صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني
[graphic][merged small]

MOHAIR CAP, FOR MORNING WEAR. Two skeins of Hair-brown Mohair. No. 1 Penelope Hook:

MAKE 21 loose chain stitches; turn back, and work 4 chain, De into every 3rd loop: each row must be worked very loosely. Now continue working this backwards and forwards till there are 34 rows, but decreasing 1 chain of four at the beginning of every row. This forms half the cap. Fasten off, and begin on the other side of the 21 chain, and work the other half.

Now make 7 or eight yards of loose chain, which forms a chain gimp; sew this with the same mohair all round the cap. Now, round this edge make chain, De under every alternate loop; making round the ears, 7 chain.

Form the remainder of this chain gimp into two rosettes, and then work thus:

De into a loop, 5 chain, De into next loop, till the rosette is finished. Or rosettes of very narrow brown satin ribbon are preferable.

A SPARE DIET.

DR. TROHCHIN, physician to a former Duke of Orleans, was celebrated for having studied the influence of the moral upon the physical man, the necessity of managing the strength, of proportioning the resources to the means, and the advantage of combating the principle of the disease, by removing out of the way whatever might contribute to cherish and irritate it. Spare diet was almost always one of the first of his prescriptions. Tis the best way," he said, "to cut off the enemy's provisions: that is already a great point gained."

KEW GARDENS.

forget, as a pendant to what we shall see to-day, that it was not till the reign of Henry VIII. that any salads, carrots, turnips, or other edible roots, were produced in England; and that Catherine of Arragon, when she wanted a salad, was obliged to despatch a special messenger for it to Flanders. But to return to the gardens of Surrey. At Beddington, Sir Francis Carew astonished Queen Elizabeth by showing her a cherry-tree in bearing, the fruit of which had been kept back a

STARTING by omnibus from that once noted "coaching house," the White Horse Cellar, Piccadilly, a pleasant drive through the suburban districts of Kensington, Hammersmith, Turnham Green, and Chiswick of floral-gala celebrity, takes us in a short time to Kew Bridge. Alighting from the "bus," ," and passing over the bridge, stopping a few moments on the crown of the central arch to admire the up-river view," full month" later than the usual time, to we find ourselves on the level surface and velvet-like grass of Kew Green, with its neat little church and churchyard, not obtrusively placed in the centre, nor yet set back amongst the unsecular buildings at the side. Those highly and appropriately ornamented gates before us were designed by Decimus Burton, and are the principal entrance to Kew Gardens. They are closed. We are a few minutes too soon: as we cannot, except by special favour, gain admittance before one o'clock, let us sit down, then, on this shaded bench, and have a friendly gossip concerning the earlier history of these gardens.

honour the royal visitor-a wonderful horticultural feat in those days. Yet so rapid was the advance of English gardening, that at the same place, in 1690, ten thousand oranges were gathered from the first orangetrees planted in Britain. In his "little corner at Sheen," Sir William Temple, the celebrated diplomatist and horticulturist, added several new fruits to the English Pomona; there, also, William III., a frequent visitor, was so pleased with Swift, that he initiated him into the art and mystery of cutting asparagus after the Dutch fashion; and, as the witty Dean himself related, offered him a commission in a cavalry regiment! At Moorpark, where Sir William Temple subsequently resided, he raised the still well-known Moorpark apricot; and there, by his own directions, his heart was buried in a silver case, under a sun-dial in the garden, opposite to a window from which he used to contemplate the landscape. At Roehampton, in 1719, the pineapple was first fruited to perfection in this country, by Sir Matthew Decker, a wealthy merchant, whose tomb occupies a conspicuous position in the front of Richmond old church, and whose portrait, depicting him in the act of presenting a pineapple to George I., is, we believe, in the Fitzwilliam museum of CambridgeSir Matthew's daughter being an ancestress of the founder of that noble building.

We are now in Surrey, though a few minutes since in Middlesex; the Thames, which we have just crossed, being the boundary of both. Surrey, though not the most favoured county in England as regards soil and climate, has, nevertheless, been long famous for its gardens, and the spirit and skill of its horticulturists. Fuller (Worthies, 1660), speaking of the gardens in Surrey, says :-" Gardening was first brought into England for profit about seventy years ago; before which we fetched most of our cherries from Holland, apples from France, and hardly had a mess of ræth-ripe peas but from Holland, which were dainties for ladies-they came so far and cost so dear. Since, gardening hath crept out of Holland into Sandwich, Kent, and thence to Surrey, where, though they Kew House, and the grounds that now have given £6 an acre and upwards, they form Kew Gardens, were, about the middle have made their rent, lived comfortable, of the seventeenth century, the property and set many people to work." True bene- of R. Bennet, Esq., whose daughter and factors were those sturdy yeomen of Surrey, heiress married the "great statesman and who introduced new vegetables, made their gardener, Lord Capel." That nobleman rents for that time, extremely high-introduced many new plants at Kew, and "lived comfortable, and set many people he is said to have paid to a Frenchman to work:" may all of us, in our several £80 for two mastick-trees, and £20 for vocations, go and do likewise. Let us not four variegated hollies. Evelyn, the cele

Aiton was no less famous as a botanist than as a cultivator; he enjoyed the confidence of his sovereign, and, perhaps still higher boon, the friendship of Sir Joseph Banks, until his death, which took place in 1793, and he was buried in Kew church

three other distinguished friends-Zoffany, Meyer, and Gainsborough.

brated author of Sylva, and distinguished patron of horticulture, in his Diary, describes the "orangery and myrtilleum at Kew" as 66 most beautiful and well kept;" and Daines Barrington (in the Archaologia) is of opinion, that Lord Capel was the first person of consequence, in Eng-yard, close to the last narrow tenements of land, who incurred much expense in gardening. After his death, the house and grounds came into the possession of Mr. Molyneux, a man of letters and philosopher, who was secretary to George II. when Prince of Wales, and husband of Lady Elizabeth Capel. A sundial, on the pedestal of which a commemorative inscription was placed by command of his late majesty William IV., still marks the precise spot where Dr. Bradley, with a telescope of Mr. Molyneux's own construction, made his valuable discoveries respecting the fixed

stars.

About 1730, the Prince of Wales (son of George II., and father of George III.) took a lease of the property, and began to extend and improve the pleasure-grounds; after his death, the improvements were continued by the Princess Dowager, who employed Sir William Chambers, the architect of Somerset House, to lay out and decorate the grounds with temples and other edifices. A word en passant on Sir William. Though of Scottish parentage, he was born in Sweden, and educated in England; in early life he made one voyage to China as supercargo of an Indiaman; on his return he studied architecture, and, being patronised by Lord Bute, was appointed drawing-master to the Prince of Wales, who, not long after, by the death of his grandfather, became George III.

The exotic department of the garden, commenced by the Princess Augusta towards the middle of the eighteenth century, was greatly favoured by the Earl of Bute, and also by Horace Walpole's "treemonger," Archibald, Duke of Argyle, who, in 1762, transferred to Kew a large number of exotic trees and shrubs from his princely collection at Whitton Place. In 1759, Mr. William Aiton, a native of Scotland, and pupil-as it is the fashion to say now-a-days, though then the term journeyman sufficed-of the celebrated Philip Miller, curator of the Company of Apothecaries' Physic Garden at Chelsea, was placed in charge of Kew Gardens. Mr.

There is a tradition among old gardeners, now alive, to the effect that Mr. Aiton, Lee, (the correspondent of Linnæus, and founder of the world-known Vineyard Nursery at Hammersmith,) and Ronalds, (founder of the equally celebrated Brentford Nursery,) were all, at the same period, fellow-workmen in the Chelsea garden, and that at that time their finances were so low, as to permit them to have only one dress suit of apparel, a joint-stock property, worn in successive order by the three. Many years after, when these men had, by industry and talent, attained not only wealth but also distinction, the three veterans used to meet once a year at Kew, where each, staking a guinea, mowed a swathe of grass; he who got over the task in the shortest time and most workmanlike manner winning the stakes, which were invariably handed over to the appointed judges of their skill-the workmen in the gardens.

One of those who worked under Mr. Aiton deserves a passing notice. A boy, only eleven years of age, who worked in the Bishop of Winchester's garden, at Farnham, having accidentally heard of the beauty of Kew, instantly resolved to be employed there. Starting off the next morning, with only the clothes on his back, and thirteen halfpence in his pocket, he reached Richmond-a distance of about thirty miles--in the afternoon of a long, hot summer day. Two pennyworth of bread and cheese, and one pennyworth of small beer consumed on the road, besides one halfpenny lost somehow or other, left the youthful wanderer but threepence. Staring about him, he espied in a shop window a small book, The Tale of a Tub, the price marked threepence. The title excited his curiosity. short debate between the mental and corporeal powers-whether it were better to purchase the book, or supper-the former prevailed; the book was bought and read that evening, beside a haystack, where, also, the night was passed. On applying for

After a

work to Mr. Aiton the next morning, the ledge, which so preeminently characterises boy-many years afterwards when a mem- the present century, were inferior in their ber of the British legislature-tells us: economy and details to those of private "The singularity of my dress, the sim- gentlemen. Indeed, several of them had plicity of my manners, my confident and been erected more as objects of architeclively air, and doubtless, his own com-tural display, than as adaptations for the passion besides, induced the gardener-who purposes of horticulture. was a Scotsman, I remember-to give me victuals, find me lodging, and set me to work." A few days after, George IV., then Prince of Wales, and two of his royal brothers, noticing the boy as he was sweep-culture, at first cherished by but a few, ing a lawn, enjoyed a hearty laugh at the blue smock-frock, and long, red, knotted garters of William Cobbett!

Although Kew Gardens thus languished for want of the sunshine of royal favour and encouragement, yet, at the same time, the twin sciences of Botany and Horti

soon, like goodly trees planted in a fertile soil, spread their fruits and blossoms over an intelligent, knowledge-seeking commuAbout 1789, George III. purchased and nity. The Linnæan and Horticultural pulled down Kew House, removing the Societies in London, the Caledonian Horfurniture to an older mansion, now known ticultural Society in Scotland, besides many as Kew Palace, and which, as Aubrey in- others of less note, in various parts of the forms us (Antiquities), was once the residence kingdom, were established. Not only soof Sir Hugh Portman-" the rich gentle- cieties and public bodies, but private inman knighted by Queen Elizabeth at dividuals and nurserymen, sent out collecKew." This inconvenient, small-by some tors over all practicable parts of the globe. designated, picturesque-brick building, To a people thus enlightened the retrograde was purchased in 1781 for Queen Charlotte, condition and inferiority of Kew Gardens, and for many years afterwards was the as a national institution, was painfully mafavourite residence of George III. and his nifest; and the opinion was almost univerfamily. Queen Charlotte was a truly royal sally expressed, that they should be "either encourager of botanical science. The late rendered available as a great scientific Sir James Smith, president of the Linnæan establishment, for the benefit of the public, Society, speaking of her Majesty, said that or abolished altogether." Consequently, "few persons have cherished the study of in 1838, a committee was appointed by the nature more ardently, or cultivated it so Lords of the Treasury, to inquire into the deeply." It may readily be imagined, that management, condition, &c. of the Gardens; under such auspices, at the time of vast and Dr. Lindley, and two well-known practerritorial acquisitions in India, and more tical gardeners, were directed by the comparticularly the extension of British mari-mittee to hold a survey, and give in a time discovery in the South Seas, the voy-report. The result of this investigation ages of Captain Cook and Sir Joseph Banks round the world, and similar undertakings, that Kew Gardens, about the close of the last century, contained the richest botanical collection in the world. A change, however, succeeded those days of prosperity. The long mental darkness of George III., the old age and death of Sir J. Banks, the unscientific pursuits of George IV., and other causes, combined to deteriorate the establishment. But very few new plants were added to the collection, while many of the old, rare, and valuable exotics, once the pride of the gardens, were only to be found in the printed pages of the Catalogue. The stoves and greenhouses, having been erected previous to the rapid advance of scientific and mechanical know

was, that Kew Gardens, pleasure-grounds, and park, were transferred to the department of Woods and Forests: Sir William J. Hooker, the celebrated botanist, appointed director; and Mr. Smith, the late foreman, curator; Mr. William Townsend Aiton, the son and successor of the before-mentioned Mr. Aiton, resigning the curatorship on the eve of the fiftieth anniversary of his assuming that office.

Under this new system of management, great improvements and alterations were immediately put into progress. The leading principle of these alterations, as suggested by Dr. Lindley in the able Report, was that:

"A national garden ought to be the centre round which all minor establish

ments of the same nature should be arranged; they should all be under the control of the chief of that garden, acting in concert with him, and through him with one another, reporting constantly their proceedings, explaining their wants, receiving their supplies, and aiding the mother country in every thing that is useful in the vegetable kingdom. Medicine, commerce, agriculture, horticulture, and many valuable branches of manufacture, would derive much benefit from the adoption of such a system. From a garden of this kind, government would be able to obtain authentic and official information on points connected with the founding of new colonies; it would afford the plants there required, without its being necessary, as now, to apply to the officers of private establishments for advice and assistance." Free admission to all decently dressed persons, from the hour of one to six every week-day, was from about this time granted to the public. It is gratifying to record, that this privilege has been very rarely abused; and it is stated, that, in the few instances which have occurred, the delinquents were not of what is generally termed the lower order. Some have objections to the great expense entailed upon the nation by these gardens, but, at any rate, every body may have a peep for their money, and, undoubtedly, they are a much less expensive, and much more rational and instructive spectacle, than a review. A truce, however, to this garrulous gossip. See, those French and German students-a rare place this for studying botany-are pressing forward; the gates are open, let us enter, first purchasing from the janitor in the sentry-box, Sir William J. Hooker's excellent Guide. Without the map which accompanies that useful work, we would soon be lost in this labyrinth of sweets, or, probably, leave the gardens without seeing one-half of their interesting contents.

up to the stately cedar of Lebanon; tea, coffee, pepper, indigo, nutmeg, vanilla-all these and many more, are to be seen in vigorous growth. In one house are the wiry, dry, or, as we once heard a lady remark, Skye-terrier-looking-plants of New Holland; in another are the grotesque cacti and opuntia of America. In a seething, damp, hot atmosphere, we find the singular tribe of orchidea, whose splendid flowers are only equalled in interest by their curious foliage and modes of growth. You pause to admire that gorgeous butterfly-you may advance, it cannot fly away, it is the flower of the butterfly plant! Beneath that bell-glass is the very rare king plant of Ceylon, its leaves resembling brownish-green velvet, covered with a most exquisite net-work of gold lace. That ornamental bracket (as one might suppose it to be) up there, attached to a piece of plank, is a New Holland fern; artists have drawn it, and artisans have fabricated from the sketch, fac simile, the useful appliance it so much resembles. In another place we meet with a living example of how the simple truths of science destroy the fictions of poets and travellers-it is, horrible to relate, the deadly upas-tree of Java, domiciled in an English hot-house, not confined, like the cobra di capellos in the Zoological Gardens, but shedding its venom in by no means a desert air! The palmhouse, is, however, the grand feature of the gardens; it is a fitting palace for the plants styled by Linnæus the princes of the vegetable kingdom. The central portion of the building has a substantial gallery all round at the height of 30 feet from the floor, ascended by a light spiral staircase, so as to give the opportunity of seeing the plants from above as well as below, by bringing the spectator on a level with the summits of many of the loftiest, and also the means of watering the plants from above. The Nothing but personal inspection can whole interior is heated by hot water; twelve give any idea of the number, variety, and furnaces beneath the building supply the beauty of the plants cultivated here. From requisite caloric. To avoid the unsighta stalk of our native grass, up to the high-liness of a chimney in proximity to this est of the graminaceous order, the siliceous stemmed sugar-cane and bamboo-from the ever green beech of Tierra del Fuego, so stunted, and with branches so densely compacted, that the adventurous voyager walks upon the top of the miniature forest,

noble structure, the smoke is conveyed by an underground flue, within a brick tunnel 6 feet high, to the distance of 479 feet from the house, where it ascends a smokeconsuming ornamental tower, 60 feet in height, and so situated as to be an object

« السابقةمتابعة »