estates, ought to be as decidedly his own as the deer in his park, or the poultry in his yard. But at present it is his to shoot, but not his to dispose of; he dares not send it to the open market to benefit himself, or to gratify the public, who do, and ever will, esteem it hard that laws should forbid them to eat such wholesome food as they have a desire for, and money to purchase. We admit that a qualified person is allowed to make presents of game, but we cannot ask our licensed friends for a brace of birds without giving them the idea that we think ourselves neglected; and few would wish to give, or conceive such an idea.

It is not long since the physicians of Paris forbad a most interesting invalid of our family to take any animal food excepting partridges, which were recommended as a daily diet. These were

easily obtained, so long as we remained not only in that city, but in all the country-towns likewise; but the moment we arrived in an English town, this comfort was forbidden, unless we would either condescend to beg, or risk the penalty of offended laws.

We feel satisfied that if game were allowed to be as publicly sold as venison, we should in a few years hear no more of poachers than we now hear of deer-stealers.

The number of poachers, who, at the present time, fill our prisons, is a national disgrace, whilst their terrible boldness and infamous acts would be revolting to the most uncivilized nations; but as long as luxury demands, and the laws forbid, the regular supply of this kind of food, so long will there be found men to pursue the nefarious trade of poachers. We hear of no poachers on the Continent, where game is publicly sold; and it would be hardly more unreasonable to banish mutton from our shambles for fear of creating sheep-stealers.

"At the time when the luxury of the patricians was undermining the safety of the Roman empire, the plebeians were prohibited by law from eating artichokes, which were then considered a dainty for man, although Pliny considered it the natural food of the ass.'

The history and properties of the Hawthorn are well detailed: but the alleged import of its French appellation, Aubépine, the morning of the year, is more poetical than correct, the term being a corruption of Alba spina, and denoting neither more nor less than White-thorn. The fitness of the Holly for a hedge is well illustrated by the following imperial anecdote:

Evelyn tells us, that his garden at Say's Court was surrounded with an impregnable hedge of about four hundred feet in length, nine feet high, and five in diameter: "it mocks," says this worthy author, "the rudest assaults of the weather, beasts, or hedge-breakers;" and it was almost the only thing belonging to his garden that was not destroyed by the Czar of Muscovy. Mr. Evelyn had lent his house to Peter the Great, in order that he might be near the Dock-yard at Deptford, during his stay in

Eng

England; and we are told that this imperial shipwright was so fond of being driven in a wheelbarrow over the box edgings and the parterres of the author of the Sylva, that they were entirely destroyed; "which," says he, "I can shew in my now ruined gardens at Say's Court (thanks to the Czar)."

Mr. Evelyn was evidently a good Christian, but he appears to have overlooked the passage in Scripture, which says,

"Put not your faith in princes;"

for it does not appear that the Emperor of Russia made him the least recompence for the devastation he committed, both in the garden and the mansion; and he certainly was an unrewarded slave to Charles the Second.'

With respect to the Hornbeam, it has perhaps been too hastily proscribed from many of our plantations; for, though we can no longer tolerate the trim and precise alleys and arbours of our forefathers, the pleasing green of its foliage, which appears early in spring, and continues till the winter has advanced, so as to afford shelter to birds and delicate plants, ought to secure for it a place in the wilderness or extended shrubbery. Its timber, also, is very compact, and not only furnishes a superior fuel, but has been found to yield the best charcoal for the manufacture of gun-powder.

Cytisus Alpinus of Willdenow, and C. laburnum of Linné, though often confounded, are really distinct; the former attaining to a greater size, the leaves being placed on longer foot-stalks, and its pendant blossoms being not only more numerous but fragrant. It grows spontaneously on the Swiss Alps, and on elevated situations in the south of France. Its hard, flexible, and very elastic wood, is scarcely less valuable than that of the Chesnut; and, in the district of Maconnais, it is used for bows, which retain their strength and springiness for half a century. Though a native of cold mountains, it readily accommodates itself to almost every situation and soil, grows rapidly, and is easily propagated either by seed or by cuttings. The C. laburnum, on the contrary, which most frequently occurs in our gardens and shrubberies, has its leaflets slightly hairy and elongated, its blossoms smaller, more precocious and scentless, and its pods less flattened. It possesses most of the properties of the former, but in an inferior degree; and, having been imported from Italy, it is liable to be affected by frost in the spring.

The Larch forms the subject of an instructive and entertaining article, but without exhausting the circumstances connected with its natural and economical history. For instance; it might have been mentioned that Saussure observed it on Saint Bernard, at the height of of 823 toises above the level

of

of the sea, and that Fenille attests its healthy vegetation in the plains of Bresse: but that, in a hot southern exposure, its leaves become yellow and shrivelled. Although Miller and others have regarded the Siberian and the Black American as only varieties of the European Larch, yet the first is uniformly distinguished by longer leaves and larger cones, and the second by small lax cones.

Mr. Phillips very properly enters his protest against the use of Lauro-cerasus in cookery.

It was formerly,' he says, 'much used in this country to give a flavour to puddings and custards, &c.; but this practice is much less frequent since it has been ascertained to be a deadly poison. We should therefore caution all persons against its use, and particularly cooks; for in case of accident, they would be tried for the murder of the sufferer as much as if they had used any other poisonous drug. Dr. Darwin says, "The distilled water from laurel leaves is, perhaps, the most sudden poison we are acquainted with in this country. I have seen about two spoonfuls of it destroy a large pointer dog in less than ten minutes. In a small dose it is said to promote intoxication. On this account there is reason to believe it acts in the same manner as opium and vinous spirit; but that the dose is not so well ascertained." our shrubbery is meant to amuse, we forbear mentioning the dreadful consequences that have ensued from the baneful juice of this leaf; but we feel it a duty to caution those who may have been in the habit of using it, particularly as custards and puddings are generally eaten by children, whose constitutions may suffer through life from the injury done them by this mode of giving a relish to their diet.'

As

In his enumeration of large Linden-trees, the author might have included that which still exists in the court-yard of the castle of Chaille, near Melle, in Poitou. Its stem, which is hollow from age, measures about 45 feet in circumference, and bears six perfectly horizontal branches; of which the respective diameters, at the base, are little short of four feet. These branches, which would long since have given way but for the strong props on which they rest, are 43 feet long, and sustain sixteen upright boughs, above 46 feet high, and of proportionate thickness, each forming as it were a large tree. The total height is 60 feet, and the entire circumference of the branches not less than 300 feet.

Passiflora racemosa, or the Bunch-flowered Passion-flower, is thus described:

The petals of this species are of a fine crimson, and the rays of the crown purple, springing from a ring of a dark puce, regularly spotted with white, that has the appearance of a circle of pearls. The converging crown that covers the nectary is of a fine

green.

green. The corolla, before it expands, has the form of a balloonpurse; and as the extremity of the branches hang loaded with the buds in a progressive state, it has a most lovely effect.

cess.

This species of passion-flower was observed by the late Mr. E. J. A. Woodford, growing wild in the shade of the woods, near the shore, about three miles from the city of Rio Janeiro. Mr. Woodford conveyed it to Lisbon, where he cultivated it with sucIn its native country, it blossoms in November and December, producing generally two stems from the same stock, one of which proves fertile, and is without leaves, while in that state; the other remains barren and in leaf, but becomes fertile in its turn the succeeding year. It was thought that this beautiful plant could only be made to thrive in the stove; but we saw, in the summer of 1821, a fine plant of this kind in full flower, in a conservatory belonging to the Earl of Egremont, at Petworth. The petals of these flowers are keel-shaped, and when fully expanded each blossom measures from four to five inches in diameter, and it is perfectly without scent.'

Among the Poplars cultivated in this country, the balsamifere of Linné, or Tacmahac, was deserving of a place, both because it puts forth its leaves so early in spring, and because it is so readily confounded with the P. candicans of Bosc: but the latter attains to a greater height, and has the under surface of the leaves of a glossy white, with the buds less gummy.

The Rose, and its innumerable varieties originating in domestic culture, are treated in Mr. Phillips's discursive manner, but still with laudable discretion; for the subject, if prosecuted in all its details, might occupy volumes.

The intimate alliance between Rhododendron and Azalea ⚫ is proved by the experiments of Mr. Herbert, of Spofforth, near Wetherby, who has succeeded in raising a new plant by scattering the pollen from the anthers of rhododendron, maximum, over the stigma of the common white glaucous-leaved azalea, from which seed have been raised mule plants, which partake of the nature of both parents. It takes after the

rhododendron in its coriaceous evergreen foliage, the number of its stamens, the redness and expansion of the limb of the corolla; after the azalea in the blueness of the leaves, the tapering of these towards each end, in the cylindrical elongation and whiteness of the tube of the corolla, &c.'

Of the different species of Sumach, or Rhus, notice might have been taken with more discrimination. The toxicodendron and the radicans of Linné seem to differ only in the leaflets; and the shrub, which Rafinesque has denominated Philostemon, hardly required to be disjoined from them. The milky juice, that flows from the footstalk of a leaf torn from one of these

17

shrubs,

shrubs, is, when taken internally, highly deleterious; and, if applied to the skin, it will excite inflammation. Even the exhalations from the toxicodendron, in hot weather, are said to be sensibly noxious. Dr. Dupenoy, of Valenciennes, has, however, obtained from this poisonous plant an extract which he has exhibited with success in cases of impetiginous affections, and paralysis of the lower limbs. Some of the properties of Clematis vitalba, or Common Virgin's Bower, may in like manner be little known to the British reader: but, in Italy, its tender shoots are substituted for asparagus, their deleterious qualities being rendered inert by boiling. Knavish mendicants, too, employ the leaves to produce extensive excoriations, and thus excite the compassion of the spectator; whence the French call it Herbe aux gueux. - The Tamarisk, again, besides displaying its graceful airs in the shrubbery, contributes to impart fertility to the wastes on sea-shores, and the borders of the salt lakes of Siberia; for it decomposes the muriate of soda more effectually than glass-wort, barilla, or the fuci; and it yields, by incineration, a greater proportion of mineral alkali. Accordingly, the T.gallica is extensively cultivated on the shores of Languedoc, where it is cut every second year, and uprooted every tenth; having then decomposed the marine salt of the soil, and rendered it fit for the reception of corn. At a distance from salt water, the Tamarisk yields only vegetable alkali.

Before we dismiss these volumes, we have to remark that they are composed on the same plan, and nearly in the same style and manner, with the author's two former publications; of which, indeed, they may be regarded as the sequel and the complement. In many cases, the history of the several trees and shrubs, and particularly their introduction into this country, have been traced with more or less success. As the whole is better calculated for reference than for continuous perusal, the comments might, by the adoption of a smaller type, have been considerably extended, without adding to the size of the work; and room might have been thus left for noting the respective specific gravities of the different kinds of wood, the insects which haunt them, and various other particulars which are either wholly or partially omitted. We perceive, however, fewer symptoms of a credulous propensity than heretofore, and less frequent deviations from the ordinary rules of good writing. Yet the style would admit of polish and correction; and, in a second edition, it would be desirable to avoid some unsightly slips both of the pen and of the press.

ART