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

Popular Garden Botany. By Agnes Catlow.
Popular _History of Palms. By Dr. Berthold
Seeman. Popular Geography of Plants. By
Dr. Charles Daubeny. 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 hie
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
and trees."
The old, red night-capped cobbler, who labours
daily in you cubbed-up shed, has got a pot of
inignionette 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
cubbed-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 naignionette. 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 nob been too parti-
cular about the set of his neck-tie ;he has on the
lame rough, tough, dirty, thick, blanket sort of
jerkin in which 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. He has consumed some minutes
In placing it safely and conspicuously, and he
Walks on, eyeing it every now and then, with great
self-satisfaction ; and his satisfaction is not un-
altered, for while observing his pride in
the really beautiful blossom, we feel proud
also that one of a class who had courage to
Pelt Haynau 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-
l'erty, 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 gardens ! 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 tools, 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
Managed 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, and he cannot possibly go
by that train. " I shall go by the half-past one,"
says the civic master, and lie again applies him-
self vigorously to the dock-root, which he at last
conquers. Elated wi ht to feat, he conceives a
fancy for clearing the herb bed of " that nasty
chickweed," and aftsr doing an immensity of
nothing, he finds it is too late to be of any use in
town, and sits down - o his dinner with the full
conviction that he ha, na aerially assisted the gar-
dener. Happy delesio r 1 It is pleasant to see
the primitive digging and delving tendency of
childhood return in men, when all that Fortune
can bestow and all that Ambition can achieve has
served but to teach that it is possible to have " too
Much of a good thing," and that a bit of grass-plot
rimy be as nigh to heaven as a banker's counters
Here we may see attached to a beggarly cot-
tage a tiny patch of ground, probably about
twenty feet by twelve ; but the tiny patch is
crammed with scarlet runners, hen and chicken
daisies, nasturtiums, sweet williams, and heaven
knows what. There are the entailed acres sur-
rounding the towers and terraces of the great,
and these acres are a galaxy of beauty, belted
with floral rainbows, and breathing distilled honey
to such excess that 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 lowly home and the owner of the
stately mansion alike "love flowers."
Mark that bony, gaunt, sinewy vine, trying to
creep over a smoke-dried wall, with its :Few leaves
turning brown when they should be green, and
its fewer grapes turning sour when they should
be sweet. Observe this twining mass of tendrilled
creepers, thickly woven to form the " bower of
beauty and romance in the princely pleasance."
See the homely woodbine clustering over the farm-
house porch, and note the clematis and jasmine
skilfully trained to screen the morning sun from
the baronial breakfast room. Oh ! how true it
is that " flowers and sweet green things are
loved" by peer and peasant. We find them re-
cognised everywhere, as the silent ministers of
God's unfathomable power, and the unceasing
idols of man's instinctive homage.
Gardens are pleasant places. They were so
when under the classical patronage of Semiramis
and Alcinolts, and they are agreeable still, bearing
the modern patronymics of Versailles, Kew,
Rosherville, or Kensington.
There is something refreshing in the very word
" garden." Whether the style be Italian or
Dutch it is of little consequence, as far as the
general impulse of Humanity is concerned. We
admit that we prefer to ramble where Nature and
Art keep up a becoming family feeling ; yet when
we are shut in with peacocks cut out of box trees,
whose only merit is that they do not scream, yet
we say we cannot quarrel with the place they dis-
figure. We feel that a " garden" was intended,
and that is enough to sanctify the most atrocious
taste.
We have been led into this wandering bit of
gossip by the perusal of the three charming
volumes under notice. These books form a most
instructive and entortainin addition to our store