i88i.] NOTES FROM THE PAPERS. Ill 



that the winter, so far, has not yet suggested any thoughts of spring, 

 "everlasting" or otherwise ; and our reflections have been akin to those 

 of the pathetic Tannahill : — 



"The trees are a' bare, and the birds mute and dowie — 

 They shake the cauld drift frae their wings as they flee, 

 And chirp out their plaints, seeming wae for my Johnnie ; 

 'Tis winter wi' them, and 'tis winter wi' me." 



We cannot, in short, quite enter into this correspondent's ecstasies 

 — " we ain't in it." In our own pleasure-garden we have long since 

 ceased contemplating the icicles on the trees, and have turned our atten- 

 tions to "the footprints in the snow; '' we traced them one by one, and 

 our trapper's "thoughts" were principally running on the question of 

 how " the darned beggars get on," for they are starving ; but thieving 

 hares and rabbits, my friend ! In the kitchen-garden the prospect has 

 been less monotonous, but of a nature to produce reflections akin to 

 Swift's ' Meditations on a Broomstick ; ' and if we do not give them 

 publicity here, it is because we have misgivings about that discriminat- 

 ing party with the scissors in the editorial den of the ' Gardener:' for 

 editors are not moralising animals, and it is not safe to trust them with 

 fine sentiments; and as for poetry, they class it with the Potato disease, 

 and topics of that nature. 



Speaking of editors, we have a profound veneration for the marvellous cir- 

 cumspection and discrimination they display, as a general rule, in dealing 

 with the contributions that come before them, but have never been able to 

 fathom the mystery of "leading articles." We believe it is the object of 

 editors to give the best articles the first place and the best type (we are speaking 

 of horticultural editors generally, for they are all equally shrewd) ; but there 

 is a suspicion abroad that they are a trifle weak on this point, and that the 

 question of merit does not always rule in such matters. It has been indig- 

 nantly suggested that the reason some contributions find their way into leading 

 columns is that the poor creatures who wrote them might be well pilloried, and 

 their conspicuous incapacity and failings, or their conceit and stupidity, the 

 more effectually exposed. It is only charitable to state, however, that this 

 explanation was offered simply because no other probable reason could be 

 suggested. When Benjamin Franklin was an ill-used " printer's devil " in the 

 newspaper oflBce of his elder brother and his partner, his literary contributions 

 were despised, and he was severely lectured, if not cuffed, for presuming to 

 address the editor at all ; but when he took to writing his articles in a dis- 

 guised hand, and shoving them under the office-door at night — not forgetting 

 to use a pretentious novi de jjlume at the same time — they at once became 

 prominent " leaders" that created quite a sensation among the early Bostoni- 

 ans, and the editor became so anxious to know who their " able and highly 

 esteemed correspondent" was, that poor Benjamin thought he might venture 

 to confess to the imposition, and was kicked out of the office by the editor for 

 his pains, and some days after was a homeless wayfarer in the streets of Phila- 

 delphia. Benjamin moralised much on this circumstance in after-life, just 

 as readers of the horticultural papers do now when they see these issued occa- 

 sionally, " wrong end first. " 



