"He was suffered to languish, unsupported for years, at Come"ly Garden, and died, at last, in obscurity and indigence. It "would avail little in the present day, to dwell on the ignorance " and quackery of the men, who supplanted him in the public "favour. The work on the Raising of Forest-Trees,' which "he published by subscription, to relieve his wants, is a suffi"cient proof of his professional skill; and the detail of his "practice is the severest satire on that of his successors. "conscientiously believe, that the millions of young trees, at present raised near Edinburgh, if raised after Boutcher's me"thod, would cover a greater surface, than is now covered, by "the metropolis of the North!

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I

"Since the time of the Millers and the Boutchers, the little "science, that was then dawning on our profession, whether in "Scotland or elsewhere, has utterly disappeared from it. Plant"ing and Gardening, however, since that period, have come "much into fashion in this country. The Seed and Nursery "business has surprisingly encreased. Instead of being con"fined, as formerly, to a scale the most limited and insignificant, it has become one of the most important in the metro"polis and elsewhere, and fortunes, by consequence, have been "rapidly accumulated by it.

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"In these circumstances, Sir, I conceive, that we have been "greatly enlightened, respecting the mysteries of the trade, by "our brethren of the South. To furnish Gardeners to the no"bility and gentry, is now found to be the road to wealth; to "sell cheap or dear, the only criteria of merit in the Nursery66 man. His study, therefore, never is or can be Science, or "the quality of his plants, but, solely and exclusively, the art "of raising the greatest possible number on the smallest space "of ground, and furnishing them, to his customers, at the lowest "possible price. You may think, that, in this stricture, I bear "rather hard on our profession; but, since you do me the ho"nour to question me, I must tell you the truth.”

All this, we must own, is extremely deplorable. It places, in a strong point of view, the benefits that would flow from a Society, for the Improvement of Arboriculture, judiciously constituted, and the necessity there is for at length cultivating the art

independently, and as a separate department. There is now sufficient wealth, and, what is of more importance, sufficient intelligence in the country, to accomplish the object, and, for once, to enable us to lead the way, in this instance, in the advancement of the arts.

NOTE III. Page 7.

It was not till after the Civil Wars, that the arts of Planting and Gardening were greatly cultivated in England. The immortal Bacon, in the preceding age, was certainly the first, who seemed to apprehend the true principles of Beauty in the Garden, and

Taught a degenerate reign

What in Eliza's golden day was Taste."

See his 46th Essay; in which he directs, that a considerable portion of what he terms his " Princely Garden" should be "framed, as much as may be, to a natural wilderness."

The genius of Milton, likewise, at a later period, figured for his Eden a Garden, which could have no prototype, but in his own taste and ardent imagination, but which might rather seem to have belonged to the richest Garden and Park-scenery of an after age. The passage, though long, deserves to be quoted, and it must now appear not less curious and prophetic than beautiful; as the only models, that were before our great Poet's eyes, were the formal and rectilinear Gardens, which we derived from antiquity, and which still exist in most parts of Europe :

Not that sweet grove

Of Daphne by Orontes, and th' inspir'd
Castalian spring, might with this Paradise
Of Eden strive.
For in this pleasant soil
His far more pleasant Garden God ordain'd.
Out of the fertile ground he caus'd to grow
All trees of noblest kind for sight, smell, taste.

* Mason's English Garden, B. I.

-Southward through Eden went a river large,
Nor chang'd its course, but through the shaggy hill
Pass'd underneath engulph'd; for God had thrown
That mountain as his garden-mound, high rais'd
Upon the rapid current; which, through veins
Of porous earth, with kindly thirst updrawn,
Rose a fresh fountain, and with many a rill
Water'd the Garden; thence united fell
Down the deep glade, and met the nether flood.
-From that sapphire fount, the crisped brooks,
Rolling on orient pearl, and sands of gold,
With mazy error, under pendent shades,
Ran nectar, visiting each plant, and fed
Flow'rs worthy Paradise; which not nice art
In beds and curious knots, but nature boon,
Pour'd forth profuse on hill, and dale, and plain,
Both where the morning sun first warmly smote
The open field, and where the unpierc'd shade
Embrown'd the noontide bow'rs. Thus was this place
A happy rural seat of various view.

Paradise Lost, B. IV.

Kent, to whom we certainly owe the art of Modern Gardening, lived in the beginning of the last century. He was by profession a painter, and had the taste and ingenuity to superinduce the principles of the new art on his previous studies. No one, probably, but a painter would have thought of making use of the colours of Nature to improve and heighten the effect of real scenery. The great principles on which he worked (as Walpole truly observes), were perspective, and light and shade; and thus his imagination bestowed all the arts of Landscape on the scenes which he undertook to improve. Bridgman, the fashionable Designer of the day, had, a short time before, invented the Sunk Fence, which was a material step to the connecting of the Garden with the Park: But "Kent (says the same lively writer) leaped the Fence, and saw that all Nature was a Ġarden." See Anecdotes of Painting in England.

Kent returned from Rome, where he had gone to perfect himself in his profession, under the patronage of Lord Burlington, about the year 1721. The first places, which he laid out

in the new style, were Claremont and Esher. This took place in 1728 or 1730; so that, as Paradise Lost first came out in 1667, it may be said, that more than a hundred-and-thirty years intervened between the time of Bacon and that of Kent, and more than three-score, between that of Milton, and the last-mentioned period.

"

NOTE IV. Page 7.

"The Landscape," a poem, by the ingenious Mr Knight, and the Essays on the Picturesque," by that accomplished scholar Mr Price, are productions of high merit, which we must ever value, as having been the means of retrieving the public taste, and showing what is unnatural, formal, or monotonous in the character of the school of Brown and Repton. Yet, as these meritorious works were composed under peculiar circumstances, and during the bitterness of controversy, they should be read by the young student, cum grano salis. Mr Loudon's able treatise, on the Improvement of Country Residences" (which came out in 1806, and has not been half so much praised as it deserves), forms a far less exceptionable guide to the man of taste, or the country gentleman, who, having no practical skill himself, is yet desirous to improve Real Landscape, where it already exists, or to create it, where it is wanting.

As a proof that the professors of Landscape Gardening do not obstinately cling to antiquated errors, Mr Pontey (who has usefully written on the Planting and Pruning of Trees), a disciple and admirer of Brown, published, in 1825, a meritorious work on "the Laying-out of Grounds," though with an odd title, namely, "The Rural Improver." The book, though not well written, contains excellent matter; it shows much practical skill, and should have a place in the library of every country-gentleman. It is certain, that some knowledge of the principles of Landscape, as well as some skill in the practice of creating it, are indispensable to every one, who would aspire to any effectual use of the Transplanting Machine. This is a subject well deserving of discussion; but it would require far more than could be comprised within the short compass of a Note.

NOTE V. Page 10.

With respect to the immediate effect of Wood in Town embellishments, it would prove particularly valuable for the squares and other open grounds of a great city. Edinburgh, one of the most extraordinary places in Europe, whether from its picturesque situation, or the sudden erection of its finest streets and squares, lately lost an opportunity of obtaining wood in this way, which is not likely soon to occur again. The Royal Circus, Moray Place, Heriot Row, and other places and squares, having spacious open grounds attached to them, were built in the immediate vicinity of what was once the delightful Villa and grounds of the Earl of Moray, on the Water of Leith; and, indeed, nearly the whole of them have grown out of the destruction of that elegant little Park. Its woods had been admirably kept, and, what is more, judiciously thinned out, by the taste of the late, and the present Lord Moray, and would have afforded subjects in sufficient number, of nearly five-andforty years' growth, and, also, in the very best rooting-ground, to wood the one half of the metropolis. It is to be lamented, that there was no science at hand, to have achieved this striking improvement, as it would have done more to establish the power of the Art, in the public opinion, than twenty Volumes like the present; and, moreover, it would have anticipated at least thirty years, in the picturesque appearance of the city.

I do not mean, of course, to say, that this should have been all done with fine large Grove Wood, or Standard Trees. No man of good taste, I think, will so understand it. But the miserable single trees and detached groups, that now appear upon the open parts of the grounds in question, should have been of that large description, which would have given effect and consequence to their narrow, but undulating surface; while Shrubs and Underwood, abundantly intermixed, would have conferred on them richness and intricacy. There were a great number of the last-mentioned subjects (I mean Shrubs and stools of Underwood), at this Villa, from five to eight feet high, that would