nature, and with amateurs, who seek no more
than the means of interesting information
and varied amusement. Glasses have been
made truly achromatic; that is, they show
objects clearly, without any coloured fringe
or burr around them; several clever
contrivances for making the most of light have
been adopted; and, besides all that, the
mechanical working of the instrument has
been made so steady, delicate, and true, that
a very little practice renders the student
competent to make the most of his tools. In
consequence, there are very many persons, in
England especially, who indulge themselves
with the gratification of examining the
secrets of organised objects; makers are
pressed for instruments of a superior class,
and the number of microscopic aspirants is
on the increase every day.

Microscopes vary greatly in construction
and price, and beginners are puzzled
what to ask for. You may buy a microscope
new—not a second-hand bargain—for
from less than a pound to a hundred and
twenty pounds and upwards. It thus appears
that every one who is not quite pinched in
circumstances, may treat himself to an
instrument of some kind or other. But it
is a comfort to know that, although with a
hundred guineas' microscope you will have
your money's worth in scientific skill in the
perfection of beautiful workmanship, and in
every microscopical luxury that art can supply,
yet that an instrument costing less than
one-tenth or one-twentieth of that sum, will
open the portals of an unseen world, will
afford immense instruction and endless
amusement, and will even enable the
industrious observer to discover new facts.

My own advice is, to treat a budding
microscopist—even supposing that individual
to be yourself—as you would fit out a lad
with his first watch; set him up with a low-
priced one—not a bad one—to begin with.
He will pull it to pieces, to see how it goes;
he will learn the uses of its parts; and he
will thus have a better guess as to what sort of
better one he would like to have next, and
why. Simple microscopes, like Leeuwenhoek's,
are little used now; nor would they
suit schoolboys or adult learners, because
they require Leeuwenhoek's eyes, tact, and
dexterity, to derive from them all the profit
obtainable. Of compound microscopes,
composed of several lenses, there are numerous
forms; the great point is, that they should
be good of their kind; that is, with good lenses.
Bad lenses are simply fit to play ducks and
drakes with on the nearest pond. Smith and
Beck's (of Coleman Street) Educational
Microscope, costing ten pounds, is well
spoken of by high authority. Even this is a
large sum for many persons, who ought to
see the things of which they read. Thus, it
has been pertinently urged, that there is not
a gardener who does not read of cells and
woody tubes and spiral vessels, of stomates
and epidermis. Without a microscope, what
idea can he form of these bodies? And
yet, since they constitute the wondrous
mechanism of a plant, to know nothing certainly
of their nature, is to know nothing distinctly
of those workings in the life of a plant with
which he has to deal, and with which he
should be familiar. Again, we are told that
everyone has the word adulteration in his
mouth: lectures are given on adulterated
food: books are written on adulterated objects
of commerce: prosecutions are instituted
because of adulterated articles of excise. In
all these cases, the naked eye is powerless.
It is only when armed with the magical
powers of an achromatic lens that fraud
becomes palpable to the senses. Certainly, a
microscope of moderate cost might
advantageously make part of the furniture or
property of every reading-room that is not a
mere news-room; of every public library
and literary institution. So might persons
of practically-useful callings—like the
aforesaid gardeners—become more intimately
acquainted with their friends and their foes;
with the structure of the plants which
constitute their crops, and with the mildew
plants which ravage them. A subscriber,
having swallowed suspicious tea for breakfast,
might bring a pinch in a wisp of paper,
and, by the aid of the searcher belonging to
the club, could prove the presence of leaves
that never grew on tea-shrubs; not to
mention bits of Prussian blue, turmeric, and
China clay. In vain would the grocer take
his affidavit to the genuineness of the article.
Seeing is believing. Think of that, ye
mixers of chicory and roasted wheat with
coffee, and of all manner of what-nots with
chicory and roasted wheat themselves!
Think of that, ye multipliers of chocolate by
the agency of brick-dust, potato-starch, old
sea-biscuits, ochre, peroxide of iron, branny
flour, tallow, and greaves!

Beginners generally hanker after high
powers; but high powers will not show
them what they most want to see, as
elementary peeps. With a high power you
cannot survey the entire portly presence of
a male flea, though his stature be smaller than
that of his hen. You cannot, with it, haughtily
scan from top to toe a parasite from a
peacock's plume, or a human head. You
cannot, by its aid, admire a miniature flower;
such as a flowret from a daisy-club, or a
member of a carrot-blossom society, in its
complete contour of prettiness. You can only
thus look at a fragment, a claw, a tongue, a
jaw, a proboscis, an eye, a petal, an anther, or
a bit of one. But it is as well to see how
things look in their integrity, before you begin
to dissect them into morsels. I confess it—
my own working instruments (in stricter
truth, my implements of recreation) are a
humble two-guinea one, principally for
opaque objects—of which I almost always use
the second power only—and another of not