The Sun.
London, England, 1856-01-31 00:00:00

LITEZATUR,E.

Popular Garden Botany. By Agnes C Ltlow.
Popular History of Palms. By Dr. Berthold
Seeman. Popular Geography of Plants. By
Dr. Charles Deubeny. Lovell Reeve, Hen-
rietta-street, Covent-garden.
Who amongst us does not love flowers, trees,
and grass ? We have only to cast our eyes
around us on the varied paths of every-day life,
and ample evidence will be afforded that there is
an immortal influence in
"The pomp of groves and garniture of fields."
Mankind has ever revelled in the scent of the
blossoms and the shadow of the boughs. The
tawny savage of the backwoods strides over the
prairie's purple bells, and gazes on the pine giants
of his native forests with exulting joy. The
ducal master of Chatsworth breathes among his
choice exotics, and treads daintily beneath the
majestic branches of his spreading oaks and
beeches with infinite pleasure. The same spirit
dwells in each bosom—they both " love flowers I
and trees."
The old, red night-capped cobbler, who labours
daily in you cubbed-up shed, has got a pot of
mignionette beside him—shrivelled, dusty stuff,
destitute alike of essence and colour, but he
sowed it himself, and waters it himself, and puts
it in the sunshine himself, and we suspect that the
eubhed-up shed, with its abominable effluvia of
strong horse-hide and stronger wax-ends, is ren-
dered somewhat more cheerful in the imagination
of the inhabitant by the presence of that poor pot
of mignionette. The old cobbler "loves flowers."
Watch the fair daughter of a regal line just
concluding her toilette for a night of palace festi-
vity. You will see her take the bouquet
with an extra beam lighting up her eyes. She
snuffs at the luscious gardinia, prys into the pe-
tals of the pendant fuschia, and re-arranges a few
leaves of the delicate myrtle with tender assi-
duity. The noble girl " loves flowers " better
than all the other bright things about her.
We meet Sunday morning idlers by dozens,
strolling through the bye market streets of the
great city. Let us just glance at them. We
see a brawny drayman, who has evidently for-
gotten to shave himself, and not been too parti-
' eular about the set of his neck-tie ;he has on the
same rough, tough, dirty, thick, blanket sort of
jerkin in whieh he let down the butts of " Bar-
clay's best" into dingy cellars during the week,
but, in a button-hole of the said jerkin, is a
splendid carnation. Re has consumed some minutes
in placing it safely and conspicuously, and ho
walks on, eyeing it every now and then, with great
self-satisfaction ; and his satisfaction is not un-
Shared, for while observing his pride in
the really beautiful blossom, we feel proud
also that one of a class who had courage to
pelt Ilaynau should " love flowers." A grimy
son of Vulcan is carrying off a huge
bunch of wall-flowers, which he says is for his
"little Polly, who is ill o' fever, and likes the
Smell on 'em." A lank, pale woman has spent an
extravagant halfpenny on a dozen brilliant sweet
Peas, which she declares will "keep beautiful for a
Week with plenty of fresh water." A charity boy
has picked up a bit of a broken stock, and with
earnest endeavour fixes it above his badge of po-
verty, and then as earnestly bends his head to try
and get
,a whiff of its odorous breath. Aye, ye
"love flowers," ye children of Toil, and ever will.
DoWn yon area we see a goodly number of half-
dead plants, with their yellow leaves supported by
green sticks, and some so utterly denuded of foli-
age that their "genus" is a mystery. These are
the especial and treasured property of the cook,
Who is never known to cuff her favourite Tabby,
saving when he insists on trying his talons about
the root of the best geranium. In the balcony
Window above, we perceive snowy camelias and
gorgeous cactuses standing up, in their rich china
vases, in attractive magnificence. They belong
to the young heiress, who tends them hourly with
her own jewelled fingers, and who was never
known to snub her darling juvenile sister except-
ing when the juvenile sister unduly destroyed a
long-cherished arum, when the heiress dispensed
as vulgar and decided a box on the ear as could
have been bestowed by the most unrefined of ex-
asperated young ladies. It is plain that those
above and those below "love flowers."
As for garde us ! they are as old as Paradise
itself, and we see the occupation of the "old
Adam" still peeping out, when the over-fed gold-
-surfeited citizen betakes himself to a detached
villa, " within ten miles of London, and two of a
railway station," '.where lie puddles and pokes with
his gardening tool, a, in his gardening jacket, and
takes more pleasurable interest in grubbing up a
few weeds, or planting a row of seedlings, than he
ever experienced while cashing a heavy bill for
Messrs. Needem and Co. " The phaeton
is ready, sir," says John to his civic master ;
but the master is hoeing away at an obsti-
nate dock-root at the lower end of the shrub-
bery, and perfectly oblivious of Threadneedle-
Street and Bradshaw. The elderly gentleman has
teenaged to " mess" the bottom of his trousers
Pretty considerably ; his hands must be washed ;
his boots must be changed; his face is rather moist
and rather florid, owing to the inveterate resis-
tance of the dock-root, awl he cannot possibly go
by that train. "I shall go by the half-past one,"
aaYa the civic master, and he again applies him-
Self vigorously to the dock-root, which he at last
conquers. Elated wi-h the feat, he conceives a
fancy foe- clearing the herb bed of " that nasty
ehickvressel," and after doing an immensity of
nothing, be finds it is too late to be of any use in
town, and sits down to his dinner with the full
convicticea that he has materially assisted the gar-
Ilener. Happy delusion ! It is pleasant to see
the primitive digging and delving tendency of
childhood return in men, when all that Fortune
can bestow send all that Ambition can achieve has
nerved but t,e~ teach that it is possible to have "too
touch of a 0( td thing," and that a bit of grass-plot
nifty be as nisei to heaven as a banker's counter.
Here we rusty see attached to a beggarly cot-
tage a tiny patch of ground, probably about
twenty feet I ly twelve ; but the tiny patch is
.ierammed with scarlet runners, hen and chicken
nastur titling, sweet williams, and heaven
"ou's what. 1., Uhere are the entailed acres sur-
rounding the to wars and terraces of the great,
and these acres are a galaxy of beauty, bolted
With floral rainb. s ws, and breathing distilled honey
t° such excess th at the very bee faints away, and
the good-natured ;butterfly has to fan him back
to existence with her lightsome wings. The
Occupier of the lea vly home and the owner of the
stately mansion alike "love flowers."
Mark that boi ly gaunt, sinewy vine, trying to
Creel) over a signo] e-dried wall, with its few leaves
turning;t brown v, 'hen they should be green, and
--3
fewer grapes t turning sour when they should
b„
''" Sweet. Observt r this twining mass of tendrilled
ereepers, thickly woven to form the " bower of
beauty and roma ace in the
doe the homely princely pleasance."
wo cidbine clustering over the /1 farm-
sl.'lllBe porch, and. n este the clematis and jasmine
the baronial
trained to screen the morning sun from
41e baronial bre stitsfast room. Oh ! how true it
I$ that " flow em and sweet green things are
°lean by peer and peasant. We find them re-
ecgnised every.% is ere, as the silent ministers of
God's
unfathom
8. ble power, and the unceasing
Idols of man's in atinctive homage.
Gardens are 1 s leasant planes. They were 80
When under the tilassical patronage of Semiramis
and._ Alcinous, a. sit they are agreeable still, bearing
the modern p .atronyntics of Versailles, Kew,
hosherville, or tensington.
C' There is some, tins refreshing in the very word
garden." Wb I tther the style be Italian or
-unteh it is of l ittle consequence, as far as the
general s2f Humanity is d. We
admit that w eps:efer to ramble whereconcerne Nature and
:keep up I,oooaning family feeling; yet when
? are shut int with peacocks cut out of box trees,
We Whose only new sit is that they do not scream, yet
Sap We cam tot quarrel with the place they dis-
ag. We f l that a " garden" was intended,
t
hat is enos igh. to sanctify the most atrocious
mete ,

it,:e have beo n led into this wandering bit of
voin4.l) by the 1 )erusal of the three charming
illNCulea under no tice.aining These books form a most
I.llctive auci 'ert addition to our store

of Botanical Literature. The volume on " Popular
Grrden Botany," by Agnes Catlow, should be in
the hands of every one who wishes to posSess a
fair and accurate knowledge of floricultural pur-
suits without being compelled to wade through
dense details of complex theory ; and these pages
contain all the information necessary for those who
take interest and find amusement in " a garden."
The style is concise and simple, yet giving enough
of science to qualify its instructions. It treats of
most hardy and half-hardy flowers, and gives the
best method of producing and rearing them. The
twenty coloured plates illustrating the work are
alone worth the price.
"The Popular History of Palms," by Dr.
BertholdSeeman, is also an admirable publication,
calculated to attract all classes of readers by the
masterly extent of its investigating research, and
the lucidity of its general tone. The warm ap-
proval of the work by such a man as Humboldt is

an incontestible.guarantee of its excellence, and
we can only offer our word of praise as the spon-
taneous result of the delight with which we have
perused it.

"The Popular Geography of Plants," edited
by Dr. Charles Daubeuy, forms a fitting com-
panion to the other volumes, and is of inesti-
mable value to those who would learn something
of the wondrous adaptations and arrangements of
Nature in her various characters of vegetation
throughout the world, and who would yet escape
being perplexed by the dry and technical method
pervading most works of the kind. The last-
named volumes are illustrated by exquisite land-
scapes in chrorno-lithography ; and setting aside
the intrinsic literary worth of these three publica-
tions, the pictorial beauty contained in them
ought to secure them a place on every drawing-
room table.

We cordially recommend them to all those who
love fields, trees, and flowers, especially as the
cost of the volumes is as low as the tone of their
contents is elevated.

CHARLES KNIGHT.
The English Cyclopvdia. Conducted by Charles
Knight. First Two Divisions. Natural _His-
tory, 4 vols. Geography, 4 vols. Messrs.
Bradbury and Evans.
Eureka—it is found ! A really national cyclo-
p2dia—a now dictionary of universal knowledge--
issued as a cheap perioeical, and yet delivered to
the subscribers with such admirable rapidity as to
come almost at once into their hands as a substan-
tial publication. Already (in attestation of this)
half of the entire work has even now been per-
fected—perfected within three years from the date
of its commencement. A similarly brief interval
will place the other moiety in our possession.
Eight out of the sixteen volumes of the serial may
now be ranged upon our bookshelves for consulta-
tion. The remaining eight are to follow in due
sequence, according to Mr. Knight's original an-
nouncement. Hitherto ho has been true to his
word—lie will not fail to fulfil his later promises
with equal accuracy in the hereafter. He has
taught us to regard his assurances upon these mat-
ters with implicit and illimitable confidence. He
has earned his right to our respectful acceptance of
his declarations upon these heads as neither illu-
sory nor simply speculative. What he engages to,
do, he does, and does, moreover, always right
well, and—thoroughly. It cannot very easily be
forgotten by the reading public of England, that
to Charles Knight, among all men, it is indebted,
especially,
directly, personally indebted for the
boon of an unbounded supply of instructive and
entertaining, cheap and wholesome publications.
As the originator of our respectable cheap litera-
ture, Charles Knight takes foremost rank among
the more eminent auil the more practical of our
great national benefactors. He is incomparably
and beyond all question the Father of the new bys-
tern. Individually, as an author, as a man of in-
tellect—his fame will rest, of course, upon the me-
mory of his luminous writings as facile pnne ps
among the commentators and biographers of Seek-
spore. It gives promise, moreover—this literary re-
putation of his—of being very considerably enhanced
by his ingenious researches as the popular historian
of England. Otherwise—as a philanthropist, as a
promoter of general education, as a publisher—
Charles Knight will be most honourably remem-
bered in his capacity as the founder of the recent,
but already wide-spread system of good and cheap
literature, whether in regard to books, or in regard
to periodicals. Recollect, it was Charles Knight
who, years and years ago, poured lavishly from his
printing press, every successive Saturday, the
weekly instalments of that very memorable illus-
trated instructor—the Penny Magazine. It was
Charles Knight, again, who in the same way, month
after month, printed and published that well-
remembered pocket library—the Shilling Volumes.
It was Charles Knight who was the accepted and
authoritative medium for the distribution all over
the empire of the famous treatises of that much
abused but eminently serviceable body—the
t3oeiety for the Diffusi.on of Useful Knowledge. It
was Charles Knight who did all this, and who,
besides doing all this, crowned the whole of his
really benign labours at once as author, and editor,
and publisher, by giving to the world another
genuine world-wonder iu the 'shape of his famous
Penny Cyclopedia. He has, since then, in a re-
markable little volume called " The Old Printer
and Modern Press," related how it came to pass
that the last-mentioned work, in spite of its ad-
mitted excellence, never became so far successful
as to be actually remunerative. He has therein
laid it down as an axiom that no serial publication
has ever really succeeded in this country, which
occupied more than four or five years, at the very
utmost, in the stages of its periodical appearance—
explaining, while doing so, very lucidly, the why
and the wherefore. He has recounted, for ex-
ample, in illustration of his accuracy in this rather
startling estimate, ,how the " Penny Cyclopredia,"
during the eleven years absorbed in the progress
of its issue, number by number, part by part,
volume by volume, gradually, at first almost
imperceptibly, but in the end very appreciably,
dwindled from a circulation of 50,000, to a circula-
tion of 20,000—upwards of half the number of the
original subscribers finding their patience exhausted
long before the arrival of the ultimate date of its
completion ! Instructed by the very costly expe-
rience thus purchased, Mr. Knight deliberately re-
solved upon the issue in weekly numbers at sixpence,
and in monthly parts at two shillings, and in quar-
terly volumes at twelve shillings, of THE NATIONAL
CycLOP,EDIA, a Dictionary of Universal Know-
ledge, based upon The Penny Cyclopredia. A,won-
derful undertaking, apart from its cheapness, when
it is remembered that it is, to all intents and pur-
poses, a new cyclopedia, to be begun and finished
within five years altogether from the actual date of
its commencement. Yet more remarkably to faci-
litate the completion of the serial in the hands of
the subscribers, Mr. Knight, it appears to us most
judiciously, decided upon an alphabetical arrange-
ment of his English Cyclopredia under four separate
divisions, each complete in four volunies—first,
4 vols. of " Geography ;" secondly, 4 vols. of
" Natural History ;" thirdly, 4 vols. of " Sciences
and Arts ;" fourthly, 4 vols of " History and Bio-
graphy "—sixteen volumes altogether. A couple
of these divisions appearing simultaneously.
Already, as we have said, exactly half of the entire
work, as thus organised, has by this time made its
appearance. Tire subscribers have thus, within
little more than two years and a-half acquired in
return for the petty outlay of just sixpence per
week, eight splendid volumes, comprising within
them a perfect cyclopmdia of " Natural History'
and " Geography." Beautifully printed in clear
type, upon excellent paper, and lavishly adorned
with woodcut illustrations, the text of the old
work (the " Penny Cyclopredia'') having been
carefully remodelled in the new work (the
"English Cyclopwdia "), so as to adapt it
to the advanced state of existing knowledge !
How successfully all this has been accomplished
in the two broad divisions of the work already
completed, may be easily enough conjectured, when
it is borne in mind that among the distinguished
authorities consulted in reference to the natural
sciences are contemporaries as illustrious as Owen
in regard to anatomy, as Liebig in regard to
chemistry, as Ansted in regard to geology, as
Broderip in regard to ornithology, and so forth
throughout. Speaking of the work at this stage
of its publication, we are not estimating its value
merely ex pede Herculean ! It is something better
and more advanced even than a torso. Already
there stand before
.us, each complete in itself and
in symmetrical
English maturely perfected, two out of the four figures
order,arranged
upon t o
thebe grouped
pedestal
o f
the together,
Cyclokedia.
We can speak of them, therefore, as we find them ;
and we find them in all essential respects. really
admirable. When brought to its final close the
aggregate work will be embellished with upwards
of five thousand wood engravings-5,000 separate
illustrations, scattered over the pages of sixteen
quarto volumes of inestimably instructive letter-
press. Sixpence a week for all this—tire wonders
of our age it must be confessed are not altogether
restricted to such marvels as the steam-engine and
the electric telegraph.

The Popular History of England. By Charles
Knight. No. I. Bradbury and Evans.
Hero, indeed, we have in simple truth before us
but the foot of a Hercules. It were presumptuous