1828. 'Memoires du Musee d'Histoire naturelle.

1834. 'Memoires sur quelques Especes de Cactees.'

These are portions of two books with most beautiful and curious illustrations of Cactuses, the only examples of old botanical drawings of Cactuses I have been able up to now to procure. They are not coloured, but delicate and precise in drawing to a high degree.

1829. 'A History of English Gardening-Chronological, Biographical, Literary, and Critical-Tracing the Progress of the Art in this Country from the Invasion of the Romans to the Present Time,'by George W. Johnson. This little book is so comprehensive in subject that it is rather dry reading, though Mr. Johnson's introductory chapter abounds in interesting information about the gardens and vegetable cultivation of the ancients. Cato's description of the cultivation of Asparagus is very much the same as what is now recommended. Gardening, at no time in the world's history, seems in any way to have been the especial property of the good and simple, in whose hands alone 'it is the purest of human pleasures.'

To sit about gardens in summer sunshine, to listen to the birds, and to enjoy the scent of the flowers cultivated by others may be very enjoyable, but in no sense does it deserve to be called 'the purest of human pleasures.'No one who does not actually work in his own garden can ever really realise the pleasure of having one, and the enjoyment of a garden entirely worked by others is merely a form of idleness and luxury. The title does not accurately describe the book, as the gardens of the ancients are confined to the introduction, and the history of English gardening begins only from the accession of Edward III. The main part of it is a detailed account of all the books that have been written on the art of gardening. Mr. Johnson most critically describes the letterpress of gardening books, but very little notice indeed is taken of any illustrating, and when he reaches Curtis's beautiful' Flora Londinensis 'he gives it no more praise than to any little short gardening essay that may have appeared at the time. Anyone going to the Museum Library with this comprehensive catalogue would have but a slight idea of what are the best books to ask for. Till the appearance of Miss Amherst's book in 1895, I believe this was the only existing book of reference on the history of English gardening.

1830. 'On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, with Biographical Notices,' by S. Felton. A curious and really valuable book of reference. Mr. Felton, in his preface, pays high tribute to the 'History of English Gardening,'just described, and says: 'Mr. Johnson's work is the result of original thought and of an ardent and extended scientific research. Mine is a compilation "made with a pair of scissors," to copy the words of Mr. Mathias, which he applies to a certain edition of Pope. I content myself, however, with the reflection of Mr. Walpole, that "they who cannot perform great things themselves may yet have a satisfaction in doing justice to those who can."' This reminds me of the flippant newspaper critic who called Sir George Cornewall Lewis's 'Influence of Authority in Matters of Opinion' 'a book to prove that, if you did not know a thing, you should ask some one who did.' There is a delightful wisdom in this remark.

1830 (about). 'The Florist's Journal and Gardening Record.' I have two volumes of this publication. The plates are well drawn and coloured, and are more delicate than those in Mrs. Loudon's books. One volume contains a fascinating picture of that rather rare flower, which I have failed as yet to bloom, called Zauschncria californica. The two volumes are good specimens of the books of the period.

1834. 'The Magazine of Botany,' by Joseph Paxton. In this year the intelligent gardener at Chatsworth started his 'Magazine of Botany,' which was finished in 1849. I have the complete set of sixteen volumes. The first volume contains a somewhat fulsome and yet touchingly hearty dedication to his master, the Duke of Devonshire. Each of the succeeding volumes are dedicated to more or less exalted members of the peerage-some men, some women. The 'Magazine'to this day is interesting, useful, and full of instruction as regards the cultivation of desirable and uncommon greenhouse and stove plants. The title-page is quite simple. Evidently the fashion for adornment, allegorical or otherwise, hitherto so much in use, seems to have entirely died away, and plainness rules the day. The page has nothing on it but the title and the famous Bacon quotation, which can never be too often repeated: 'God Almighty first planted a garden, and indeed it is the purest of human pleasures: it is the greatest refreshment to the spirit of man, without which buildings and palaces are but gross handiworks; and a man shall ever see that, when ages grow to civility and elegance, men come to build stately sooner than to garden finely, as if gardening were the greater perfection.'

Bacon is delightfully solemn, but one cannot help remembering Adam found it so very dull till Eve came that he even sacrificed a rib for the sake of a companion.

There is a sad falling-off in the plates, both wood-cuts and coloured ones, though they are executed by different people, and some are much better than others. Paxton must have studied hard, as he constantly refers to the older books. What is of chief interest about him is that he was the greatest unconscious instrument in the movement he helped to develop, which altered the gardening of the whole of England, and consequently of the world. He used the old patterns of Italy and France for designs of beds, filling them, as had never been done before, with cuttings of tender exotics, which were kept under glass during the whole winter. Endless sums of money were at his disposal, and everything was done which could facilitate his efforts to make the terraces of Chatsworth a blaze of colour during the months of August and September, the months when his master came from town. From his point of view this was a most praiseworthy object, and no doubt gave great satisfaction. It was copied, for thesame reasons, by most of the great houses in England. But what was really unfortunate, and can only recall the old fable of the ox and the frog, was the imitation of this system in all the gardens of England, down to the half-acre surrounding a vicarage, or the plot of ground in front of a suburban residence. The ox, as we know, was big by nature; and when the frog imitated him, it was flattering to the ox, but the frog came to grief. So I think to this day, if bedding-out is ever tolerable, it is on the broad terraces facing large stone houses, with which we have nothing to do here. Where it becomes intolerable, and perhaps it is hard to blame Paxton for this, is in the miniature Chatsworths, with their little lawns and their little beds, their Pelargoniums-often only coloured leaves, like the Mrs. Pollock-their dwarf Calceolarias, their purple Verbenas, and their blue Lobelias; where the lady is not allowed to pick, and where the gardener, if he is masterful and gets his own way, turns the old herbaceous border in front of the house into that terrible abomination called 'carpet-bedding.'Paxton was a very remarkable man in his way. When taken up by the Queen and the Prince Consort, he built in 1851 that wonderful and ever-to-be-remembered glass case, in Hyde Park, the first general International Exhibition, which enclosed two large elms. Poor trees ! how they hated it! Their drooping autumnal appearance is my strongest childish remembrance of that Exhibition. Paxton was knighted by the Queen, and partly built the Crystal Palace at Sydenham with the remains of the Hyde Park Exhibition.