The Sun.
London, England, 1852-11-29 00:00:00

tanism in the observance of every seventh day,
that FRANCIS BACON, the great Lord VERULAM,
a man who had more wisdom, as the saying is, in
his little finger than could be found in all their
learned brains massed together, had written, as
far back as 1597, in his "Essays," that golden
truth--

" GOD ALMIGHTY first planted a garden I"
They should have borne in recollection the fact
that that illustrious philosopher—who had said,
when speaking of Atheism, " I had rather believe
all the fables of the legend, and the Talmud, and
the Alcoran, than that this universal frame is
without a mind"—who had exclaimed, " They
that deny a GOD destroy a man's nobility, for cer-
tainly man is of kin to the beast by his body, and
if he be not of kin to GOD by his spirit, he is a
base and ignoble creature"—they should have
been reminded that it was this renowned sage who
declared that a garden is " the purest of human
pleasures." For surely this magnificent scheme
now bringing faery-land within easy distance of
our metropolis—as we ourselves explained, not
long since, by the aid of a somewhat minute de-
scription—might reasonably have brought back
to the memory of such well-read per-
sons as the ecclesiastics are supposed to be,
the views entertained upon a kindred subject by
one of the most remarkable intellects ever created
by the DIVINITY. We say this advisedly. We
speak thus because the Crystal Palace Company
are scarcely so much directing their energies to
the building up of a superb edifice,- as to the plant-
ing of a noble garden—as one of our younger
poets calls it, " home out of doors," or as one of
our elder poets daintily terms it, a verdant
" pleasalince." At any rate, it is of the Garden
and not of the Palace that we have to think in
reference to this question of the Sundays, seeing
that the Garden only is proposed to be opened,
while the Palace is to be closed on those days
against the possibility of exhibition. While we
are commenting upon this particular feature of the
enterprise, we would respectfully and very ear-
nestly submit to the consideration of the exquisite
taste and experienced judgment of Sir JOSEPH
PAXTON, a suggestion—to our thinking a most
delicious suggestion—thrown out upon this mat-
ter by the founder of inductive philosophy : " I
do hold it," saith Lord BACON, " I do hold it in
the royal ordering of gardens, there ought to be
gardens for all the months in the year, in which,
severally, things of beauty may be then in season."
Thereupon the most suggestive of essayists enters
upon a charming amplification of his idea, or at
least upon a delicate and fascinating enumeration.
He says that for December and January, and the
latter part of November, " you must take such
things as are green all winter—holly, ivy, bays,
juniper, cypress-trees, yew, pine-apple-trees, fir-
trees, rosemary, lavender, periwinkle, the
white, the purple, and the blue ; germander,
flag, " otange-trees, lemon-trees, and myrtle-
trees, if they be stoved, and sweet mar-
joram, warm set." He continues that there fol-
[ow, in the latter part of January and February,
" the mezereon-tree, which then blossoms ; crocus
vernus, both the yellow and the grey ; primroses,
anemones, the early tulip, the hyacinthus orien-
talis, chamairis fritellaria." He reminds us that
for March " there come—violets, especially the
single blue, which are the earliest ; the yellow
daffodil, the daisy, the almond-tree in blossom,
the peach-tree in blossom, the cornelian-tree, in
blossom, sweet-brier." He then gives a lovely
catalogue of the floral graces of April thus :
" The double white violet, the wallflower, the
stock-gilliflower, the cowslip, flower-de-lutes, and
lilies of all natures; rosemary-flowers, the tulip,
the double peony, the pale daffodil, the French
honeysuckle, the cherry-tree in blossom, the
demascene and plum-trees in blossom, the white
thorn in leaf, the lilac-tree." He recounts, with
an evident fondness the delights of May and
June, the " flowered" and the " leafy" months,
when come, saith he, " pinks of all kinds, espe-
cially the blush pink ; roses of all kinds, except
the musk, which comes later ; honeysuckles,
strawberries, bugloss, columbine, the French
marigold, flos Africanus, cherry-tree in fruit,
ribes, figs i-i fruit, rasps, vine-flowers, lavender
in flowers, the sweet satyrian, with white flower ;
herba muscaria, lilium convallium, the apple-tree
in blossom." Pursuing the list, in July, he says,
come, " gilliflowers of all varieties, musk-roses, the
lime-tree in blossom, early pears and plums in fruit,
genitings, codlins :" in August come "plums of
all sorts in fruit, pears, apricots, barberries, fil-
berts, musk-melons, monk's-hoods of all colours :"
in September come " grapes, apples, poppies of
all colours, peaches, melocotones, nectarines,
cornelians, wardens, quinces :" while in October
and the beginning of November, he concludes,
come " services, medlars, bullaces, roses, cut or
removed to come late, holyoaks, and such like."
We submit the foregoing, as we have already re-
marked, to the thought of Sir JOSEPH PAXTON.
As if to apply the hint directly by a sort of pre-
science to this project of the Crystal Palace and
Garden, Lord BACON winds up the catalogue by
observing—" these particulars are for the climate
of London"—for London read, of course, Syden-
ham. And so, saith he, "my meaning is per-
ceived, that you may have perpetual spring, as the
place affords"—ver perpetuum. How exquisitely
the philosopher touches, too, upon the perfume of
these flowers—the express appeal to another of
our senses by this "purest of human pleasures."
He recommends us not to forget, in the ordering
of our gardens, that roses, both red and damask,
" are fast flowers of their smell," insomuch " that
you may walk by a whole row of them, and find
nothing of their sweetness ; yea, though it be in
a morning's dew." But then he bids us remem-
ber, on the other hand, that that which of all others
yields the sweetest smell in the air is the
violet, particularly the white double violet, coming
to us twice a year, namely, about the middle of
April, and about the tide of St. Bartholomew.
Delicious is the fervour of his declaration, that
"next to, that is the musk rose;" and then, says
he, " the strawberry leaves dying, with a most ex-
cellent cordial smell and then the flower of the

vines, which he describes as " a little dust like

the dust of a bent, which grows upon the cluster in

the first coming forth ;" and the sweet briar and

the wall-flowers "which are very delightful to be
set under a parlour or lower chamber window"—
commending, too, the matted pink, and the clove-
gilliflower, and the honeysuckles, "so they be some-
what afar off"—with an especial word of praise
to the laying out in alleys of burnet, wild-thyme,

and water-mints, so as to " perfume the air most
delightfully, not passed by as the rest, but being
trodden upon and crushed." It is in this tender

and delicate strain of appreciation—appreciation
through all the senses--that the garden is spoken
of by one of the greatest of this earth's philoso-
phers, he who had written that a garden was first
planted by GOD ALMIGHTY ! And it is to close.
this pleasaunce-of the DIVINITY against the humbler
classes of their fellow creatures, that certain
religionists have latterly vociferated with
so much noise —on the plea, forsooth,
that the strolling of the toilers of London upon
Sundays through the flower-beds, and fountains,
and statuary, near the Crystal Palace at Syden-
ham, would be a dereliction of duty, an evasion
of morality, a desecration of the sabbath, a pro-
fanation of religion ! Happily their endeavour

has proved in every respect futile, for has not the

Earl of DERBY asserted that, so far from these

evils being likely to result from the intended
enterprise, according to • his deliberate and con-

scientious conviction, it will, on the contrary, be
productive of very great advantages ? Yes, the
matter may now be looked upon as virtually set-
tled by that explicit assurance from the First

Minister of the CROWN, and settled, moreover,
directly counter to the narrow views of the
Sabbatarians.

Pure water and pure air are at the same
time the cheapest and the most valuable gifts
bestowed by the DEITY on his creatures. The
greatest conclucives to health and longevity, more
precious than gold or costly gems, they are free to
all, to the humble and lowly as to the wealthy and
powerful. But these bounties of PROVIDENCE have
been grievously, we might add " sinfull"
y)
abused. Men have acted as
if their sole object
had been to convert these inestimable. blessings