THE FLOWER GARDEN. WITH AN ESSAY ON THE POETRY OF GARDENING. REPRINTED FROM THE QUARTERLY REVIEW.' LONDON: 1852. 191.6,47 LONDON: PRINTED BY W. CLOWES AND SORS, STAMFORD STREET, THE following Essay on Flowers appeared originally in the Quarterly Review in the year 1842. Though many additions and corrections might now be made, it has been thought better on the whole to print it almost word for word as it was first published. A Chapter on the Poetry of Gardening, by the same writer, which first appeared in another Miscellany, has been added, as embodying, though under a somewhat conceited form, the same views of Gardening at greater length. CONTENTS 45 55 ....... Excellence of gardening .... Mrs. Loudon Its authors .................... 5 Lawns Royal patronage ................ Walks .......................... History of gardens ............ Edgings ........................... The Romans and Greeks ... 9 Progress of gardening ........ Schools of gardening.......... 10 Exhibitions of Horticultural Old English style ........... 54 Versailles .................. “Poetry of Gardening '..... Extravagancies ............. A perfect garden ................ Hollyocks........................ 57 Price on the Picturesque.... Hemlock-spruce........... style............................... 22 Modern progress of horti Herb-garden ............. Newspapers..................... Mound Florists ......................... Oxford gardens .............. Tulipomania ................... Formal style Endless varieties ................ Evelyn's hedge. Names of flowers................ Associations of gardens ...... Lovers of gardens ............. Orchideous plants ............ English climate .................. Use in manufactures .......... Hybernation of plants ........ ......... ......... Blessings of gardening........ Ward's glass-cases............ To all classes... The sick chamber............ Christian teaching ....... Curiosities of gardening ... 41 To the poor man ........... Darwin .............................. 411 To the clergy................... Floating gardens ................ 43 Seedlings ........................ Travelling gardens............ 44 Flower-decoration .......... Lady-gardeners .................. 44 | Poetry of Gardening .......... 25 ................... ............. ............ THE FLOWER GARDEN. mm IF Dr. Johnson would not stop to inquire “ whether landscape-gardening demands any great powers of the mind,” we may surely be excused from the like investigation on the humbler subject of gardeningproper. But whether or not these pursuits demand, certain it is that they have exercised, the talents of as numerous and brilliant an assemblage of great names as any one subject can boast of. Without travelling into distant times or countries, we find among our own philosophers, poets, and men of taste, who have deemed gardening worthy their regard, the names of Bacon, Evelyn, Temple, Pope, Addison, Sir William Chambers, Lord Kames, Shenstone, Horace Walpole, Alison, Hope, and Walter Scott. Under the first and last of these authorities, omitting all the rest, we would gladly take our stand in de, fence of any study to which they had given their sanction on paper and in practice. Even in its own exclusive domain, gardening has raised no mean school of literature in the works of Gilpin, Whateley, the Masons, Knight, Price, and Repton. Time would fail us to tell of all those royal and |