MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE AND ART. 215 



either its natural habit or constitution." Here is common sense applied to 

 gardening and we would strongly recommend our readers, who delight in 

 gardens, orchards, pineries, and hot-houses, to peruse Mr. Rogers' s unpre- 

 tending volume. 



THE ARCHITECTURAL MAGAZINE, &c. BY J. C. LOUDON, F.L.S. 



&c. No. X. LONGMAN AND Co. LONDON. 

 THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF GARDENING, &c. PART XIII. 



MR. LOUDON is a man after our own heart, and one whom we delight to 

 honour. If an age of imagination should supersede the age of matter-of- 

 fact, and a new mythology be constructed, Mr. Loudon will undoubtedly 

 be deified as a kind hybied god a compound of the Vertumnus and Bruma 

 and if it be our lot to live to see it, he shall certainly fill a niche in our 

 Pantheon. 



This gentleman has been of amazing service to almost every branch of 

 domestic improvement. His industry is on a par with his talents and 

 hence nothing appears from his pen but what is well finished, and with all 

 the details filled up. The two parts mentioned above, are continuations of 

 numbers which have been well received, and which deserve every commen- 

 dation. The reader will find in them the best and most recent information 

 connected with every subject on which they treat. 



THE WORKS OP WILLIAM COWPER, WITH A LIFE AND NOTES. 

 BY J. S. MEMES, LL.D. VOL. I. LIFE. VOLS. II., III. 

 LETTERS, POEMS, AND TRANSLATIONS. EDINBURGH, 1834. 



NUMEROUS as the Biographies of Cowper are, none have hitherto come 

 under our notice that have been so completely excellent as to preclude the 

 wish for others. Mr. Hayley had abundant matter, of which he neither 

 made a judicious disposition, nor grafted sound inferences, for the direction 

 of his too confident readers. On the contrary, he seems anxious to hang a 

 crape over the light which would display the real character of certain tran- 

 sactions, little creditable to the lady who had claims on Cowper' s gratitude. 

 Among the editors of his Poetical Works, the two best of his Biographers 

 are the sensible Mr. Macdiarmid and the elegant and poetical-minded 

 James Montgomery ; but the limits of a preface did not allow either of 

 those gentlemen to do full justice to their subject. To Mr. Macdiarmid, 

 we believe, belongs the praise of being the first to demonstrate the mis- 

 leading character of " Hayley's Comments." He has found a worthy suc- 

 cessor in Dr. Memes, the object of our immediate observations, who, by 

 arranging the letters chronologically, interspersing the occasional poems, 

 and immediately subjoining them to the narrative of the occasions which 

 called them forth, has, as far as was possible, rendered Cowper his own 

 biographer. Notes, historical and explanatory, are attached to such of the 

 letters as required them ; for this, we are obliged to Dr. Memes. We 

 could have spared many of his critical notes, for they are often invidious 

 and senseless, and as such must lessen the value of his labours ; for 

 example, (at p. 49,) Dr. Memes, in a petty spirit of false patriotism, praises 

 Sir Walter Scott, and deprecates Richardson, whose line of excellence was 

 different indeed, but surely not inferior. Cowper admired him ; at which 

 we do not wonder; for the Derbyshire Romancer could delineate the fe- 

 male character, both in its loftiest and in its tenderest forms. His power 

 of elevating the thoughts, arid melting the most stoic-hearted, is known 

 from various attestations, and from observation of the effect produced by 

 his writings, in many instances. Why then, in reading the life of a recent 



