THE ROSE IN JANUARY. I had the good fortune to become acquainted, in his old age, with the celebrated Wieland, and to be often admitted to his table. It was there that, animated by a flask of Rhenish, he loved to recount the anecdotes of his youth, and with a gaiety and _naivete_ which rendered them extremely interesting. His age--his learning--his celebrity--no longer threw us to a distance, and we laughed with him as joyously as he himself laughed in relating the little adventure which I now attempt to relate. It had a chief influence on his life, and it was that which he was fondest of retracing, and retraced with most poignancy. I can well remember his very words; but there are still wanting the expression of his fine countenance--his hair white as snow, gracefully curling round his head--his blue eyes, somewhat faded by years, yet still announcing his genius and depth of thought; his brow touched with the lines of reflection, but open, elevated, and of a distinguished character; his smile full of benevolence and candour. “I was handsome enough,” he used sometimes to say to us--and no one who looked at him could doubt it: “but I was not amiable, for a _savant_ rarely is,” he would add laughingly,--and this every one doubted; so to prove it, he recounted the little history that follows:-- “I was not quite thirty,” said he to us, “when I obtained the chair of philosophical professor in this college, in the most flattering manner: I need not tell you that my _amour propre_ was gratified by a distinction rare enough at my age. I certainly had worked for it formerly: but at the moment it came to me, another species of philosophy occupied me much more deeply, and I would have given more to know what passed in one heart, than to have had power to analyze those of all mankind. I was passionately in love; and you all know, I hope, that when love takes possession of a young head, adieu to every thing else; there is no room for any other thought. My table was covered with folios of all colours, quires of paper of all sizes, journals of all species, catalogues of books, in short, of all that one finds on a professor’s table: but of the whole circle of science, I had for some time studied only the article _Rose_, whether in the Encyclopaedia, the botanical books, or all the gardeners’ calendars that I could meet with. You shall learn presently what led me to this study, and why it was that my window was always open, even during the coldest days. All this was connected with the passion by which I was possessed, and which was become my sole and continual thought. I could not well say at this moment how my lectures and courses got on; but this I know, that more than once I have said, ‘Amelia,’ instead of ‘philosophy.’