northern climes can have no adequate idea of the productive power of even a single handful of earth in this favoured spot. A large bush will be seen growing out of a hole in the rock barely sufficient for its stem. Although the season is winter, when most English gardens wear a doleful aspect, all around is gay with salvias, lavateras, geraniums, myrtles, pelargoniums, and other plants less or more in blossom. Specimens of the aloe and cactaceæ grow luxuriantly on the jutting points of the rocks. The mesembryanthemum is in great profusion on the terraces. Garden plants which with us are only small bushes, grow here to the dimensions of moderate-sized trees. The grounds are tended by a native gardener, who conducts the engineering of the ascending and descending pathways, and has the whole in charge during summer, when the rays of the sun blaze fiercely on the gray limestone cliffs. I ventured to suggest to the doctor the purchase of that time-worn ruined tower of the Grimaldis, which, amidst a group of olive trees, overhangs the entrance to the gardens. Cannot be done. The ruin, practically valueless, is held in heritage by six individuals, whose demands are too enormous to be dealt with. At an opposite corner of the gardens is a slip of flat ground bounded by a wall on the verge of the cliff, and here, at a projecting angle, stands a round pepper-box-looking turret, which in the olden time had been a watch-tower of the Grimaldis, commanding a fine view westwards as far as Cap Martin. From a flag-staff on its summit, the union jack—‘the meteor flag of England’—is unfurled on holiday occasions, and may have been seen incomprehensibly waving far overhead by travellers along the Corniche. The level patch of ground which is so distinguished seems to form a kind of open drawing-room or lounge, for playing croquet, reading, and other recreations. At the inner side of it there is an arched alcove with a slight trickle of water, affording growth to ferns and some other plants; and here in the cool shade, swinging his hammock, Dr Bennet at certain hours indulges in the pleasures of a lazaroni existence. While his old friends the London physicians are driving through drizzling sleets and choking smoky fogs, he, by an intelligent if not compulsory restraint, is lolling in his hammock on the cliffs of Grimaldi, enjoying the pure air and sunshine in the midst of a little garden of Eden—the elegant pursuit of botanical science in a bland climate skilfully protracting a life which had formerly been in jeopardy. All cannot follow his example, nor is it desirable they should do so, but to how many professionals approaching their grand climacteric is the example, at all events, eminently suggestive?