MEN OF THE TIME.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XXIV, Issue 1522, 28 October 1865, Page 3

MEN OF THE TIME.

The following brief sketches are given in Men of the Time of two eminent men whose names are recorded among those who "passed to their rest" in the course of August last:—

Aytoun, William Edmondstoune, poet and professor, was born in the year 1813, of a Fifeshire family, and was educated at the seminaries of the Scottish capital. He was distinguished among his contemporaries at the academy for the excellence he displayed in the composition of Latin and English, and obtained a prize for a poem on Judith. In 1831 he gave to the public a volume of verse, entitled "Poland and other Poems," which was not successful in attracting any very general attention. Mr. Aytoun obtained admission, in 1840, to the Scottish bar, and became one of the standing wits of the Edinburgh law courts—though without acquiring forensic celebrity as an advocate, excepting as counsel in criminal cases. He had the good fortune, however, to be presented, in 1845, to the chair of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres in the University. The professor's politics, originally of a somewhat liberal tendency, having gradually undergone a complete change, he became a leading contributor to Blackwood's Magazine, in the editorship of which he is understood to have succeeded his father-in-law, the celebrated Professor Wilson. In that northern periodical, from time to time, first appeared those stirring national ballads, now known as "Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers ;" among which " The Heart of Bruce," "Edinburgh after Flodden," and " The Burial March of Dundee," may be cited, as exhibiting their author's poetic faculty. Besides these Lays, he is author of many pieces in the Book of Ballads, edited by Bon Gaultier—a name under which he and Mr. Theodore Martin contributed to various periodicals. In the summer of 1853, Professor Aytoun appeared at Willis's rooms, in the metropolis, and delivered six lectures on "Poetry and Dramatic Literature " to large and fashionable audiences ; and to his pen is ascribed the mock-heroical tragedy of " Firmilian," designed to ridicule the rising poets of the day as " The Spasmodic School," and to discredit a certain order of critics, whose eccentric praise is certainly somewhat perilous to those on whom it is bestowed. Of late years no writer on the Conservative side of politics has rendered more efficient service to his party than Professor Aytoun; and in 1852 Lord Derby appointed him to the offices of Sheriff and Vice-Admiral of Orkney.

Hooker, Sir William Jackson, K.H., the only surviving son of the late Joseph Hooker, Esq., of Exeter, is a member of the family which produced the learned author of The Ecclesiastical Polity, and was born at Norwich in 1785. He devoted himself from youth to botanical studies, and was, for some years, Regius Professor of Botany in the University of Glasgow, but was subsequently appointed to the curatorship of the Royal Gardens at Kew, a post which he still (1861) holds. He was knighted in 1835, and in 1845 was created an honorary D.C.L. of Oxford, in recognition of his scientific attainments. He is a member of nearly all the learned and scientific societies, both upon the Continent and in America, and a Knight of the Legion of Honour. He is the author, of The British Flora, Flore Borealis Americana, Icones Filicum, Genera Filicum, Musci Exotica, Flora Exotica, Muscologia Britannica, &c., and contributed the botanical portion of the work to Captain (afterward Admiral) Beechey's account of his voyage of discovery in the Arctic regions. He has also contributed largely to botanical periodical literature.

The Rainbow.—ln a recent communication to the Paris Academy of Sciences, M. Kaillard, after referring to a theory of the rainbow which he stated in 1857, describes a simple means of producing an artificial bow at pleasure—an experiment which he believes strongly confirms his theory. M. Kaillard sayß that by his hypothesis facts are explained which are otherwise inexplicable, and even contradictory to the old theory. He considers that the absence of the coloured rainbow in mists and clouds, vhen there is no raih, is so incompatible with the old hypothesis, that in order to account fpr it, recourse was had in the supposition that clouds an'i mists were invariably formed of water-bladders, or of vesicular vapour. His new theory attributes the phenomenon of the rainbow, with its variations, to the interference of the solar rays which emerge from the drops or globules of water, in rain or mist, after having been reflected from the interior of these drops. The author adduces the observations of Miller and Galle, as harmonizing with this j theory. An artificial rainbow can, it is said, be easily reproduced by means of an ingenious apparatus devised by M. Salles-Girons, by which a stream of water can be converted into a little cloud, formed of liquid globules of a size that can be varied at pleasure. Placing this apparatus before a window, and looking upon a black background when the artificial cloud is illuminated by the raysof thtfsun, aluminous bow will be seen, the colours, shades, and breadth of which vary with the size of the globules of water, which give rise to the rainbow. When the globules are small, the bow no longer shows the more refrangible colours of the spectrum, but has an outer reddish border, which finally fills the whole space between the first and second bow. In this experiment (Which, with the electric light, would, we imagine, make a striking lecture illustration'), the cloud, says M. Kaillard, cannot be thought to be in' a vesicular state, as it is formed directly by cold liquid water, and not by condensation of vapour. The cause of the suspension of this water dust, and of the small icy crystals to which he believes parhelia and cirri are due, the au'hor has already given in the Compter Itendus.— Reader. The Bloomer Costume.—lt is an interesting fact, says a contemporary, that the young lady who introduced "those things" popularly known after her name, the Bloomer costume, has now quietly taken unto herself the female garb. She has been married to a gentleman residing at Counsel Bluffs, lowa, and it would seem that his counsel is as bluff as the place where he resides, for Miss Bloomer that was is now tame and common-sense-like in her doings, and is decidedly not allowed to wear " those things " which, as the song says, " she fondly deemed to call her own," The dream of youth is but rarely realised, observes Philosophy, but it would also add, does not this instance prove how good it is for us that it is not realised ?