He

Sir Edward Seymour was one of the leading members of opposition in King James's parliament, and was one of the first to join the Prince of Orange on his arrival in England. He was, however, far from pure in his public life, as the above note shows. had been Speaker of the House of Commons, and, according to Burnet, was the first Speaker who had not been bred to the bar. It is said of him that he understood the House of Commons so perfectly, that he could decide the fate of a question from the faces of its members; and that when he was a partizan of the Court, and saw a motion going against it, he would misstate the question, and so delay it, till the party had gathered itself together. Another characteristic story is told by Lord Dartmouth. "When Sir Edward was Speaker, his coach broke at Charing Cross, and he ordered the beadles to stop the next gentleman's they met, and bring it to him. The gentleman in it was much surprised to be turned out of his own coach, but Sir Edward told him it was more proper for him to walk in the streets than the Speaker of the House of Commons, and left him so to do without any further apology."

"La Sunderland came to mee, when La Essex quitted his place in the Treasury, to conjure nee from the K. to take it. La Hide came along with him and joyned in it. Hee told mee, at the same time, if I would take it, hee would be answerable that in three months I should have the White Staffe."

This was in 1679, when the King refused to call a parliament. Essex

"Sunderland La pressed Barillon that the French might march towards Collen (Cologne) when they went to Philipsbourg."

This note proves the treachery of Sunderland to both King James and the Prince of Orange. According to Lord Macaulay, Sunderland attached himself to the Prince about the middle of August, 1688, which was before the King of France turned his troops from Cologne to Philipsburg. Had Sunderland's advice been taken, the frontiers of Holland would have been threatened, and the Dutch expedition probably prevented.

were

Several proposals of a similar kind made by his courtiers to Charles II. The Duke of Buckingham once had the audacity to suggest that the queen should be kidnapped during a masquerade, and sent to the plantations. The king replied, somewhat in the spirit of the above, that it was a wicked thing to make a poor lady miserable only because she was his wife, and had no children by him, which was no fault of hers.

"Ld Sunderland said at his table that rather than not gaine the majority of the House of Lds, if hee was the K. hee would create La Feversham's troop Peers."

This relates to the end of the reign of James II., when the king was attempting to pack a House of Commons, and had determined to violate parliament. Lord Dartmouth, in one of his notes to Burnet's history, tells the same story. "The old Earl of Bradford," he writes, "told me he dined in a great deal of company at the Earl of Sunderland's, who declared publicly that they were now sure of their for it would be an easy game; matter to have a House of Commons to their minds, and there was nothing else could resist them. Lord Bradford asked him if they were as sure of the House of Lords, for he believed they would meet with more opposition there than they expected. Lord Sunderland, turning to Lord Churchill who sat next him, and in a very loud voice, cried, "Oh, Silly, why your troop of guards shall be called to the House of Lords." It is curious that Lord Sunderland's son should have been one of the warmest supporters of the celebrated bill of 1719 for restricting the numbers of the peerage. He desired

to defend the House of Lords from the scandalous abuse of large creations of peers.

The MS. continues that

"After Ld Sunderland was turned out, Ld Dover came to L(ord) P(eterborough), and told him though hee had not been well with Ld Sunderland, yet he must do him a favour, and assured him hee would not offend the King by it, hee must send to his Priest in Northamptonshire to go to Althorp, because my Lady Sunderland would not let him have a chappell. Lady Sund. said her Ld never was a Papist, but only appeared so, that he might do the better service."

Sunderland became Catholic in the very last moments of the reign of James II. He had for some time been advising the King to make concessions to the people. The King was half inclined to comply, till a false report arrived of the destruction of the

once asserted all his old principles, and Sunderland made the only reparation which could save his credit with the King, that of becoming Catholic.

"L. P. told mee the French Embassadour sent him to the Duke of York to perswade him not to declare, and that hee would bring him as good casuist's opinions as were to convince his conscience in it. The D. replyed the French Embassadour was a Rogue and had no religion, hee forgave my Lds moving it, because hee knew hee meant well, but charged him never to repeat it."

The Duke was at first desirous to

keep his conversion a secret, but was not allowed by the Pope to do so. Having once declared himself a Roman Catholic, he remained firm. In 1682 Charles II. was most anxious that the Duke, then in Scotland, should attend the Episcopalian Church merely for form's sake. The Duke refused, on the grounds that such conduct would. not be consistent with his conscience.

Here we shall stop, at all events for the present. A great number of notes have necessarily been omitted, and we are well aware that many people would have preferred that the space devoted to our own remarks should have been occupied with further extracts from the manuscript. But it has not been so much our object to lay the entire manuscript before the public, as to draw attention to its significance and historical value, in the hope that some information may be derived as to its origin and history. With this view we have extracted those passages which seemed most characteristic, and in transcribing them, have adhered to that order in which the writer himself has placed them. In short, we have only tried to enable the reader to form some independent opinion of the authenticity and character of the MS., and if this object has been attained, we shall remain satisfied.

HUGH F. ELLIOT.

II. THE COLOURS OF PLANTS. THE colouring of plants is neither so varied nor so complex as that of animals, and its explanation accordingly offers fewer difficulties. The colours of foliage are, comparatively, little varied, and can be traced in almost all cases to a special pigment termed chlorophyll, to which is due the general green colour of leaves; but the recent investigations of Mr. Sorby and others have shown that chlorophyll is not a simple green pigment, but that it really consists of at least seven distinct substances, varying in colour from blue to yellow and orange. These differ in their proportions in the chlorophyll of different plants; they have different chemical reactions; they are differently affected by light; and they give distinct spectra. Mr. Sorby further states that scores of different colouring matters are found in the leaves and flowers of plants, to some of which appropriate names have been given, as erythrophyll which is red, and phaiophyll which is brown; and many of these differ greatly from each other in their chemical composition. These inquiries are at present in their infancy, but as the original term chlorophyll seems scarcely applicable under the present aspect of the subject, it would perhaps

1 In the first part of this paper I used the term "voluntary sexual-selection" to indicate the theory that many of the ornaments of male animals have been produced by the choice of the females, and to distinguish it from that form of sexual selection which explains the acquisition of weapons peculiar to male animals as due to the selective influence of their combats and struggles for the possession of the females. I find that Mr. Darwin thinks the term "voluntary" not strictly applicable, and I therefore propose to alter it to "conscious" or "perceptive," which seem free from any ambiguity and make not the least difference to my argument.

be better to introduce the analogous word Chromophyll as a general term for the colouring matters of the vegetable kingdom.

Light has a much more decided action on plants than on animals. The green colour of leaves is almost wholly dependent on it; and although some flowers will become fully coloured in the dark, others are decidedly affected foliage is fully exposed to it. Lookby the absence of light, even when the ing therefore at the numerous coloured substances which are developed in the tissues of plants; the sensitiveness of these pigments to light; the changes they undergo during growth and development; and the facility with which new chemical combinations are effected by the physiological processes of plants as shown by the endless variety in the chemical constitution of vegetable products, we have no difficulty in comprehending the general causes which aid table world, or the extreme variability in producing the colours of the vege of those colours. We may therefore here confine ourselves to an inquiry

into the various uses of colour in the economy of plants; and this will generally enable us to understand how it has become fixed and specialised in the several and species of the vegegenera

table kingdom.

In animals, as we have seen, colour is greatly influenced by the need of protection from or of warning to their numerous enemies, and to the necessity for identification and easy recognition. Plants rarely need to be concealed, and obtain protection either by their spines, their hardness, their hairy covering, or their poisonous secretions. A very few cases of what seem to be true protective colouring do, however, exist, the most remarkable being that of the "stone mesembryanthemum," of the Cape of

Good Hope, which in form and colour closely resembles the stones among which it grows; and Dr. Burchell, who first discovered it, believes that the juicy little plant thus generally escapes the notice of cattle and wild herbivorous animals. Mr. J. P. Mansel Weale also noticed that many plants growing in the stony Karoo have their tuberous roots above the soil, and these so perfectly resemble the stones among which they grow that, when not in leaf, it is almost impossible to distinguish them (Nature, vol. iii. p. 507). A few cases of what seem to be protective mimicry have also been noted, the most curious being that of three very rare British fungi, found by Mr. Worthington Smith, each in company with common species, which they so closely resembled that only a minute examination could detect the difference. One of the common species is stated in botanical works to be "bitter and nauseous," so that it is not improbable that the rare kind may escape being eaten by being mistaken for an uneatable species though itself palatable. Mr. Mansel Weale also mentions a labiate plant, the Ajuga ophrydis, of South Africa, as strikingly resembling an orchid. This may be a means of attracting insects to fertilize the flower in the absence of sufficient nectar or other attraction in the flower itself; and the supposition is rendered more probable by this being the only species of the genus Ajuga in South Africa. Many other cases of resemblances between very distinct plants have been noticed-as that of some Euphorbias to Cacti ; but these very rarely inhabit the same country or locality, and it has not been proved that there is in any of these cases the amount of inter-relation between the species which is the essential feature of the protective "mimicry" occurs in the animal world.

The different colours exhibited by the foliage of plants, and the changes it undergoes during growth and decay, appear to be due to the general laws already sketched out, No. 216.-VOL. XXXVI.

and to have little if any relation to the special requirements of each species. But flowers and fruits exhibit definite and well-pronounced tints, often varying from species to species, and more or less clearly related to the habits and functions of the plant. With the few exceptions already pointed out, these may be generally classed as attractive colours. The seeds of plants require to be dispersed so as to reach places favourable for germination and growth. Some are very minute, and are carried abroad by the wind, or they are violently expelled and scattered by the bursting of the containing capsules. Others are downy or winged, and are carried long distances by the gentlest breeze. But there is a large class of seeds which cannot be dispersed in either of these ways, and are mostly contained in eatable fruits. These fruits are devoured by birds or beasts, and the hard seeds pass through their stomachs undigested, and, owing probably to the gentle heat and moisture to which they have been subjected, in a condition highly favourable for germination. The dry fruits or capsules containing the first two classes of seeds are rarely, if ever, conspicuously coloured, whereas the eatable fruits almost invariably acquire a bright colour as they ripen, while at the same time they become soft and often full of agreeable juices. Our red haws and nips, our black elderberries, our blue sloes and whortleberries, our white mistletoe and snowberry, and our orange sea-buckthorn, are examples of the colour-sign of edibility; and in every part of the world the same phenomenon is found. The fruits of large forest-trees, such as the pines, oaks, and beeches, are not coloured, perhaps because their size and abundance render them sufficiently conspicuous, and also because they provide such a quantity of food to such a number of different animals that there is no danger of their being unnoticed.

The colours of flowers serve to render them visible and recognisable

H H

by insects which are attracted by secretions of nectar or pollen. During During their visits for the purpose of obtaining these products, insects involuntarily carry the pollen of one flower to the stigma of another, and thus effect cross-fertilization, which, as Mr. Darwin was the first to demonstrate, immensely increases the vigour and fertility of the next generation of plants. This discovery has led to the careful examination of great numbers of flowers, and the result has been that the most wonderful and complex arrangements have been found to exist, all having for their object to secure that flowers shall not be self-fertilised perpetually, but that pollen shall be carried, either constantly or occasionally, from the flowers of one plant to those of another. Mr. Darwin himself first worked out the details in orchids, primulas, and some other groups; and hardly less curious phenomena have since been found to occur, even among some of the most regularlyformed flowers. The arrangement, length, and position of all the parts of the flower is now found to have a purpose, and not the least remarkable portion of the phenomenon is the great variety of ways in which the same result is obtained. the discoveries with regard to orchids, it was to be expected that the irregular, tubular, and spurred flowers should present various curious adaptations for fertilization by insect-agency. But even among the open, cup-shaped, and quite regular flowers, in which it seemed inevitable that the pollen must fall on the stigma, and produce constant self-fertilization, it has been found that this is often prevented by a physiological variation- the anthers constantly emitting their pollen either a little earlier or a little later than the stigmas of the same flower, or of other flowers on the same plant, were in the best state to receive it; and as individual plants in different stations, soils, and aspects, differ somewhat in the time of flowering, the pollen of

After

one plant would often be conveyed by insects to the stigmas of some other plant in a condition to be fertilized by it. This mode of securing crossfertilization seems so simple and easy, that we can hardly help wondering why it did not always come into action, and so obviate the necessity for those elaborate, varied, and highly complex contrivances found in perhaps the majority of coloured flowers. The answer to this of course is, that variation sometimes occurred most freely in one part of a plant's organization, and sometimes in another, and that the benefit of cross-fertilization was so great that any variation that favoured it was preserved, and then formed the starting-point of a whole series of further variations, resulting in those marvellous adaptations for insect fertilization, which have given much of their variety, elegance, and beauty, to the floral world. For details of these adaptations we must refer the reader to the works of Darwin, Lubbock, Herman Müller, and others. We have here only to deal with the part played by colour, and by those floral structures in which colour is most displayed.

The sweet odours of flowers, like their colours, seem often to have been developed as an attraction or guide to insect fertilizers, and the two phenomena are often complementary to each other. Thus, many inconspicuous flowers-like the mignonette and the sweet-violet, can be distinguished by their odours before they attract the eye, and this may often prevent their being passed unnoticed; while very showy flowers, and espe cially those with variegated or spotted petals, are seldom sweet. White, or very pale flowers, on the other hand, are often excessively sweet, as exemplified by the jasmine and clematis; and many of these are only scented at night, as is strikingly the case with the night-smelling stock, our butterfly orchis (Habenaria chlorantha), the greenish-yellow Daphne pontica, and many others. These white flowers