THE FLORIST. 313 



Reasoning, however, will help to supply the deficiency. Discus- 

 sions on the suhject, such as are constantly appearing in the pages 

 of periodicals like The Florist, will always tend to promote such 

 agreement, because there is a solid foundation at bottom, and there- 

 fore a true appeal to nature. There are in nature certain fixed laws 

 applicable (and in practice already to a great extent applied) to the 

 estimate of any flower. And the readers of such discussions, whether 

 they agree to or dissent from what they read, so they but exercise 

 thought upon it, are gradually acquiring for themselves the faculty 

 of correctly judging whether those laws are infringed or not. Nor 

 can any one have perused the papers I here conclude, without making 

 an advance in a knowledge, of which, perhaps, at first he was inclined 

 to dispute the existence. 



I have now brought this essay to a close ; and beg to return my 

 sincere thanks to you, sir, and to your readers, for the courtesy with 

 which you have borne with its extension to a much greater length 

 than I anticipated. The earlier papers, not from having had more 

 care bestowed upon them, but from the nature of their subjects, are 

 more complete than the later ones, nor have I omitted in them 

 any thing I intended to say. The same cannot be affirmed of the 

 portions on auxiliary forms, and on the province of taste, because 

 the principle being fully given, it was unnecessary to lengthen these 

 letters still further by applying it to every case to which it is ap- 

 plicable. The observations on colour require a more ample apology ; 

 for having (with the exception mentioned in the note) been drawn 

 exclusively from the inspection of nature, and that with very confined 

 opportunities, they cannot claim to exhibit the completeness of a 

 system. As far as they go, however, I have but little misgiving about 

 their correctness. 



That I have made no mistakes in the philosophical elements of 

 beauty in a flower, is rather to be wished than expected ; but I have 

 taken the best means that lay in my power to make none. Neither 

 can I be a competent judge of the extent to which I have succeeded 

 in my original purpose ; but this I hope maybe considered as proved, 

 that the pursuit of the florist is as little to be branded as childish, 

 and is not less rational as a recreation than any other part of horti- 

 culture. I do not scruple boldly to avow before the most fastidious, 

 that it is a pursuit not unworthy of a wise man, nor unbefitting 

 a good one ; it is elegant, instructive, scientific, and full of results. 

 And the reader of his Bible may see, and grow wiser by seeing, in 

 it another instance of the tenure on which he holds his portion on 

 earth ; that the ground and the things that grow out of it do not 

 yield to him their advantages without the labour of his hands and 

 the exercise of his intelligence. 



I have no wish to place the occupation of the florist above its 

 natural mark ; but I am sure that, in itself, in all its branches, it is 

 undeserving of any reproach, unless it be one to feel the beauties 

 God has created for our pleasure, and to draw them forth from t he- 

 obscurity in which He has hidden them by the means He has ap- 

 pointed for the purpose. The same objection which is made to 



