[031] Brown succeeded to the popularity of Kent. He was nicknamed, Capability Brown, because when he had to examine grounds previous to proposed alterations and improvements he talked much of their capabilities. One of the works which are said to do his memory most honor, is the Park of Nuneham, the seat of Lord Harcourt. The grounds extend to 1,200 acres. Horace Walpole said that they contained scenes worthy of the bold pencil of Rubens, and subjects for the tranquil sunshine of Claude de Lorraine. The following inscription is placed over the entrance to the gardens.

Here universal Pan, Knit with the Graces and the Hours in dance, Leads on the eternal Spring.

It is said that the gardens at Nuneham were laid out by Mason, the poet.

[032] Mrs. Stowe visited the Jardin Mabille in the Champs Elysees, a sort of French Vauxhall, where small jets of gas were so arranged as to imitate "flowers of the softest tints and the most perfect shape."

[033] Napoleon, it is said, once conceived the plan of roofing with glass the gardens of the Tuileries, so that they might be used as a winter promenade.

[034] Addison in the 477th number of the Spectator in alluding to Kensington Gardens, observes; "I think there are as many kinds of gardening as poetry; our makers of parterres and flower gardens are epigrammatists and sonnetteers in the art; contrivers of bowers and grottos, treillages and cascades, are romance writers. Wise and London are our heroic poets; and if I may single out any passage of their works to commend I shall take notice of that part in the upper garden at Kensington, which was at first nothing but a gravel pit. It must have been a fine genius for gardening that could have thought of forming such an unsightly hollow unto so beautiful an area and to have hit the eye with so uncommon and agreeable a scene as that which it is now wrought into."

[035] Lord Bathurst, says London, informed Daines Barrington, that he (Lord Bathurst) was the first who deviated from the straight line in sheets of water by following the lines in a valley in widening a brook at Ryskins, near Colnbrook; and Lord Strafford, thinking that it was done from poverty or economy asked him to own fairly how little more it would have cost him to have made it straight. In these days no possessor of a park or garden has the water on his grounds either straight or square if he can make it resemble the Thames as described by Wordsworth:

The river wanders at its own sweet will.

Horace Walpole in his lively and pleasant little work on Modern Gardening almost anticipates this thought. In commending Kent's style of landscape-gardening he observes: "The gentle stream was taught to serpentize at its pleasure."

[036] This Palm-house, "the glory of the gardens," occupies an area of 362 ft. in length; the centre is an hundred ft. in width and 66 ft. in height.

It must charm a Native of the East on a visit to our country, to behold such carefully cultured specimens, in a great glass-case in England, of the trees called by Linnaeus "the Princes of the vegetable kingdom," and which grow so wildly and in such abundance in every corner of Hindustan. In this conservatory also are the banana and plantain. The people of England are in these days acquainted, by touch and sight, with almost all the trees that grow in the several quarters of the world. Our artists can now take sketches of foreign plants without crossing the seas. An allusion to the Palm tree recals some criticisms on Shakespeare's botanical knowledge.

"Look here," says Rosalind, "what I found on a palm tree." "A palm tree in the forest of Arden," remarks Steevens, "is as much out of place as a lioness in the subsequent scene." Collier tries to get rid of the difficulty by suggesting that Shakespeare may have written plane tree. "Both the remark and the suggestion," observes Miss Baker, "might have been spared if those gentlemen had been aware that in the counties bordering on the Forest of Arden, the name of an exotic tree is transferred to an indigenous one." The salix caprea, or goat-willow, is popularly known as the "palm" in Northamptonshire, no doubt from having been used for the decoration of churches on Palm Sunday—its graceful yellow blossoms, appearing at a time when few other trees have put forth a leaf, having won for it that distinction. Clare so calls it:—

"Ye leaning palms, that seem to look Pleased o'er your image in the brook."

That Shakespeare included the willow in his forest scenery is certain, from another passage in the same play:—

"West of this place, down in the neighbour bottom. The rank of osiers by the murmuring stream, Left on your right hand brings you to the place."

The customs and amusements of Northamptonshire, which are frequently noticed in these volumes, were identical with those of the neighbouring county of Warwick, and, in like manner illustrate very clearly many passages in the great dramatist.—Miss Baker's "Glossary of Northamptonshire Words." (Quoted by the London Athenaeum.)

[037] Mrs. Hemans once took up her abode for some weeks with Wordsworth at Rydal Mount, and was so charmed with the country around, that she was induced to take a cottage called Dove's Nest, which over-looked the lake of Windermere. But tourists and idlers so haunted her retreat and so worried her for autographs and Album contributions, that she was obliged to make her escape. Her little cottage and garden in the village of Wavertree, near Liverpool, seem to have met the fate which has befallen so many of the residences of the poets. "Mrs. Hemans's little flower-garden" (says a late visitor) "was no more—but rank grass and weeds sprang up luxuriously; many of the windows were broken; the entrance gate was off its hinges: the vine in front of the house trailed along the ground, and a board, with 'This house to let' upon it, was nailed on the door. I entered the deserted garden and looked into the little parlour—once so full of taste and elegance; it was gloomy and cheerless. The paper was spotted with damp, and spiders had built their webs in the corner. As I mused on the uncertainty of human life, I exclaimed with the eloquent Burke,—'What shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue!'"

The beautiful grounds of the late Professor Wilson at Elleray, we are told by Mr. Howitt in his interesting "Homes and Haunts of the British Poets" have also been sadly changed. "Steam," he says, "as little as time, has respected the sanctity of the poet's home, but has drawn its roaring iron steeds opposite to its gate and has menaced to rush through it and lay waste its charmed solitude. In plain words, I saw the stages of a projected railway running in an ominous line across the very lawn and before the windows of Elleray." I believe the whole place has been purchased by a Railway Company.

[038] In Churton's Rail Book of England, published about three years ago, Pope's Villa is thus noticed—"Not only was this temple of the Muses—this abode of genius—the resort of the learned and the wittiest of the land—levelled to the earth, but all that the earth produced to remind posterity of its illustrious owner, and identify the dead with the living strains he has bequeathed to us, was plucked up by the roots and scattered to the wind." On the authority of William Hewitt I have stated on an earlier page that some splendid Spanish chesnut trees and some elms and cedars planted by Pope at Twickenham were still in existence. But Churton is a later authority. Howitt's book was published in 1847.

[039] One would have thought &c. See the garden of Armida, as described by Tasso, C. xvi. 9, &c.

"In lieto aspetto il bel giardin s'aperse &c."

Here was all that variety, which constitutes the nature of beauty: hill and dale, lawns and crystal rivers, &c.

"And, that which all faire works doth most aggrace, "The art, which all that wrought, appeared in no place."

Which is literally from Tasso, C, xvi 9.

"E quel, che'l bello, e'l caro accresce a l'opre, "L'arte, che tutto fa, nulla si scopre."

The next stanza is likewise translated from Tasso, C. xvi 10. And, if the reader likes the comparing of the copy with the original, he may see many other beauties borrowed from the Italian poet. The fountain, and the two bathing damsels, are taken from Tasso, C. xv, st. 55, &c. which he calls, Il fonte del riso. UPTON.

[040] Cowper was evidently here thinking rather of Milton than of Homer.

Flowers of all hue, and without thorns the rose.

Paradise Lost.

Pope translates the passage thus;

Beds of all various herbs, for ever green, In beauteous order terminate the scene.

Homer referred to pot-herbs, not to flowers of all hues. Cowper is generally more faithful than Pope, but he is less so in this instance. In the above description we have Homer's highest conception of a princely garden:—in five acres were included an orchard, a vineyard, and some beds of pot-herbs. Not a single flower is mentioned, by the original author, though his translator has been pleased to steal some from the garden of Eden and place them on "the verge extreme" of the four acres. Homer of course meant to attach to a Royal residence as Royal a garden; but as Bacon says, "men begin to build stately sooner than to garden finely, as if gardening were the greater perfection." The mansion of Alcinous was of brazen walls with golden columns; and the Greeks and Romans had houses that were models of architecture when their gardens exhibited no traces whatever of the hand of taste.

[041] And over him, art stryving to compayre With nature, did an arber greene dispied

This whole episode is taken from Tasso, C. 16, where Rinaldo is described in dalliance with Armida. The bower of bliss is her garden

"Stimi (si misto il culto e col negletto) "Sol naturali e gli ornamenti e i siti, "Di natura arte par, che per diletto "L'imitatrice sua scherzando imiti."

See also Ovid, Met iii. 157

"Cujus in extremo est antrum nemorale necessu, "Arte laboratum nulla, simulaverat artem "Ingenio natura fuo nam pumice vivo, "Et lenibus tophis nativum duxerat arcum "Fons sonat a dextra, tenui perlucidas unda "Margine gramineo patulos incinctus hiatus"

UPTON

If this passage may be compared with Tasso's elegant description of Armida's garden, Milton's pleasant grove may vie with both.[141] He is, however, under obligations to the sylvan scene of Spenser before us. Mr. J.C. Walker, to whom the literature of Ireland and of Italy is highly indebted, has mentioned to me his surprise that the writers on modern gardening should have overlooked the beautiful pastoral description in this and the two following stanzas.[142] It is worthy a place, he adds, in the Eden of Milton. Spenser, on this occasion, lost sight of the "trim gardens" of Italy and England, and drew from the treasures of his own rich imagination. TODD.

And fast beside these trickled softly downe. A gentle stream, &c.

Compare the following stanza in the continuation of the Orlando Innamorato, by Nilcolo degli Agostinti, Lib. iv, C. 9.

"Ivi e un mormorio assai soave, e basso, Che ogniun che l'ode lo fa addornientare, L'acqua, ch'io dissi gia per entro un sasso E parea che dicesse nel sonare. Vatti riposa, ormai sei stanco, e lasso, E gli augeletti, che s'udian cantare, Ne la dolce armonia par che ogn'un dica, Deh vien, e dormi ne la piaggia, aprica,"

Spenser's obligations to this poem seem to have escaped the notice of his commentators. J.C. WALKER.

[042] The oak was dedicated to Jupiter, and the poplar to Hercules.

[043] Sicker, surely; Chaucer spells it siker.

[044] Yode, went.

[045] Tabreret, a tabourer.

[046] Tho, then

[047] Attone, at once—with him.

[048] Cato being present on one occasion at the floral games, the people out of respect to him, forbore to call for the usual exposures; when informed of this he withdrew, that the spectators might not be deprived of their usual entertainment.

[049] What is the reason that an easterly wind is every where unwholesome and disagreeable? I am not sufficiently scientific to answer this question. Pope takes care to notice the fitness of the easterly wind for the Cave of Spleen.

No cheerful breeze this sullen region knows, The dreaded east is all the wind that blows.

Rape of the Lock.

[050] One sweet scene of early pleasures in my native land I have commemorated in the following sonnet:—

NETLEY ABBEY.

Romantic ruin! who could gaze on thee Untouched by tender thoughts, and glimmering dreams Of long-departed years? Lo! nature seems Accordant with thy silent majesty! The far blue hills—the smooth reposing sea— The lonely forest—the meandering streams— The farewell summer sun, whose mellowed beams Illume thine ivied halls, and tinge each tree, Whose green arms round thee cling—the balmy air— The stainless vault above, that cloud or storm 'Tis hard to deem will ever more deform— The season's countless graces,—all appear To thy calm glory ministrant, and form A scene to peace and meditation dear!

D.L.R.

[051] "I was ever more disposed," says Hume, "to see the favourable than the unfavourable side of things; a turn of mind which it is more happy to possess, than to be born to an estate of ten thousand a year."

[052] So called, because the grounds were laid out in a tasteful style, under the direction of Lord Auckland's sister, the Honorable Miss Eden.

[053] Songs of the East by Mrs. W.S. Carshore. D'Rozario & Co, Calcutta 1854.

[054] The lines form a portion of a poem published in Literary Leaves in the year 1840.

[055] Perhaps some formal or fashionable wiseacres may pronounce such simple ceremonies vulgar. And such is the advance of civilization that even the very chimney-sweepers themselves begin to look upon their old May-day merry-makings as beneath the dignity of their profession. "Suppose now" said Mr. Jonas Hanway to a sooty little urchin, "I were to give you a shilling." "Lord Almighty bless your honor, and thank you." "And what if I were to give you a fine tie-wig to wear on May-day?" "Ah! bless your honor, my master wont let me go out on May-day," "Why not?" "Because, he says, it's low life." And yet the merrie makings on May-day which are now deemed ungenteel by chimney-sweepers were once the delight of Princes:—

Forth goth all the court, both most and least, To fetch the flowres fresh, and branch and blome, And namely hawthorn brought both page and grome, And then rejoicing in their great delite Eke ech at others threw the flowres bright, The primrose, violet, and the gold With fresh garlants party blue and white.

Chaucer.

[056] The May-pole was usually decorated with the flowers of the hawthorn, a plant as emblematical of the spring as the holly is of Christmas. Goldsmith has made its name familiar even to the people of Bengal, for almost every student in the upper classes of the Government Colleges has the following couplet by heart.

The hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade, For talking age and whispering lovers made.

The hawthorn was amongst Burns's floral pets. "I have," says he, "some favorite flowers in spring, among which are, the mountain daisy, the harebell, the fox-glove, the wild-briar rose, the budding birch and the hoary hawthorn, that I view and hang over with particular delight."

L.E.L. speaks of the hawthorn hedge on which "the sweet May has showered its white luxuriance," and the Rev. George Croly has a patriotic allusion to this English plant, suggested by a landscape in France.

'Tis a rich scene, and yet the richest charm That e'er clothed earth in beauty, lives not here. Winds no green fence around the cultured farm No blossomed hawthorn shields the cottage dear: The land is bright; and yet to thine how drear, Unrivalled England! Well the thought may pine For those sweet fields where, each a little sphere, In shaded, sacred fruitfulness doth shine, And the heart higher beats that says; 'This spot is mine.'

[057] On May-day, the Ancient Romans used to go in procession to the grotto of Egeria.

[058] See what is said of palms in a note on page 81.

[059] Phillips's Flora Historica.

[060] The word primrose is supposed to be a compound of prime and rose, and Spenser spells it prime rose

The pride and prime rose of the rest Made by the maker's self to be admired

The Rev. George Croly characterizes Bengal as a mountainous country—

There's glory on thy mountains, proud Bengal—

and Dr. Johnson in his Journey of a day, (Rambler No. 65) charms the traveller in Hindustan with a sight of the primrose and the oak.

"As he passed along, his ears were delighted with the morning song of the bird of paradise; he was fanned by the last flutters of the sinking breeze, and sprinkled with dew by groves of spices, he sometimes contemplated the towering height of the oak, monarch of the hills; and sometimes caught the gentle fragrance of the primrose, eldest daughter of the spring."

In some book of travels, I forget which, the writer states, that he had seen the primrose in Mysore and in the recesses of the Pyrenees. There is a flower sold by the Bengallee gardeners for the primrose, though it bears but small resemblance to the English flower of that name. On turning to Mr. Piddington's Index to the Plants of India I find under the head of Primula—Primula denticula—Stuartii—rotundifolia—with the names in the Mawar or Nepaulese dialect.

[061] In strewing their graves the Romans affected the rose; the Greeks amaranthus and myrtle: the funeral pyre consisted of sweet fuel, cypress, fir, larix, yew, and trees perpetually verdant lay silent expressions of their surviving hopes. Sir Thomas Browne.

[062] The allusion to the cowslip in Shakespeare's description of Imogene must not be passed over here.—

On her left breast A mole cinque-spotted, like the crimson drop I' the bottom of the cowslip.

[063] The Guelder rose—This elegant plant is a native of Britain, and when in flower, has at first sight, the appearance of a little maple tree that has been pelted with snow balls, and we almost fear to see them melt away in the warm sunshine—Glenny.

[064] In a greenhouse

[065] Some flowers have always been made to a certain degree emblematical of sentiment in England as elsewhere, but it was the Turks who substituted flowers for words to such an extent as to entitle themselves to be regarded as the inventors of the floral language.

[066] The floral or vegetable language is not always the language of love or compliment. It is sometimes severe and scornful. A gentleman sent a lady a rose as a declaration of his passion and a slip of paper attached, with the inscription—"If not accepted, I am off to the war." The lady forwarded in return a mango (man, go!)

[067] No part of the creation supposed to be insentient, exhibits to an imaginative observer such an aspect of spiritual life and such an apparent sympathy with other living things as flowers, shrubs and trees. A tree of the genus Mimosa, according to Niebuhr, bends its branches downward as if in hospitable salutation when any one approaches near to it. The Arabs, are on this account so fond of the "courteous tree" that the injuring or cutting of it down is strictly prohibited.

[068] It has been observed that the defense is supplied in the following line—want of sense—a stupidity that "errs in ignorance and not in cunning."

[069] There is apparently so much doubt and confusion is to the identity of the true Hyacinth, and the proper application of its several names that I shall here give a few extracts from other writers on this subject.

Some authors suppose the Red Martagon Lily to be the poetical Hyacinth of the ancients, but this is evidently a mistaken opinion, as the azure blue color alone would decide and Pliny describes the Hyacinth as having a sword grass and the smell of the grape flower, which agrees with the Hyacinth, but not with the Martagon. Again, Homer mentions it with fragrant flowers of the same season of the Hyacinth. The poets also notice the hyacinth under different colours, and every body knows that the hyacinth flowers with sapphire colored purple, crimson, flesh and white bells, but a blue martagon will be sought for in vain. Phillips' Flora Historica.

A doubt hangs over the poetical history of the modern, as well as of the ancient flower, owing to the appellation Harebell being, indiscriminately applied both to Scilla wild Hyacinth, and also to Campanula rotundifolia, Blue Bell. Though the Southern bards have occasionally misapplied the word Harebell it will facilitate our understanding which flower is meant if we bear in mind as a general rule that that name is applied differently in various parts of the island, thus the Harebell of Scottish writers is the Campanula, and the Bluebell, so celebrated in Scottish song, is the wild Hyacinth or Scilla while in England the same names are used conversely, the Campanula being the Bluebell and the wild Hyacinth the Harebell. Eden Warwick.

The Hyacinth of the ancient fabulists appears to have been the corn-flag, (Gladiolus communis of botanists) but the name was applied vaguely and had been early applied to the great larkspur (Delphinium Ajacis) on account of the similar spots on the petals, supposed to represent the Greek exclamation of grief Ai Ai, and to the hyacinth of modern times.

Our wild hyacinth, which contributes so much to the beauty of our woodland scenery during the spring, may be regarded as a transition species between scilla and hyacinthus, the form and drooping habit of its flower connecting it with the latter, while the six pieces that form the two outer circles, being separate to the base, give it the technical character of the former. It is still called Hyacinthus non-scriptus—but as the true hyacinth equally wants the inscription, the name is singularly inappropriate. The botanical name of the hyacinth is Hyacinthus orientalis which applies equally to all the varieties of colour, size and fulness.—W. Hinks.

[070] Old Gerard calls it Blew Harebel or English Jacint, from the French Jacinthe.

[071] Inhabitants of the Island of Chios

[072] Supposed by some to be Delphinium Ajacis or Larkspur. But no one can discover any letters on the Larkspur.

[073] Some savants say that it was not the sunflower into which the lovelorn lass was transformed, but the Heliotrope with its sweet odour of vanilla. Heliotrope signifies I turn towards the sun. It could not have been the sun flower, according to some authors because that came from Peru and Peru was not known to Ovid. But it is difficult to settle this grave question. As all flowers turn towards the sun, we cannot fix on any one that is particularly entitled to notice on that account.

[074] Zephyrus.

[075] "A remarkably intelligent young botanist of our acquaintance asserts it as his firm conviction that many a young lady who would shrink from being kissed under the mistletoe would not have the same objection to that ceremony if performed under the rose."—Punch.

[076] Mary Howitt mentions that amongst the private cultivators of roses in the neighbourhood of London, the well-known publisher Mr. Henry S. Bohn is particularly distinguished. In his garden at Twickenham one thousand varieties of the rose are brought to great perfection. He gives a sort of floral fete to his friends in the height of the rose season.

[077] The learned dry the flower of the Forget me not and flatten it down in their herbals, and call it, Myosotis Scorpioides—Scorpion shaped mouse's ear! They have been reproached for this by a brother savant, Charles Nodier, who was not a learned man only but a man of wit and sense.—Alphonse Karr.

[078] The Abbe Molina in his History of Chili mentions a species of basil which he calls ocymum salinum: he says it resembles the common basil, except that the stalk is round and jointed; and that though it grows sixty miles from the sea, yet every morning it is covered with saline globules, which are hard and splendid, appearing at a distance like dew; and that each plant furnishes about an ounce of fine salt every day, which the peasants collect and use as common salt, but esteem it superior in flavour.—Notes to Darwin's Loves of the Plants.

[079] The Dutch are a strange people and of the most heterogeneous composition. They have an odd mixture in their nature of the coldest utilitarianism and the most extravagant romance. A curious illustration of this is furnished in their tulipomania, in which there was a struggle between the love of the substantial and the love of the beautiful. One of their authors enumerates the following articles as equivalent in money value to the price of one tulip root—"two lasts of wheat—four lasts of rye—four fat oxen—eight fat swine—twelve fat sheep—two hogsheads of wine—four tons of butter—one thousand pounds of cheese—a complete bed—a suit of clothes—and a silver drinking cup."

[080] Maun, must

[081] Stoure, dust

[082] Weet, wetness, rain

[083] Glinted, peeped

[084] Wa's, walls.

[085] Bield, shelter

[086] Histie, dry

[087] Stibble field, a field covered with stubble—the stalks of corn left by the reaper.

[088] The origin of the Daisy—When Christ was three years old his mother wished to twine him a birthday wreath. But as no flower was growing out of doors on Christmas eve, not in all the promised land, and as no made up flowers were to be bought, Mary resolved to prepare a flower herself. To this end she took a piece of bright yellow silk which had come down to her from David, and ran into the same, thick threads of white silk, thread by thread, and while thus engaged, she pricked her finger with the needle, and the pure blood stained some of the threads with crimson, whereat the little child was much affected. But when the winter was past and the rains were come and gone, and when spring came to strew the earth with flowers, and the fig tree began to put forth her green figs and the vine her buds, and when the voice or the turtle was heard in the land, then came Christ and took the tender plant with its single stem and egg shaped leaves and the flower with its golden centre and rays of white and red, and planted it in the vale of Nazareth. Then, taking up the cup of gold which had been presented to him by the wise men of the East, he filled it at a neighbouring fountain, and watered the flower and breathed upon it. And the plant grew and became the most perfect of plants, and it flowers in every meadow, when the snow disappears, and is itself the snow of spring, delighting the young heart and enticing the old men from the village to the fields. From then until now this flower has continued to bloom and although it may be plucked a hundred times, again it blossoms—Colshorn's Deutsche Mythologie furs Deutsche Volk.

[089] The Gorse is a low bush with prickly leaves growing like a juniper. The contrast of its very brilliant yellow pea shaped blossoms with the dark green of its leaves is very beautiful. It grows in hedges and on commons and is thought rather a plebeian affair. I think it would make quite an addition to our garden shrubbery. Possibly it might make as much sensation with us (Americans) as our mullein does in foreign green-houses,—Mrs. Stowe.

[090] George Town.

[091] The hill trumpeter.

[092] Nutmeg and Clove plantations.

[093] Leigh Hunt, in the dedication of his Stories in Verse to the Duke of Devonshire speaks of his Grace as "the adorner of the country with beautiful gardens, and with the far-fetched botany of other climates; one of whom it may be said without exaggeration and even without a metaphor, that his footsteps may be traced in flowers."

[094] The following account of a newly discovered flower may be interesting to my readers. "It is about the size of a walnut, perfectly white, with fine leaves, resembling very much the wax plant. Upon the blooming of the flower, in the cup formed by the leaves, is the exact image of a dove lying on its back with its wings extended. The peak of the bill and the eyes are plainly to be seen and a small leaf before the flower arrives at maturity forms the outspread tail. The leaf can be raised or shut down with the finger without breaking or apparently injuring it until the flower reaches its bloom, when it drops,"—Panama Star.

[095] Signifying the dew of the sea. The rosemary grows best near the sea-shore, and when the wind is off the land it delights the home-returning voyager with its familiar fragrance.

[096] Perhaps it is not known to all my readers that some flowers not only brighten the earth by day with their lovely faces, but emit light at dusk. In a note to Darwin's Loves of the Plants it is stated that the daughter of Linnaeus first observed the Nasturtium to throw out flashes of light in the morning before sunrise, and also during the evening twilight, but not after total darkness came on. The philosophers considered these flashes to be electric. Mr. Haggren, Professor of Natural History, perceived one evening a faint flash of light repeatedly darted from a marigold. The flash was afterwards often seen by him on the same flower two or three times, in quick succession, but more commonly at intervals of some minutes. The light has been observed also on the orange, the lily, the monks hood, the yellow goats beard and the sun flower. This effect has sometimes been so striking that the flowers have looked as if they were illuminated for a holiday.

Lady Blessington has a fanciful allusion to this flower light. "Some flowers," she says, "absorb the rays of the sun so strongly that in the evening they yield slight phosphoric flashes, may we not compare the minds of poets to those flowers which imbibing light emit it again in a different form and aspect?"

[097] The Shan and other Poems

[098] My Hindu friend is not answerable for the following notes.

[099] And infants winged, who mirthful throw Shafts rose-tipped from nectareous bow.

Kam Deva, the Cupid of the Hindu Mythology, is thus represented. His bow is of the sugar cane, his string is formed of wild bees, and his arrows are tipped with the rose.—Tales of the Forest.

[100] In 1811 this plant was subjected to a regular set of experiments by Dr. G. Playfair, who, with many of his brethren, bears ample testimony of its efficacy in leprosy, lues, tenia, herpes, dropsy, rheumatism, hectic and intermittent fever. The powdered bark is given in doses of 5-6 grains twice a day.—Dr. Voight's Hortus Suburbanus Calcuttensis.

[101] It is perhaps of the Flax tribe. Mr. Piddington gives it the Sanscrit name of Atasi and the Botanical name Linum usitatissimum.

[102] Roxburgh calls it "intensely fragrant."

[103] Sometimes employed by robbers to deprive their victims of the power of resistance. In a strong dose it is poison.

[104] It is said to be used by the Chinese to blacken their eyebrows and their shoes.

[105] Mirabilis jalapa, or Marvel of Peru, is called by the country people in England the four o'clock flower, from its opening regularly at that time. There is a species of broom in America which is called the American clock, because it exhibits its golden flowers every morning at eleven, is fully open by one and closes again at two.

[106] Marvell died in 1678; Linnaeus died just a hundred years later.

[107] This poem (The Sugar Cane) when read in manuscript at Sir Joshua Reynolds's, had made all the assembled wits burst into a laugh, when after much blank-verse pomp the poet began a paragraph thus.—

"Now, Muse, let's sing of rats."

And what increased the ridicule was, that one of the company who slyly overlooked the reader, perceived that the word had been originally mice and had been altered to rats as more dignified.—Boswell's Life of Johnson.

[108] Hazlitt has a pleasant essay on a garden Sun-dial, from which I take the following passage:—

Horas non numero nisi serenas—is the motto of a sun dial near Venice. There is a softness and a harmony in the words and in the thought unparalleled. Of all conceits it is surely the most classical. "I count only the hours that are serene." What a bland and care-dispelling feeling! How the shadows seem to fade on the dial plate as the sky looms, and time presents only a blank unless as its progress is marked by what is joyous, and all that is not happy sinks into oblivion! What a fine lesson is conveyed to the mind—to take no note of time but by its benefits, to watch only for the smiles and neglect the frowns of fate, to compose our lives of bright and gentle moments, turning always to the sunny side of things, and letting the rest slip from our imaginations, unheeded or forgotten! How different from the common art of self tormenting! For myself, as I rode along the Brenta, while the sun shone hot upon its sluggish, slimy waves, my sensations were far from comfortable, but the reading this inscription on the side of a glaring wall in an instant restored me to myself, and still, whenever I think of or repeat it, it has the power of wafting me into the region of pure and blissful abstraction.

[109] These are the initial letters of the Latin names of the plants, they will be found at length on the lower column.

[110] Hampton Court was laid out by Cardinal Wolsey. The labyrinth, one of the best which remains in England, occupies only a quarter of an acre, and contains nearly a mile of winding walks. There is an adjacent stand, on which the gardener places himself, to extricate the adventuring stranger by his directions. Switzer condemns this plan for having only four stops and gives a plan for one with twenty.—Loudon.

[111] The lower part of Bengal, not far from Calcutta, is here described

[112] Sir William Jones states that the Brahmins believe that the blue champac flowers only in Paradise, it being yellow every where else.

[113] The wild dog of Bengal

[114] The elephant.

[115] Even Jeremy Bentham, the great Utilitarian Philosopher, who pronounced the composition and perusal of poetry a mere amusement of no higher rank than the game of Pushpin, had still something of the common feeling of the poetry of nature in his soul. He says of himself—"I was passionately fond of flowers from my youth, and the passion has never left me." In praise of botany he would sometimes observe, "We cannot propagate stones:" meaning that the mineralogist cannot circulate his treasures without injuring himself, but the botanist can multiply his specimens at will and add to the pleasures of others without lessening his own.

[116] A man of a polite imagination is let into a great many pleasures that the vulgar are not capable of receiving. He can converse with a picture and find an agreeable companion in a statue. He meets with a secret refreshment in a description, and often feels a greater satisfaction in the prospect of fields and meadows, than another does in the possession.—Spectator.

[117] Kent died in 1748 in the 64th year of his age. As a painter he had no great merit, but many men of genius amongst his contemporaries had the highest opinion of his skill as a Landscape-gardener. He sometimes, however, carried his love of the purely natural to a fantastic excess, as when in Kensington-garden he planted dead trees to give an air of wild truth to the landscape.

In Esher's peaceful grove, Where Kent and nature strove for Pelham's love,

this landscape-gardener is said to have exhibited a very remarkable degree of taste and judgment. I cannot resist the temptation to quote here Horace Walpole's eloquent account of Kent: "At that moment appeared Kent, painter and poet enough to taste the charms of landscape, bold and opinionative enough to dare and to dictate, and born with a genius to strike out a great system from the twilight of imperfect essays. He leaped the fence and saw that all nature was a garden[143]. He felt the delicious contrast of hill and valley changing imperceptibly into each other, tasted the beauty of the gentle swell, or concave swoop, and remarked how loose groves crowned an easy eminence with happy ornament, and while they called in the distant view between their graceful stems, removed and extended the perspective by delusive comparison."—On Modern Gardening.

[118] When the rage for a wild irregularity in the laying out of gardens was carried to its extreme, the garden paths were so ridiculously tortuous or zig-zag, that, as Brown remarked, a man might put one foot upon zig and the other upon zag.

[119] The natives are much too fond of having tanks within a few feet of their windows, so that the vapours from the water go directly into the house. These vapours are often seen hanging or rolling over the surface of the tank like thick wreaths of smoke.

[120] Broken brick is called kunkur, but I believe the real kunkur is real gravel, and if I am not mistaken a pretty good sort of gravel, formed of particles of red granite, is obtainable from the Rajmahal hills.

[121] Pope in his well known paper in the Guardian complains that a citizen is no sooner proprietor of a couple of yews but he entertains thoughts of erecting them into giants, like those of Guildhall. "I know an eminent cook," continues the writer, "who beautified his country seat with a coronation dinner in greens, where you see the Champion flourishing on horseback at one end of the table and the Queen in perpetual youth at the other."

When the desire to subject nature to art had been carried to the ludicrous extravagances so well satirized by Pope, men rushed into an opposite extreme. Uvedale Price in his first rage for nature and horror of art, destroyed a venerable old garden that should have been respected for its antiquity, if for nothing else. He lived to repent his rashness and honestly to record that repentance. Coleridge, observed to John Sterling, that "we have gone too far in destroying the old style of gardens and parks." "The great thing in landscape gardening" he continued "is to discover whether the scenery is such that the country seems to belong to man or man to the country."

[122] In England it costs upon the average about 12 shillings or six rupees to have a tree of 30 feet high transplanted.

[123] I believe the largest leaf in the world is that of the Fan Palm or Talipot tree in Ceylon. "The branch of the tree," observes the author of Sylvan Sketches, "is not remarkably large, but it bears a leaf large enough to cover twenty men. It will fold into a fan and is then no bigger than a man's arm."

[124] Southey's Common-Place Book.

[125] The height of a full grown banyan may be from sixty to eighty feet; and many of them, I am fully confident, cover at least two acres.—Oriental Field Sports.

There is a banyan tree about five and twenty miles from Berhampore, remarkable for the height of the lower branches from the ground. A man standing up on the houdah of an elephant may pass under it without touching the foliage.

A tree has been described as growing in China of a size so prodigious that one branch of it only will so completely cover two hundred sheep that they cannot be perceived by those who approach the tree, and another so enormous that eighty persons can scarcely embrace the trunk.—Sylvan Sketches.

[126] This praise is a little extravagant, but the garden is really very tastefully laid out, and ought to furnish a useful model to such of the people of this city as have spacious grounds. The area of the garden is about two hundred and fifty nine acres. This garden was commenced in 1768 by Colonel Kyd. It then passed to the care of Dr. Roxburgh, who remained in charge of it from 1793 to the date of his death 1813.

[127] Alphonse Karr, bitterly ridicules the Botanical Savants with their barbarous nomenclature. He speaks of their mesocarps and quinqueloculars infundibuliform, squammiflora, guttiferas monocotyledous &c. &c. with supreme disgust. Our English poet, Wordsworth, also used to complain that some of our familiar English names of flowers, names so full of delightful associations, were beginning to be exchanged even in common conversation for the coldest and harshest scientific terms.

[128] The Hand of Eve—the handiwork of Eve.

[129] Without thorn the rose: Dr. Bentley calls this a puerile fancy. But it should be remembered, that it was part of the curse denounced upon the Earth for Adam's transgression, that it should bring forth thorns and thistles. Gen. iii. 18. Hence the general opinion has prevailed, that there were no thorns before; which is enough to justify a poet, in saying "the rose was without thorn."—NEWTON.

[130] See page 188. My Hindu friend is not responsible for the selection of the following notes.

[131] Birdlime is prepared from the tenacious milky juice of the Peepul and the Banyan. The leaves of the Banyan are used by the Bramins to eat off, for which purpose they are joined together by inkles. Birds are very fond of the fruit of the Peepul, and often drop the seeds in the cracks of buildings, where they vegetate, occasioning great damage if not removed in time.—Voight.

[132] The ancient Greeks and Romans also married trees together in a similar manner.—R.

[133] The root of this plant, (Euphorbia ligularia,) mixed up with black pepper, is used by the Natives against snake bites.—Roxburgh.

[134] Coccos nucifera, the root is sometimes masticated instead of the Betle-nut. In Brazil, baskets are made of the small fibres. The hard case of the stem is converted into drums, and used in the construction of huts. The lower part is so hard as to take a beautiful polish, when it resembles agate. The reticulated substance at base of the leaf is formed into cradles, and, as some say, into a coarse kind of cloth. The unexpanded terminal bud is a delicate article of food. The leaves furnish thatch for dwellings, and materials for fences, buckets, and baskets; they are used for writing on, and make excellent torches; potash in abundance is yielded by their ashes. The midrib of the leaf serves for oars. The juice of the flower and stems is replete with sugar, and is fermented into excellent wine, or distilled into arrack, or the sugary part is separated as Jagary. The tree is cultivated in many parts of the Indian islands, for the sake not only of the sap and milk it yields, but for the kernel of its fruit, used both as food and for culinary purposes, and as affording a large proportion of oil which is burned in lamps throughout India, and forms also a large article of export to Europe. The fibrous and uneatable rind of the fruit is not only used to polish furniture and to scour the floors of rooms, but is manufactured into a kind of cordage, (Koir) which is nearly equal in strength to hemp, and which Roxburgh designates as the very best of all materials for cables, on account of its great elasticity and strength. The sap of this as well as of other palms is found to be the simplest and easiest remedy that can be employed for removing constipation in persons of delicate habit, especially European females.—Voigt's Suburbanus Calcuttensis.

[135] The root is bitter, nauseous, and used in North America as anthelmintic. A. Richard.

[136] Of one species of tulsi (Babooi-tulsi) the seeds, if steeped in water, swell into a pleasant jelly, which is used by the Natives in cases of catarrh, dysentry, chronic diarrhoea &c. and is very nourishing and demulcent—Voigt.

[137] This list is framed from such as were actually grown by the author between 1837 and the present year, from seed received chiefly through the kindness of Captain Kirke.

[138] The native market gardens sell Madras roses at the rate of thirteen young plants for the rupee. Mrs. Gore tells us that in London the most esteemed kinds of old roses are usually sold by nurserymen at fifty shillings a hundred the first French and other varieties seldom exceed half a guinea a piece.

[139] I may add to Mr. Speede's list of Roses the Banksian Rose. The flowers are yellow, in clusters, and scentless. Mrs. Gore says it was imported into England from the Calcutta Botanical Garden, it is called Wong moue heong. There is another rose also called the Banksian Rose extremely small, very double, white, expanding from March till May, highly scented with violets. The Rosa Brownii was brought from Nepaul by Dr. Wallich. A very sweet rose has been brought into Bengal from England. It is called Rosa Peeliana after the original importer Sir Lawrence Peel. It is a hybrid. I believe it is a tea scented rose and is probably a cross between one of that sort and a common China rose, but this is mere conjecture. The varieties of the tea rose are now cultivated by Indian malees with great success. They sell at the price of from eight annas to a rupee each. A variety of the Bengal yellow rose, is now comparatively common. It fetches from one to three rupees, each root. It is known to the native gardeners by the English name of "Yellow Rose". Amongst the flowers introduced here since Mr. Speede's book appeared, is the beautiful blue heliotrope which the natives call kala heliotrope.

[140] He gains all points who pleasingly confounds, Surprizes, varies, and conceals the bounds.

[141] The following is the passage alluded to by Todd

A pleasant grove With chant of tuneful birds resounding loud, Thither he bent his way, determined there To rest at noon, and entered soon the shade, High roofed, and walks beneath and alleys brown, That opened in the midst a woody scene, Nature's own work it seemed (nature taught art) And to a superstitious eye the haunt Of wood gods and wood nymphs.

Paradise Regained, Book II

[142] The following stanzas are almost as direct translations from Tasso as the two last stanzas in the words of Fairfax on page 111:—

The whiles some one did chaunt this lovely lay;— Ah! see, whoso fayre thing doest faine to see, In springing flowre the image of thy day! Ah! see the virgin rose, how sweetly shee Doth first peepe forth with bashful modesty; That fairer seems the less you see her may! Lo! see soone after how more bold and free Her bared bosome she doth broad display; Lo! see soone after how she fades and falls away!

So passeth, in the passing of a day, Of mortal life, the leaf, the bud, the flowre, Ne more doth florish after first decay, That erst was sought, to deck both bed and bowre Of many a lady and many a paramoure! Gather therefore the rose whilest yet is prime For soone comes age that will her pride deflowre; Gather the rose of love, whilest yet is time Whilest loving thou mayst loved be with equal crime[144]

Fairie Queene, Book II. Canto XII.

[143] I suppose in the remark that Kent leapt the fence, Horace Walpole alludes to that artist's practice of throwing down walls and other boundaries and sinking fosses called by the common people Ha! Ha's! to express their astonishment when the edge of the fosse brought them to an unexpected stop.

Horace Walpole's History of Modern Gardening is now so little read that authors think they may steal from it with safety. In the Encyclopaedia Britannica the article on Gardening is taken almost verbatim from it, with one or two deceptive allusions such as—"As Mr. Walpole observes"—"Says Mr. Walpole," &c. but there is nothing to mark where Walpole's observations and sayings end, and the Encyclopaedia thus gets the credit of many pages of his eloquence and sagacity. The whole of Walpole's History of Modern Gardening is given piece-meal as an original contribution to Harrrison's Floricultural Cabinet, each portion being signed CLERICUS.

[144] Perhaps Robert Herrick had these stanzas in his mind's ear when he wrote his song of

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may Old time is still a flying; And this same flower that smiles to-day To-morrow will be dying.

* * * * *

Then be not coy, but use your time; And while ye may, so marry: For having lost but once your prime You may for ever tarry.

THE END