FOREIGN NOTICES. 



431 



ready lived, and which declared that life 

 among men was very comfortable and 

 agreeable. Narcissus and Adonis had been 

 the secret instigators of this revolt ; espe- 

 cially Narcissus, who longed to know how 

 a beautiful youth would look in a Venetian 

 mirror. 



" The Flower Fairy remained for a while 

 plunged in thought. She then addressed 

 the rebels in a sad, but decided voice : 



" ' Go, deluded flowers ; let it be as you 

 propose. Ascend upon the earth, and try 

 human life. Ere long you will come back 

 to me.' 



"The history of these flowers, which 

 were changed to women, you will find in 

 this volume. We have collected these ad- 

 ventures wherever we could find them ; 

 traversing all lands, and questioning all 

 classes of people, but keeping no record of 

 dates or epochs. The flowers have lived, 

 to a certain extent, everywhere. You may 

 have been acquainted with some of them, 

 and not suspected it. It is very unfortu- 

 nate that they have not thought fit to make 

 more disclosures, or to write their own 



memoirs. This would have relieved us 

 from much trouble — would have saved us 

 many, many steps, and, more than all, many 

 mistakes. 



" In concluding this introduction, we must 

 inform you that the fairy did not grant the 

 desired permission, without silently resolv- 

 ing that she would be revenged. The next 

 morning her garden was a desert. One 

 flower alone remained — the solitar}' Heath- 

 plant — which blooms perpetually. 



" Symbol of undying love I she well knew 

 that for her there was no place on earth." 



The fertile invention of Grandville has, 

 in the illustration, presented the flowers 

 embodied in female guise with singular fe- 

 licity oi form and expression. And the lit- 

 tle stories of their lives — some unhappy be- 

 cause they preserved faithfully their ori- 

 ginal characters, and others because they 

 endeavored to change them — is full of a 

 delicate and touching moral. To such of 

 our fair readers as do not already possess 

 this ingenious and agreeable work, we beg 

 leave to recommend it as one of the most 

 attractive literary novelties of the season. 



FOREIGN NOTICES. 



Gardening in Sweden. — In the neighborhood 

 of Stockholm, the grounds attached to the Royal 

 Academy are several of them very fine, and all laid 

 open to the public, and places of much resort on 

 Sundays and holidays. Those I have seen are 

 Drottningsholm, the largest, about five or six miles 

 from the town ; and, in the immediate vicinity, Ro- 

 sendal, Haga, Carlsberg, now the Military Aca- 

 demy; andUriesdal, now the Invalid Hospital. All 

 have the advantage of lake scenery, and the drive 

 round them, w-inding amongst wooded rocks, rich 

 corn-fields and meadows, country seats and gar- 

 dens, is one of the most enjoyable I know. In 

 making this tour, we visited the horticultural estab- 

 lishments here, and, first, the garden of the Hor- 

 ticultural Society, situated partly within the town, 

 in the northern suburb. It contains eight or ten 

 acres, and is under the management of Mr. Miiller, 

 the head gardener, now absent. There is a con- 

 siderable collection here, but many of the things 

 rather too botanical, and from the way in which it 



is kept, it does not look as if so much importance 

 were attached to it as one would have thought. 

 The Society numbers 2000 members, at an annual 

 subscription of three dollars banco (about 5s). 

 Three exhibitions are held in May, July, and Au- 

 gust, which are said to be very well attended, and 

 where medals are awarded as prizes, and, what is 

 not very horticultural, the garden is used occasion- 

 I ally on summer evenings for those out-of-door con- 

 j certs, which the Swedes as well as the Germans 

 1 are so fond of. A much better kept and more in- 

 I teresting garden is that of the Bergian Gardener's 

 School, as it is called, under the management of 

 Mr. Lundstrom, and the superintendence of the 

 Academy of Sciences. This establishment was 

 founded originally by the botanist and traveller 

 Bergius, and attached to the Academy of Sciences 

 as a school of instruction for gardeners. The ar- 

 rangement now made is that the academy lets the 

 ground (for a considerable rent) to Mr. Lundstrom, 

 who is allowed to cultivate it as a nursery garden 



