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forty years before he wrote his "Paradisus," and was appointed by Charles I. for his Theatre of Plants, Botanicus Regius Primarius. How Gabriel Plattes, though styled by his cotemporaries, "an excellent genius," and "of an adventurous caste of mind,” died miserably in the streets. How Walter Blythe of Oliver Cromwell's army wrote the "Survey of Husbandry," which Professor Martyn pronounces "an incomparable work." How Samuel Hartlib, the son of a Polish merchant, the friend of Milton, of Archbishop Usher and Joseph Meade, wrote his Legacy," and assisted in establishing the embryo Royal Society; how John Tradescant was in Russia, and accompanied the fleet sent against the Algerines in 1620, and collected on that occasion plants in Barbary, and in the isles of the Mediterranean; and how his son John, afterwards made a voyage in pursuit of plants to Virginia, "and brought many new ones back with him.' How their Museum, established in South Lambeth, and called "Tradescant's Ark," was the constant resort of the great and learned; how it fell into the hands of Elias Ashmole, and became the Ashmolean Museum.

These and such facts, shew us by what labours and steps our present garden-wealth has been raised; and diffuse an interest over a number of places familiar to us. Go, indeed, into what part of the island we will, we find some object of attraction and curiosity in the gardens attached to our old houses. As the coach passes the residence of Colonel Howard at Leven's Bridge, in Westmoreland, it stops, the passengers get out, and mount upon its top, and there behold a fine old Elizabethan house, standing in the midst of

a garden of that age, with all its topiary-work, its fountains, statues, and lawns. At Stony-Hurst in Lancashire, now a Jesuit's College, I was delighted to find a beautiful old garden of this description, which I have elsewhere described; and at Margam Abbey in South Wales, I found a fine assemblage of orange trees, the very trees which Sir Henry Wotton sent from Italy as a present to Queen Elizabeth. These trees had been thrown ashore here by the wreck of the vessel, and the owner of the place, by the queen's permission, built a splendid orangery to receive them, which stood in the centre of a garden surrounded on three sides by woody hills; and in which, fuchsias at least ten feet high, with stems thick as a man's arm, were growing in the open air, and tulip-trees large as the forest trees around. But what gave a still greater charm to this garden was, that the ruins of a fine old abbey stood here and there on its lawn; arches, overgrown with bushes, and the graceful pillars of a noble chapterhouse, around whose feet lay stones of ancient tombs and curious sculpture. These are the things which give so delicious a variety to our English gardens: and when we bear in mind that many of those artifices and figures which we have been accustomed to treat with contempt as Dutch, are in reality Roman; that such things once stood in the magnificent gardens of Lucullus, and Sallust; that the Romans gathered them again from the Eastern nations; that they are not only classical, but that, like many of the rites of our church and religious festivals, they are the reliques of the most ancient times, I think we shall be inclined to regard them with a greater degree of in

terest-not as objects to imitate or to place in any competition with our own more natural style, but as things which are of the most remote antiquity, and give a curious diversity to our country abodes. For my part, when I see even a fantastic peacock spreading its tail in yew in some old cottage or farm-house garden, I think of Pliny and his admiration of such topiary-work, and would not have it cut down for the world. Even those summer-houses built in trees, such as that built by the King of Belgium in WinterDown wood, near Claremont; a sketch of which is presented in the title-page-were Roman fancies; were formed, Pliny tells us, amid the branches of any monarch trees that grew within their grounds, and that even Caligula had one in a plane-tree near his villa at Velilræ, which he called his Nest.

Here then to all the sweet nests of English gardens, new or old, we bid adieu, with blessings on their pleasantness.

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CHAPTER VIII.

COUNTRY EXCITEMENTS.

BEFORE closing this department of my work, I must just glance at a few occurrences which serve to give an occasional variety to rural life, and may be classed under the head of Country Excitements. These are races, race-balls, county-balls, concerts, musical festivals, elections, assizes, and confirmations. It will not be requisite to do more than merely mention the greater part of these, for to describe at length the race-ball and county-balls, the winter concerts of the county town and the musical festivals, would require a separate volume, and they indeed, after all, belong more to the town than to the country. Having, therefore, simply pointed them out as sources of occasional variety to wealthy families during their stay in the country, I shall confine myself in these concluding remarks, to those few particulars which belong more entirely to my subject. Balls and musical exhibitions are sufficiently alike everywhere, to need no distinct details here. It is enough that they serve to break the rural torpor of those who regard existence as only genuine during the London season. The application of the profits both of these balls, and of the musical festivals that have of late years been held in different

places, to the support of infirmaries, and to other public objects of benevolence, deserves the highest com- · mendation. Thus dismissing these amusements, neither I nor my readers, I am sure, would wish to have the uproar and exasperation of the county election introduced into this peaceful volume; enough that when it does come to the country Hall, it comes, often as a hurricane, and frequently shakes it to the foundation, leaving in its track, debts and mortgages, shyness between neighbours, and rancour amongst old friends.

It would not be giving a faithful view of country life, however, were we to keep out of sight all agitating causes, and all existing drawbacks to the felicity for which such ample materials exist in it. Surveying those splendid materials, as displayed in the preceding chapters,-those abundant means and opportunities, which the wealthy possess for enjoying their lives in the country ;-it would be giving a most one-sided view of the rural life of the rich, if we left it to be inferred that "the trail of the serpent" was not to be perceived at times in the fair lawns, and up the marble steps of rural palaces; that the great Bubbly-Jock," (Turkey-Cock) which Scott contended that every man found in his path, did not shew himself there. The Serpent and the Bubbly-Jock which disturb and poison the rural life of the educated classes in England, are the very same which dash with bitter all English society in the same classes. They are the pride of life, and the pride of the eye. They are that continual struggle for precedence, and those (jealousies which are generated by a false social system.

Every man lives now-a-day for public observation.