Flowers And Flower-Gardens Part 40

[109] These are the initial letters of the Latin names of the plants, they will be found at length on the lower column.

[110] Hampton Court was laid out by Cardinal Wolsey. The labyrinth, one of the best which remains in England, occupies only a quarter of an acre, and contains nearly a mile of winding walks. There is an adjacent stand, on which the gardener places himself, to extricate the adventuring stranger by his directions. Switzer condemns this plan for having only four stops and gives a plan for one with twenty.--_Loudon_.

[111] The lower part of Bengal, not far from Calcutta, is here described

[112] Sir William Jones states that the Brahmins believe that the _blue_ champac flowers only in Paradise, it being yellow every where else.

[113] The wild dog of Bengal

[114] The elephant.

[115] Even Jeremy Bentham, the great Utilitarian Philosopher, who p.r.o.nounced the composition and perusal of poetry a mere amus.e.m.e.nt of no higher rank than the game of Pushpin, had still something of the common feeling of the poetry of nature in his soul. He says of himself--"_I was pa.s.sionately fond of flowers from my youth, and the pa.s.sion has never left me._" In praise of botany he would sometimes observe, "_We cannot propagate stones_:" meaning that the mineralogist cannot circulate his treasures without injuring himself, but the botanist can multiply his specimens at will and add to the pleasures of others without lessening his own.

[116] A man of a polite imagination is let into a great many pleasures that the vulgar are not capable of receiving. He can converse with a picture and find an agreeable companion in a statue. He meets with a secret refreshment in a description, _and often feels a greater satisfaction in the prospect of fields and meadows, than another does in the possession_.--_Spectator_.

[117] Kent died in 1748 in the 64th year of his age. As a painter he had no great merit, but many men of genius amongst his contemporaries had the highest opinion of his skill as a Landscape-gardener. He sometimes, however, carried his love of the purely natural to a fantastic excess, as when in Kensington-garden he planted dead trees to give an air of wild truth to the landscape.

In Esher's peaceful grove, Where Kent and nature strove for Pelham's love,

this landscape-gardener is said to have exhibited a very remarkable degree of taste and judgment. I cannot resist the temptation to quote here Horace Walpole's eloquent account of Kent: "At that moment appeared Kent, painter and poet enough to taste the charms of landscape, bold and opinionative enough to dare and to dictate, and born with a genius to strike out a great system from the twilight of imperfect essays. He leaped the fence and saw that all nature was a garden[143]. He felt the delicious contrast of hill and valley changing imperceptibly into each other, tasted the beauty of the gentle swell, or concave swoop, and remarked how loose groves crowned an easy eminence with happy ornament, and while they called in the distant view between their graceful stems, removed and extended the perspective by delusive comparison."--_On Modern Gardening_.

[118] When the rage for a wild irregularity in the laying out of gardens was carried to its extreme, the garden paths were so ridiculously tortuous or zig-zag, that, as Brown remarked, a man might put one foot upon _zig_ and the other upon _zag_.

[119] The natives are much too fond of having tanks within a few feet of their windows, so that the vapours from the water go directly into the house. These vapours are often seen hanging or rolling over the surface of the tank like thick wreaths of smoke.

[120] Broken brick is called _kunkur_, but I believe the real kunkur is real gravel, and if I am not mistaken a pretty good sort of gravel, formed of particles of red granite, is obtainable from the Rajmahal hills.

[121] Pope in his well known paper in the _Guardian_ complains that a citizen is no sooner proprietor of a couple of yews but he entertains thoughts of erecting them into giants, like those of Guildhall. "I know an eminent cook," continues the writer, "who beautified his country seat with a coronation dinner in greens, where you see the Champion flourishing on horseback at one end of the table and the Queen in perpetual youth at the other."

When the desire to subject nature to art had been carried to the ludicrous extravagances so well satirized by Pope, men rushed into an opposite extreme. Uvedale Price in his first rage for nature and horror of art, destroyed a venerable old garden that should have been respected for its antiquity, if for nothing else. He lived to repent his rashness and honestly to record that repentance. Coleridge, observed to John Sterling, that "we have gone too far in destroying the old style of gardens and parks." "The great thing in landscape gardening" he continued "is to discover whether the scenery is such that the country seems to belong to man or man to the country."

[122] In England it costs upon the average about 12 shillings or six rupees to have a tree of 30 feet high transplanted.

[123] I believe the largest leaf in the world is that of the Fan Palm or Talipot tree in Ceylon. "The branch of the tree," observes the author of _Sylvan Sketches_, "is not remarkably large, but it bears a leaf large enough to cover twenty men. It will fold into a fan and is then no bigger than a man's arm."

[124] Southey's Common-Place Book.

[125] The height of a full grown banyan may be from sixty to eighty feet; and many of them, I am fully confident, cover at least two acres.--_Oriental Field Sports_.

There is a banyan tree about five and twenty miles from Berhampore, remarkable for the height of the lower branches from the ground. A man standing up on the houdah of an elephant may pa.s.s under it without touching the foliage.

A tree has been described as growing in China of a size so prodigious that one branch of it only will so completely cover two hundred sheep that they cannot be perceived by those who approach the tree, and another so enormous that eighty persons can scarcely embrace the trunk.--_Sylvan Sketches_.

[126] This praise is a little extravagant, but the garden is really very tastefully laid out, and ought to furnish a useful model to such of the people of this city as have s.p.a.cious grounds. The area of the garden is about two hundred and fifty nine acres. This garden was commenced in 1768 by Colonel Kyd. It then pa.s.sed to the care of Dr. Roxburgh, who remained in charge of it from 1793 to the date of his death 1813.

[127] Alphonse Karr, bitterly ridicules the Botanical _Savants_ with their barbarous nomenclature. He speaks of their mesocarps and quinqueloculars infundibuliform, squammiflora, guttiferas monocotyledous &c. &c. with supreme disgust. Our English poet, Wordsworth, also used to complain that some of our familiar English names of flowers, names so full of delightful a.s.sociations, were beginning to be exchanged even in common conversation for the coldest and harshest scientific terms.

[128] _The Hand of Eve_--the handiwork of Eve.

[129] _Without thorn the rose_: Dr. Bentley calls this a puerile fancy.

But it should be remembered, that it was part of the curse denounced upon the Earth for Adam's transgression, that it should bring forth thorns and thistles. _Gen._ iii. 18. Hence the general opinion has prevailed, that there were _no thorns_ before; which is enough to justify a poet, in saying "_the rose was without thorn_."--NEWTON.

[130] See page 188. My Hindu friend is not responsible for the selection of the following notes.

[131] Birdlime is prepared from the tenacious milky juice of the Peepul and the Banyan. The leaves of the Banyan are used by the Bramins to eat off, for which purpose they are joined together by inkles. Birds are very fond of the fruit of the Peepul, and often drop the seeds in the cracks of buildings, where they vegetate, occasioning great damage if not removed in time.--_Voight_.

[132] The ancient Greeks and Romans also married trees together in a similar manner.--_R._

[133] The root of this plant, (_Euphorbia ligularia_,) mixed up with black pepper, is used by the Natives against snake bites.--_Roxburgh_.

[134] Coccos nucifera, the _root_ is sometimes masticated instead of the Betle-nut. In Brazil, baskets are made of the _small fibres_. The _hard case of the stem_ is converted into drums, and used in the construction of huts. The lower part is so hard as to take a beautiful polish, when it resembles agate. The reticulated substance at base of the leaf is formed into cradles, and, as some say, into a coa.r.s.e kind of cloth. The _unexpanded terminal bud_ is a delicate article of food. The _leaves_ furnish thatch for dwellings, and materials for fences, buckets, and baskets; they are used for writing on, and make excellent torches; potash in abundance is yielded by their ashes. The _midrib of the_ leaf serves for oars. The _juice of the flower and stems_ is replete with sugar, and is fermented into excellent wine, or distilled into arrack, or the sugary part is separated as Jagary. The tree is cultivated in many parts of the Indian islands, for the sake not only of the sap and _milk_ it yields, but for the _kernel_ of its fruit, used both as food and for culinary purposes, and as affording a large proportion of _oil_ which is burned in lamps throughout India, and forms also a large article of export to Europe. The fibrous and uneatable rind of the fruit is not only used to polish furniture and to scour the floors of rooms, but is manufactured into a kind of cordage, (_Koir_) which is nearly equal in strength to hemp, and which Roxburgh designates as the very best of all materials for cables, on account of its great elasticity and strength. The sap of this as well as of other palms is found to be the simplest and easiest remedy that can be employed for removing constipation in persons of delicate habit, especially European females.--_Voigt's Suburba.n.u.s Calcuttensis_.

[135] The root is bitter, nauseous, and used in North America as anthelmintic. _A. Richard_.

[136] Of one species of tulsi (_Babooi-tulsi_) the seeds, if steeped in water, swell into a pleasant jelly, which is used by the Natives in cases of catarrh, dysentry, chronic diarrhoea &c. and is very nourishing and demulcent--_Voigt_.

[137] This list is framed from such as were actually grown by the author between 1837 and the present year, from seed received chiefly through the kindness of Captain Kirke.

[138] The native market gardens sell Madras roses at the rate of thirteen young plants for the rupee. Mrs. Gore tells us that in London the most esteemed kinds of old roses are usually sold by nurserymen at fifty shillings a hundred the first French and other varieties seldom exceed half a guinea a piece.

[139] I may add to Mr. Speede's list of Roses the _Banksian Rose_. The flowers are yellow, in cl.u.s.ters, and scentless. Mrs. Gore says it was imported into England from the Calcutta Botanical Garden, it is called _Wong moue heong_. There is another rose also called the _Banksian Rose_ extremely small, very double, white, expanding from March till May, highly scented with violets. The _Rosa Brownii_ was brought from Nepaul by Dr. Wallich. A very sweet rose has been brought into Bengal from England. It is called _Rosa Peeliana_ after the original importer Sir Lawrence Peel. It is a hybrid. I believe it is a tea scented rose and is probably a cross between one of that sort and a common China rose, but this is mere conjecture. The varieties of the tea rose are now cultivated by Indian malees with great success. They sell at the price of from eight annas to a rupee each. A variety of the Bengal yellow rose, is now comparatively common. It fetches from one to three rupees, each root. It is known to the native gardeners by the English name of "_Yellow Rose_". Amongst the flowers introduced here since Mr. Speede's book appeared, is the beautiful blue heliotrope which the natives call _kala heliotrope_.

[140]

He gains all points who pleasingly confounds, Surprizes, varies, and conceals the bounds.

[141] The following is the pa.s.sage alluded to by Todd

A pleasant grove With chant of tuneful birds resounding loud, Thither he bent his way, determined there To rest at noon, and entered soon the shade, High roofed, and walks beneath and alleys brown, That opened in the midst a woody scene, Nature's own work it seemed (nature taught art) And to a superst.i.tious eye the haunt Of wood G.o.ds and wood nymphs.

_Paradise Regained, Book II_

[142] The following stanzas are almost as direct translations from Ta.s.so as the two last stanzas in the words of Fairfax on page 111:--

The whiles some one did chaunt this lovely lay;-- Ah! see, whoso fayre thing doest faine to see, In springing flowre the image of thy day!

Ah! see the virgin rose, how sweetly shee Doth first peepe forth with bashful modesty; That fairer seems the less you see her may!

Lo! see soone after how more bold and free Her bared bosome she doth broad display; Lo! see soone after how she fades and falls away!

So pa.s.seth, in the pa.s.sing of a day, Of mortal life, the leaf, the bud, the flowre, Ne more doth florish after first decay, That erst was sought, to deck both bed and bowre Of many a lady and many a paramoure!

Gather therefore the rose whilest yet is prime For soone comes age that will her pride deflowre; Gather the rose of love, whilest yet is time Whilest loving thou mayst loved be with equal crime[144]

_Fairie Queene, Book II. Canto XII._

[143] I suppose in the remark that Kent leapt the fence, Horace Walpole alludes to that artist's practice of throwing down walls and other boundaries and sinking fosses called by the common people _Ha! Ha's!_ to express their astonishment when the edge of the fosse brought them to an unexpected stop.

Horace Walpole's History of Modern Gardening is now so little read that authors think they may steal from it with safety. In the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_ the article on Gardening is taken almost verbatim from it, with one or two deceptive allusions such as--"_As Mr. Walpole observes_"--"_Says Mr. Walpole_," &c. but there is nothing to mark where Walpole's observations and sayings end, and the Encyclopaedia thus gets the credit of many pages of his eloquence and sagacity. The whole of Walpole's _History of Modern Gardening_ is given piece-meal as an original contribution to _Harrrison's Floricultural Cabinet_, each portion being signed CLERICUS.

[144] Perhaps Robert Herrick had these stanzas in his mind's ear when he wrote his song of