ordered garden; but it is so with the wealthy and the high born. With them it is indispensable to have the luxuries of vegetable life, and, by consequence, the means of producing them; and there can be no question that some wealthy per sons spend many hundreds a-year on their gardens without a genuine taste for flowers. Fashion demands the sacrifice, and it is made as a matter of course. In labour alone, the garden of a country-gentleman will cost, on a very moderate scale, £150 a-year, and often double or treble that sum. To these expenses must be added the cost of new productions; artificial heat; rent of land, and repairs, etc.; so that £1,000 per annum is often spent on the horticultural adjuncts of an establishment. All this may, in some cases, be unconnected with an appreciation of natural beauties, but in most instances the taste and the expense incurred go hand-in-hand. Many noblemen and private gentlemen find great pleasure in rural pursuits, and engage in them scientifically. At the head of the former class must be placed the Duke of Devonshire, the great and zealous patron of the Horticultural Society of Lon don. One advantage to society at large is obvious, resulting from these tastes in the aristocracy-they necessarily bring their possessors into contact with their humbler fellow-subjects, and teach them daily the important truth that Nature knows no aristocracy of intellect or talent.

We now pass to the consideration of one aspect of our theme, which will be more didactic than descriptive, and will contemplate more the enforcement of a duty than the statement of a fact; we mean, the desirableness of the study of botany and gardening to men of literary tastes and studious habits. From some inexplicable, or, certainly, insufficient cause, an unnatural divorce is often found to exist between the labour of the wits and of the hands, as though the two were incompatible in one person, or each had an abhorrence of the other. Physiologically, it is clear the two should be united, if a healthy development of body and mind is desired, mens sana in corpore sano. Why genius, and wit, and eloquence should be necessarily associated with an unhealthy condition of body, cannot naturally be shown. That they often are so, is the result of a breach of nature's laws, which have imperatively demanded, in all ages, the performance of coporeal labour as the price to be paid for the benefits of a vigorous and healthy development. The modern estimate of the capacities of genius is different in this respect from that of the ancients, whose wise and great men appear to have cultivated the bodily powers as well as those of the mind. Homer was a sturdy wanderer, uttering his sweet notes from a frame hardened by exposure to the weather, and inured to the hard

ships of travel. Cincinnatus could handle the plough. Demosthenes overcame natural imperfections by great corporeal exertions. Cæsar could be luxurious at times, but he was a great classical writer; and the reader of his Commentaries is often at a loss which most to admire, his clear head and masculine understanding, or his capacity for physical toil. We do not remember, in all the compass of ancient literature, profane or sacred, a reference to those topics which modern geniuses have consecrated to their service; such as, 'the soul being too acute for the body;' 'energies wasted by watching the midnight oil;' ? a frame unfitted by genius for manly and robust exercises,' etc. The sooner all this is expunged from our current language and literature, the better. Fine mental endowments and correct tastes are surely more to be admired when set in a chasing of a muscular and vigorous body, than when associated with attenuated features, quick pulse, and an eye of ominous lustre. We beg to express a firm conviction, that a return to nature's laws is imperatively demanded of all men of learning and genius, and that the prospects of the human mind will be brightest when we recognize the claims of the inferior but inseparable casket in which it is lodged.

Perhaps there are no professional men, whose pursuits are of an intellectual character, who would be more benefited by an attention to botany and gardening than Christian ministers. This class, indeed, has acquired renown by the successful pursuit of horticulture, from the earlier efforts of the recluses of the convent to the more scientific labours of our own Henslow and Herbert. A large proportion of divines of all denominations are favourably situated for such pursuits, either by the ease of their worldly circumstances, or their living in rural districts; their parsonages having generally attached to them some portion of garden ground. That every public and private duty may be conscientiously attended to simultaneously with such operations, is attested by numerous examples, and cannot be reasonably doubted. But it is well known that very many ministers are excluded from any extensive acquaintance with such matters, partly by their situation in large towns and cities, and partly by the numerous engagements which the modern character of the religious world lays upon them. Yet these are the very persons who most need the enlivening influences of floral pursuits, and who would receive from them the largest amount of benefit. A country pastor may never handle the spade, nor tie up a flower; but, whether conscious of it or not, he is moulded and fashioned by the scenes of nature around him, and daily assimilates to himself the healthy nutriment so abundantly provided. But in London, or similar localities, a pastor occupies a different

position; is surrounded by contrasted influences; and is, therefore, bound to seek voluntarily that which his sphere of life does not place at his feet-bound, we mean, if he has a due regard to his physical well-being, and to the buoyancy and right adjustment of his mind.

How eminently suggestive are all the works of the great Creator! and how easily does the mind draw to itself the stores of wisdom and knowledge furnished by the books of Nature and Providence! If it is supposed that a man of ordinary abilities loses time by a moderate attention to horticulture, or any other physical science, a fatal mistake is committed, which should be rectified at once. The social principle operates in the region of intellect as well as everywhere else, and it is not good for a mental faculty to pursue its investigations alone. Error appears

to love the haunts of a man of one book-homo unius libri-although that book may be the revealed Word of God. To some minds, the claim to lofty piety appears to be sustained if its supposed possessor despises all literature but that which is sacred, and eschews all knowledge but that which is revealed. But past experience and observation have disclosed the fact, that a one-sided application of the faculties has never had the blessing of heaven. It is in the midst of the meeting and blending rays of light from all the quarters whence their Creator darts them, that truth loves to dwell; and in that irradiated sphere she must be sought.

The Christian minister must in every case be the pioneer, and not the follower of the crowd. The moment he finds himself urged onwards by a pressure from without, he must be prepared either to confess his past sluggishness, or, feeling that his own opinions and practice are correct, to make a dignified and active resistance. Hence, if an exhibition of weakness, and dangerous concessions are to be avoided, he must habitually frequent an eminence from which the real state of things may be viewed, and the wisest courses discerned. In large cities, he has to do with many whose idolatry is wealth, and whose dangerous disease is inordinate worldly excitement. Unhappy is the condition of both the teacher and the taught, if the former dwells in an atmosphere which prevents him from seeing the common danger, and sounding an alarm! If he is also unduly excited; if public meetings, and numerous engagements on committees; if much company; or even if an excess of pastoral duties, cause him to live in a crowd, and deny him time for calm reflection, he will not be likely to see the excitement of his flock. An association with the fowls of the air and the lilies of the field-quiet musings among the grand, yet silent operations of nature, will place him in a proper position. He will learn, in such circumstances

that man's life-his happiness-consisteth not in the abundance which he possesses; and he will come as a freeman of nature to tell his people, in words of authority enforced by the genuine dictates of his own heart, that a state of mind, and not outward circumstance, constitutes happiness. Of course, these great lessons will be learned most advantageously among natural things; but if this is denied, books should supply the place. Every student of divinity should be a naturalist either in theory or practice, and, if possible, in both.

But it is time to say something specific respecting the works placed at the head of this article, although all we have advanced is in perfect accordance with their spirit and intention. The Gardener's Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette' is, as its title imports, a weekly register of matters concerning the gardener and the farmer; it abounds in notices of natural history, and may be recommended as an interesting and unexceptionable family journal. The 'School Botany' will attract by the beauty of its illustrations, and, if used in our seminaries, cannot fail of being highly beneficial to the young, and of drawing them on to a more scientific admiration of the works of nature in after life. The principal work, however, is 'The Vegetable Kingdom,' the mature product of the long studies of Dr. Lindley; a distinguished monument of his patient industry, general scholarship, and scientific attainments. We will allow the professor to introduce his own work in the following extracts from his preface.

Its object is to give a concise view of the state of systematical botany at the present day, to show the relation or supposed relation of one group of plants to another, to explain their geographical distribution, and to point out the various uses to which the species are applied in different countries. The names of all known genera, with their synonyms, are given under each natural order, the numbers of the genera and species are in every case computed from what seems to be the best authority, and complete indices of the multitudes of names embodied in the work are added, so as to enable a botanist to know immediately under what natural order a given genus is stationed, or what are the uses to which any species has been applied. Finally, the work is copiously illustrated by wood and glyphographic cuts, and for the convenience of students an artificial analysis of the system is placed at the end.'

We need scarcely intimate to our readers that Dr. Lindley's work advocates a natural system of botany, and not the artificial one of Linnæus. On the merits of the natural system he thus speaks:

The natural system of botany being founded on these principles, that all points of resemblance between the various parts, properties, and

qualities of plants shall be taken into consideration; that thence an arrangement shall be deduced in which plants must be placed next each other which have the greatest degree of similarity in those respects; and that consequently the quality of an imperfectly known plant may be judged of by that of another which is well known, it must be obvious that such a method possesses great superiority over artificial systems, like that of Linnæus, in which there is no combination of ideas, but which are mere collections of isolated facts, having no distinct relation to each other. The advantages of the natural system, in applying botany to useful purposes are immense, especially to medical men, who depend so much upon the vegetable kingdom for their remedial agents. A knowledge of the properties of one plant enables the practitioner to judge scientifically of the qualities of other plants naturally allied to it; and therefore, the physician acquainted with the natural system of botany, may direct his inquiries, when on foreign stations, not empirically, but on fixed principles, into the qualities of the medicinal plants which have been provided in every region for the alleviation of the maladies peculiar to it. He is thus enabled to read the hidden characters with which Nature labels all the hosts of species that spring from her teeming bosom. Every one of these bears inscribed upon it the uses to which it may be applied, the dangers to be apprehended from it, or the virtues with which it has been endowed. The language in which they are written is not indeed human; it is in the living hieroglyphics of the Almighty which the skill of man is permitted to inspect. The key to their meaning lies enveloped in the folds of the natural system, and is to be found in no other place.'

This volume is beautifully printed, and the contents will afford much interest to the casual reader. It will form a useful appendage to any library.