598 MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE AND ART. 



complishing what lias been so long and so much desired by all who are 

 interested in improving wet and stiff soils namely, a method of effectually 

 and permanently draining such lands, and at a charge not exceeding one- 

 sixth of the price which the best underdraining of such land has hitherto 

 cost." 



HORTUS WOBURNENSIS. B JAMES FORBES, GARDENER TO THE 



DUKE OF BEDFORD. JAMES RIDGWAY, 1833, 



THIS volume, in the words of the indefatigable compiler, is a de- 

 scriptive catalogue of upwards of six thousand ornamental plants 

 cultivated at Woburn Abbey ; and gratified, indeed, are we, to find 

 so valuable and elaborate a work introduced to the public with the 

 patronage of such highly distinguished individuals as appear in the 

 subscription list. 



Botany and horticulture, the most pleasing of pursuits, have become 

 more generally cultivated than others, for various reasons ; and not 

 in the country alone, amid their natural green and freshness, but in 

 the city and the populous town the haunts of trade and of com- 

 merce. Whatever a man's " hobby" may be, the inner pride of skilful- 

 ness is usually his first stimulus ; you never find a man attached, 

 really attached, to any sport, or any particular art or science, who is 

 not admittedly " chose" or, at least, " very well" in its exercise. A 

 gentleman rarely becomes extravagant in the praise of hunting who 

 has been discharged over the head of his quadruped as often as he 

 has mounted him ; nor does another frantically eulogize the art of 

 fishing, who, having served his terms of patience, enlivened by some 

 most orthodox duckings, and a touch of the ague, discovers, at last, 

 that all are not fish that come to his net, though he has had his eye 

 to his hook most diligently. The " good shot," also, counting over 

 the slain, rejoices in the sport, while the unhappy wretch, just 

 emerged from a neck-deep slough, birdless and full of grief, turns 

 from the sorry pastime sick and sorrowful , while, to complete his 

 misery, some feathered wag perches on his gun-barrel and chirps 

 away in provoking ridicule and defiance of him. 



Botany (of course we are not speaking of it now with reference to 

 its chemical importance) possesses more extensive and varied means 

 of gratifying this inner pride ; and, accordingly, we find, while the 

 peer enriches his green-houses with foreign shrubs and exotic flowers, 

 the peasant, in his cottage garden, and the artisan in his suburban 

 plat, indulges alike in its pursuit. Indeed, as though to prove the 

 power of nature in. us, even when apparently shut in and barred to 

 her approach, we very much question whether there are any more 

 ardent lovers of flowers than the working people in and about London ; 

 and this we fearlessly state in the very teeth of those who pretend to 

 ridicule <( cockney tastes," as they call them, and who seem to con- 

 sider the perfection of stupidity to be involved in the hypothesis, that 

 there might be found a less delightful prospect than from Richmond 

 Hill ; and the further enormity, that a rose may have blown once, 

 by accident, at Hampstead or at Blackheath. 



The first part of the work before us contains a descriptive catalogue 

 of the generic and specific character of several thousands of plants such 

 as are adapted for the green-house. It gives, in the plainest and most 



