thias, which he applies to a certain edition of Pope. I content myself, however, with the reflection of Mr. Walpole, that "they who cannot perform great things themselves, may yet have a satisfaction in doing justice to those who can."

Having alluded at pp. 71 and 120 to Dr. Alison, and having given at p. 211 Dr. Dibdin's tribute to him, I cannot omit reminding my reader, that the graceful language, the sublime and solemn thoughts, which this admirable divine has transfused into many of his Sermons on the Seasons, make one doubly feel the truth and propriety with which he has so liberally reviewed Mr. Whately's Observations on Modern Gardening.

ON

THE PORTRAITS

OF

English Authors on Gardening,

THE earliest accounts we have of gardens, are those recorded in Holy Writ; their antiquity, therefore, appears coeval with that of time itself. The Garden in Eden had every tree good for food, or pleasant to the sight. Noah planted a Vineyard. Solomon, in the true spirit of horticultural zeal, says, I planted me Vineyards, I made me Gardens and Orchards, and I planted trees in them of all kinds of fruit. We have all heard of the grandeur of Nebuchadnezzar's Gardens.

Whether that of Alcinous was fabulous or not, it gave rise to Homer's lofty strains:

The balmy spirit of the western gale

Eternal breathes on flowers untaught to fail;
The same mild season gives the blooms to blow,
The buds to harden, and the fruit to grow.*

* This garden (as Mr. Walpole observes) was planted by the poet, enriched by him with the fairy gift of eternal summer.

B

That Homer was all alive to the rich scenery of nature, is evident, even from his Calypso's Cave:

All o'er the cavern'd rock a sprouting vine

Laid forth ripe clusters. Hence four limpid founts
Nigh to each other ran, in rills distinct,

Huddling along with many a playful maze.

Around them the soft meads profusely bloom'd
Fresh violets and balms.*

The Egyptians, the Persians, and other remote nations, prided themselves on their magnificent gardens. Diodorus Siculus mentions one "enriched with palm trees, and vines, and every kind of delicious fruit, by flowery lawns and planes, and cypresses of stupendous magnitude, with thickets of myrtle, and laurel, and bay." He paints too the attachment which some of the ancients had to landscape scenery:

None of art's works, but prodigally strown
By nature, with her negligence divine.

The splendid gardens at Damascus, were superintended by a native of Malaga, who " traversed the burning sands of Africa, for the purpose of describing such vegetables as could support the fervid heat of that climate." The cities of Samarcand, Balckd, Ispahan, and Bagdad, were enveloped and surrounded by luxurious and splendid gardens. No wonder when those countries were partly governed by such celebrated men as Haroun-al-Raschid, and his son Al-Mamoun, the generous protectors of Arabian literature,

* Mr. Pope thus mentions the vines round this cave:Depending vines the shelving cavern skreen,

With purple clusters blushing through the green.