In the month of March

I finished noticing the books in my possession up to the end of the last century. I begin again with this century, and shall carry them down to the present day.

1803. (An XI.) 'Le Jardin de la Malmaison.'By Ventenat. Illustrated by P. J. Redoute. In two folio volumes. This is one of my great possessions-a handsome book, sumptuously produced, as was likely to be at the time, dedicated as it is to Madame Bonaparte, just at the height of her power and influence. The implied flattery in the dedication to her is as large and magnificent as the paper is beautiful and the printing perfect. On the title-page is a little motto in Latin, saying that if the praises of the woods are to be sung, the woods should be worthy of the Consul. The book is an obvious imitation of Jacquin's 'Flora Schoenbrunnensis.'The illustrations are, I think, less artistic and certainly less strong than Jacquin's. They are not hand-coloured, like his, but are very fine examples of the best and most delicate (then newly discovered) method of colour-printing. The reason why Redoute's work is artistically inferior to Jacquin's is, that in his delicate rendering of the flowering branch he always puts it exactly in the centre of the page, without reference to its size or growth. The plates are at the end of each volume, and the descriptive text, which is in French, at the beginning. Poor Josephine ! She was so fond of her gardens; and I am told there is still an order preserved in our Admiralty that, when French ships were captured in the war, any plants or seeds that were on board for Madame Bonaparte were to be expedited. That was a gracious order; and gardening in those days meant so much more than it does now. A flower blooming then was an interesting event all over Europe, and the gentle perfume of it rose and permeated through the smoke and din of the Napoleonic wars. Nevertheless, there always have been, and there always will be, those who would rather sing the old French rhyme:

Jardiner ne m'amuse guere, Moi je voudrais faire la guerre.

Redoute, the artist, in this fine Napoleonic book plays only a secondary part to Ventenat:

1805. (An XIV.) 'La Botanique de J. J. Rousseau, ornee de soixante-cinq planches d'apres les peintures de P. J. Bedoute.'Apparently Redoute brought out this book to please himself, for it is a reprint of Rousseau's 'Elementary Letters on Botany to a Lady.' It has sixty-five such beautiful illustrative plates, exquisitely drawn and colour-printed like the last. Were ever such beautiful things done for those who wished to adapt natural flowers to chintzes, needlework, or wall-papers ? French artists, no matter of what school or of what period, always excel all others in the beauty of their actual draughtsmanship. Among these illustrations there is a very fine old-fashioned dark-red single Chrysanthemum called Astrede Chine: I have never seen anything in the least like it growing. The Daisy and the Dandelion, too-were they ever more beautifully or more sympathetically rendered ? Everything done is in honour of botany, nothing as a representation of a flower worth growing. The text is in French.

My other Bedoute book is a very charming one, though my large octavo edition is, alas ! not the best, which is a folio in three volumes. The title-page states that the drawings have been reduced, re-engraved, and coloured under the eye of Monsieur Redoute, 1824. He had now become famous. The title is 'Les Roses, par P. J. Redoute, avec le texte par C. A. Thorry '-the order of the artist and author being just reversed from that in the work of his early days, 'Le Jardin de la Malmaison.'The book begins with the following charming sentence:-'Les poetes ont fonde dans l'opinion les seules monarchies hereditaires que le temps ait respectees: le lion est toujours le roi des animaux, l'aigle le monarque des airs, et la rose la reine des fleurs. Les droits des deux premiers etablis sur la force et maintenus par elle avaient en eux-memes la raison suffisante de leur duree; la souverainete de la rose, moins violemment reconnue et plus librement consentie, a quelque chose de plus flatteur pour le trone et de plus honorable pour les fondateurs.'

Anyone who cares about Roses ought to try and see this book at the Botanical Library of the Natural History Museum at South Kensington, as it is very full of suggestions. Had I a soil that suited Roses, and room to grow them in, I should try and make a collection of the wild Roses of the world and the roses figured by Redoute in 1824, many of which I have never seen. The Banksia Rose, which now covers the walls all along the Riviera, is here called Le Rosier de Lady Banks (wife of the botanist Sir Joseph Banks). There are Moss Roses and China Roses, and every form and kind of Eglantine; but nothing larger or more double than the Cabbage Rose. The Malmaison Rose, though called after Josephine's garden, must have been a much later introduction. In fact, in 1824 there were no Roses and no Strawberries in our sense of the word. Even what is now called the Old Maiden's Blush is not in the book. The R. lucida, which I grow successfully in Surrey (for it is easy of cultivation, and has a lovely foliage), the York and Lancaster, and the Centi-folia are all in this book. Even my small edition I look upon as one of my chief treasures; it is bound in an old-fashioned bright-green leather. I suppose few people have seen this book, otherwise I cannot imagine how anyone has ever had the courage to publish the modern illustrated Rose books with pictures that look so coarse and vulgar in comparison with these delicate coloured prints.

1804. 'Exotic Botany, by James Edward Smith, President of the Linnean Society; figures by James Sowerby. Two volumes in one. 'This book is, of course, an English one, but on the title-page is the following quotation from Rousseau's seventh 'Promenade.'I copy it, as it expresses the feeling of the times:'II y a dans la botanique un charme qu'on ne sent que dans le plein calme des passions, mais qui sufifit seul alors pour rendre la vie heureuse et douce: mais sitot qu'on y mele un motif d'interet ou de vanite .... tout ce doux charme s'evanouit. On ne voit plus dans les plantes que des instruments de nos passions, on ne trouve plus aucun vrai plaisir dans leur etude. . . . On ne s'occupe que de systemes et de methodes; matiere eternelle de dispute, qui ne fait pas connaitre une plante de plus .... de la les haines, les jalousies,'etc.