1830.] 



Domestic and Foreign. 



115 



over, if the memory fails, after communica- 

 tion, the book will refresh it, and not complain 

 of importunity. Mr. Leigh's competent 

 little volume has a general map of the coun- 

 try on a considerable scale, and particular 

 maps of the lakes, an inch to a mile. The 

 topographic details contain ample accounts 

 of the neighbourhood, with distances, bear- 

 ings, places of accommodation, &c. with all 

 due precision. 



The Villa and Cottage FJorisfs Directory, 

 ly James Main, H.L. S. Mr. Main ap- 

 peals to the experience of fifty years spent in 

 the cultivation of flowers as some warrant of 

 ability for accomplishing the task he has un- 

 dertaken to construct a Florist's Directory. 

 This is fair presumption enough, supposing 

 this fifty years' experience to have been, also, 

 on an extensive scale ; but the logic of the 

 next ground of reliance is not so intelligible. 

 It is impossible, he says, that he should 

 have been contemporary with a Maddock, 

 a Hogg,. a Sweet, and many other eminent 

 florists, without knowing something of the 

 art. Why, we ourselves have been contem- 

 porary with these same eminent florists, 

 without gathering an atom of this kind of 

 knowledge. A third ground of self-recom- 

 mendation is still less conclusive where, he 

 adds, if his own knowledge or practice may 

 be defective or confined, at least his judg- 

 ment will enable him to recommend with 

 safety, and direct with propriety. Mr. Main, 

 to be sure, is one of the drollest reasoners we 

 remember to have met with. Floriculture, 

 says he, has become the study and amuse- 

 ment of all ranks, because it embellishes 

 the dwellings of the rich and great, and 

 forms the gayest ornament of the villa -be- 

 cause, again, it receives the regard and em- 

 ploys the pencils of the most refined and 

 fairest of nature's -works ; and, most of all, be- 

 cause it decorates, while it endears, the poor 

 man's cottage. The poor man's cottage ! 

 and this in our days ! But Mr. M., though no 

 logician, may be a very good florist, and 

 often, we observe, gives very intelligible direc- 

 tions, though he is terribly given to mixing 

 them up with what he doubtless considers 

 to be philosophy ; and we see how closely 

 he can reason. Our eye has just caught the 

 following morceau. He is speaking of poly- 

 anthuses. Dutchmen, says he, are less tender 

 of foliage than we are ; nor do they seem to 

 attribute to the leaves that peculiar function 

 which is given them by the botanical phy- 

 -siologists of this country. Perhaps certain 

 ideas, like diseases, are cndemical, &c. This 

 is fearfully profound. Does Mr. M. really 

 think the Dutch do not know as much about 

 the physiology of plants as the English ? 



Philosophical Problems, ly Miles Bland, 

 D. D. fyc. A vast collection, consisting of 

 some thousands of problems on the different 

 branches of philosophy, adapted to the course 

 of reading pursued in the University of 

 Cambridge ; or, more specifically, in tri- 



gonometry, hydrostatics, optics, Newton's 

 Principia, and astronomy. A small volume 

 of Mechanical Problems was published some 

 time ago by Dr. Bland. Those were, the 

 greater part, if not all of them, accompanied 

 with solutions. The present volume is left 

 wholly without any thing of the kind, from 

 the conviction Dr. Bland feels, confirmed by 

 a judicious and able tutor still residing at 

 Cambridge, that the problems will be of 

 greater service to the students in the present 

 form. We cannot think so. It may seem 

 presumption to differ from such experienced 

 persons ; but we must still believe, if some 

 of each section, suppose a third, had been 

 accompanied with solutions, and the results 

 of others appended, with occasional refer- 

 ences to principles in established works, the 

 book would have carried with it something 

 like practical utility, not only for students 

 in Cambridge, but out of it ; and now it 

 has none. We never saw anything so arid 

 and bare. 



A Short Treatise on the Liabilities of 

 Trustees, c. ly Sir G. F. Hampson, Bart, 

 Considering how very large a part of the 

 property, which is disposed of in this country 

 by deed or will is placed under the control 

 of trustees, it is of considerable importance 

 that the liabilities to which they are exposed 

 should be distinctly and generally understood. 

 The office is no desirable one, though it is 

 often, obviously, both conferred and accepted 

 as a compliment ; often requested on the one 

 hand without regard totheonus itimposesand 

 the embarrassments it involves, and under- 

 taken on the other with little thought or an- 

 ticipation of the trouble and peril likely to 

 be incurred. For the most part it is thought 

 to be mere matter of form ; or at all events 

 a lawyer is always at hand, and the estate 

 must pay ; and especially if a lawyer be a 

 co-trustee no harm can follow. But the 

 fact is, the liabilities are very great and even 

 precarious, notwithstanding the protection of 

 the courts : neglects are easily incurred, and 

 followed by fatal responsibilities ; and even 

 where they are not so alarming, unpleasant 

 bills of costs often surprise the unwitting 

 offender. The object of Sir G. Hampson's 

 treatise it is a corrected and enlarged edition 

 of his old work is not to alarm and deter 

 from the acceptance of an office sometimes 

 of great family importance; but only to place 

 trustees upon their guard by pointing out 

 these dangers and duties to keep them, in 

 short, out of scrapes. 



A still more valuable service, but one not 

 to be expected from the profession, would be 

 to expose the absurdity of the growing practice 

 of placing property under trust. In nume- 

 rous instances it is done from mere fashion ; 

 it sounds loftily and gives importance. In 

 three cases out of four, perhaps, in these latter 

 days, it is at best superfluous ; and is then 

 calculated for nothing but to make work for 

 lawyers, and to plague families by giving 

 thena masters. 



P 2 



