marketable, though they produce priceless, works.  La Place, Wordsworth, Bentham, could not have existed had they depended on the first product of their works; they would have perished before an acknowledging world could have given them bread.’  They say, further, that ’the humblest literary man works for something more than hire, and produces something more effective than a mere piece of merchandise.  His book is not only sold to the profit of the bookseller, but to the benefit of the public.  The publisher pays for its mercantile value, but the public should reward the author for its moral and social effect, as they take upon themselves to punish, if it have an evil tendency.’

Whether the promoters are right or wrong in their views, will be best proved by the result; meantime, they put forth some good names as provisional president, vice-president, and managers, and propose that the Institute shall comprise four branches—­namely, a Protective Society, a Philanthropic and Provident Fund, an Educational Association, and a Life-Assurance Department.  The subscribers are to consist of two classes:  those who give contributions for the benefit of the Institute, and those who seek to benefit themselves.  The former are to be asked to insure their lives, for different rates of premium, the amounts to fall into the corporation at the decease of the subscribers; and thus a fund would be raised out of which, on certain conditions, participating subscribers would be able to secure a provision for old age, or premature decay of mental power, the means of educating their children, and leaving a solatium to their widows.  If all this can be carried out, and if literary men, as a class, are capable of all that the prospectus of the new scheme implies, how much of distress and heart-breaking misery will be saved to society!

There are several subjects which, having recently been brought before our Horticultural Society, have somewhat interested gardening folk.  At one of the meetings, there was exhibited ’a very fine specimen of common mignonette,’ which ’was stated to have been a single plant pricked out into a pot in January 1851, and shifted on until it had attained a large size.  It was mentioned, that mignonette is not an annual, as many imagine it to be; but that it will become a woody shrub, and last for years, provided it is well managed, and kept free from frost and damp.’  So runs the report in the society’s journal.

There was, likewise, an exhibition of black Hamburg grapes by Mr Fry, a Kentish gardener, who made thereupon some observations, which appear to be deserving of wider circulation.  The grapes were grown in a building seldom heated artificially, and were much attacked by mildew during the last two seasons, on which prompt measures were taken to diffuse perfectly dry ‘sulphur vivum’ throughout the house by means of a sulphurator, until fruit and foliage were completely but lightly coated.  ’Fires were lighted, and the temperature kept up to from 80