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dozen of copy-books under my arm, a very old catalogue with many loose leaves; to which if you add an umbrella in my left, a pen in my right, an ink-bottle dangling from my waistcoat-button, and above all, a heart of a spoiled child in my breast, you will have a tolerable idea of my embarrassment. Week after week elapsed before I mastered a few plants: when I looked at home into my copy-book, the scribbled names did not make rise the respective plants before my imagination; when I came to the garden, the plants did not make rise their respective names. My fellow-students made, in the mean time, great progress in this, for me, so unmanageable study:—for a good reason—they went every morning at five into the fields, gathered plants, determined their names, put them between blotting-paper, &c.—in a word, they gave to botany about six hours per day. I could not possibly afford such an expenditure of time; and besides, I could not bear the idea of studying simply as others did. The advantages I derived from mnemonic contrivances in other departments, induced me to hunt after some scheme in botany also.
My landlady and her two daughters happened to be very inquisitive about the students passing by their parlour window, which was close to the gates of the university; they scarcely ever allowed me to sit down before I satisfied their inquiries respecting the names, respectability, pursuits, &c., of at
