with new force the words of an eloquent advocate for the study of languages, who, in dwelling upon the sympathies it stirred up, exclaimed with the prophet, ‘Have we not all one Father? hath not one God created us?'"
Art. XII.—VEGETATION ABOUT SALEM, MASS.
The vegetation of Salem is remarkably foreign. Two species belonging to different families, and both of exotic origin, threaten to take complete possession of the soil.
The first, the well-known wood-wax (Ginista tinctoria), is running rapidly over all the hills and dry pastures. This plant seems to occupy in this vicinity the place which the furze-bush occupies on the heaths and commons of England; or it may resemble, in its manner of possessing the soil, the
