gradually stole into most of the gardens of Europe'. The Guernsey lily was brought from Japan in the beginning of the seventeenth century. It derived its name from the circumstance of a ship, which contained several roots, in its voyage from Japan being wrecked on the Guernsey coast. Floating to the shore, they took root; and being observed to produce very beautiful flowers, they attracted the attention of the governor's son, by whose care they were preserved, propagated, and distributed.

**

VI.

Many of the wisest and the best of men have signalized their love of gardens and shrubberies by causing themselves to be buried in them;- -a custom once in frequent practice among the Greeks, Jews, and Mexicans1. Plato was buried in the groves of Academus ; and Sir William Temple, though he expected to be interred in Westminster Abbey, gave orders for his heart to be enclosed in a silver casket, and placed under a sun-dial in that part of his garden, immediately opposite the window of his library, from which he was accustomed to contemplate the beauties and wonders of

1 Baron de Humboldt introduced many South American plants into the hot-houses of Europe. Vide his Travels to the Equinoctial Regions, vol. 1. p. 11. His Essay on the Geography of Plants, their Natural Associations, and the History of their Migrations, form one of the most curious botanical essays extant.

2 Auson. Epit. 21.

3 Kings, xxi. v. 26.

* Purchas' Pilgrims, 804. This custom is still prevalent in Caubul. Vide, Elphinstone, Introd. p 59.

the creation, in the society of a beloved sister. The late Count de Caylus, the friend of literature, the arts, and of mankind, placed also in a garden his own tomb, some time before his death. This monument was an antique, formed of porphyry, and surrounded by Egyptian ornaments. During his gradual decay, it was one of his amusements to go into his garden; where, fixing his attention upon the antique, he permitted himself to relapse into melancholy meditation. This monument was afterwards erected in the chapel of St. Germain l'Auxerrois, where it is still to be seen. Animated by a similar feeling, the friends of Dercennus, one of the kings of Latium, caused him to be buried in a thick wood, on the top of a high mountain; a spot, from which the lovely Opis aimed her arrow, and shot the murderer of Camilla.

Being an ardent lover of Nature himself, the Marquis de Girardin thought, he could not inter his unfortunate friend, Rousseau, more to the satisfaction of his immortal spirit, than by burying him in the island of Poplars, situated about ten leagues from Paris. On his tomb was inscribed the following epitaph :

Ici repose

L'Homme de la Nature

Et de la Vérité!

Vitam impendere Vero.

Hic jacent ossa J. J. Rousseau.

At Barnes, in the county of Surrey, is a monument, surrounded by rose trees, consecrated to the memory of a London citizen, whose name was Rose.

This eccentric genius, as was justly and nobly observed by one of his bitterest enemies, possessed the head of a man and the heart of a woman. He once took up his abode in a small farm-house, the only one in the island of St. Pierre, rising in the lake of Bienne. Since his residence, it has been called Rousseau's Island. This isolated spot is one of the most beautiful in the whole country; and thither, during the vintage, parties of peasants filled the woods, amusing themselves in dancing, in running, and strolling about; enjoying the coolness of the shade, and the freshness of the water. The pleasure, which Rousseau enjoyed in this retreat, for a short time, obliterated all sense of his injuries and misfortunes. "I was permitted," says he, "to remain only two months in this delightful island; but I could have passed there two years,-two centuries,-all eternity, without suffering a moment's ennui; although my whole society consisted of the steward and his family. I esteem these two months as the most happy period of my life; and so happy, that I could have passed my whole existence without even a momentary wish for another situation." After a short time spent in this retreat, in a manner so delightful to his imagination, the unfortunate hermit unexpectedly received a peremptory order from the governor of Bern to quit the island! Upon receiving this order, finding that fortune was his irreconcilable enemy, he gave himself

-To perpetuate the inclosure, he left the poor of the parish twenty pounds: and, in return, directed that they should take care, that the rose trees should be perpetually preserved.

up to despair; and petitioned, with all the ardour of a disordered mind, to be condemned to perpetual imprisonment! The only indulgence he required was, to be allowed the use of books, and to be permitted, at certain intervals, to walk in the open air. Even this was denied him!

VII.

Cicero composed no inconsiderable portion of his works, while walking in his shrubberies; and his reconciliation with Crassus was effected in the garden of the latter, much admired at that time for its beauty. Eschylus is said to have fallen asleep in his bower, at the time, in which Bacchus appeared to him in his dreams, and commanded him to write a tragedy. Don Emanuel, of Portugal, was also an admirer of gardens. A lover of music and a cultivator of science, this illustrious prince wore mourning for the loss of men of merit; and history decrees him the honour of banishing distress and poverty from his kingdom. And here, though last in this order, yet not the least in our estimation, I shall gratify the inclination, I feel, of recording an instance of pure taste in a man, living in the humblest sphere. His name was Morgan; and he was employed in one of the furnaces, in the county of Monmouth, for upwards of thirty years. All day, and frequently a part of the night, he stood before two immense furnaces, not only in winter, but in summer. He was the picture of an Ethiop; yet his house was clean, and his garden well ordered. "The greatest delight in the world, sir," said he to me one day, "is a garden;

and the best ornament a poor man can have in that garden, is a hive of bees." In my early youth, too, I knew a young man, who won a rich, beautiful, and accomplished wife, by sending her as a present a small collection of flowers, inserted between the leaves of St. Pierre's Studies of Nature. The lady was beset with admirers; but she had the good sense to be more captivated with this delicate mode of indicating affection, than with the inane gallantry of men, who had little to distinguish them, but vanity and vacancy, wealth, and a very exalted opinion of their own importance.

Delightful are the associations, which the flowery world presents to the imagination of the poet and the moralist. Who can forget the beautiful instance in the Gospel of St. Luke1?" Consider the lilies, how they grow: they toil not, and they spin not; and yet, I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these." In the Malay language, the word, signifying woman, signifies also a flower. William de Lorris, under the allegory of a rose standing in a garden, describes the pains, penalties, and pleasures of endeavouring to acquire the object of his passion. This allegory, called the Romance of the Rose, afforded a useful hint to Chaucer.

The Naturalist seldom sees a common thistle, without associating it with the goldfinch, which sits upon it; extracts the down with its bill; and feeds upon its seeds.

Ch. xii. v. 27, 28.

VOL. II.