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THE POETRY OF TREES. 



out good reason for believing; though at the same 

 time could we suppose him, bj a bold anachro- 

 nism, to have visited Allanton along with the 

 committee of the Highland Society, to sec and re- 

 port on the wonders wrought there by Sir Henry 

 Stuart, Bart., we have no doubt that he would 

 have lifted up his hands in no little astonishment, 

 and confessed, that in all his transplanting*, from 

 the cedar on Lebanon to the hyssop on the wall, 

 he had never beheld such a sudden and fairy en- 

 chantment not even raised by his own magical 

 ring that built Balbeck and Syrian Tadmor in the 

 desert, as that now overshading that park and its 

 own swan-frequented loch. 



Sir Henry will pardon this somewhat rambling 

 and off-handed exordium — but we come now to 

 his book, which is a truly delightful one, both in 

 style and subject. Sir Henry is an admirable 

 classical scholar, and writes with great perspi- 

 cuity, eloquence, and animation. He is also, in 

 the department of nature he has here chosen to 

 illustrate, a man of science. He has proceeded, 

 in all his practice, on principles; and the expla- 

 nation he has given in this volume of those princi- 

 ples, entitles him to a high rank among these 

 writers, as yet too few, who have brought a 

 knowledge of physiology to the advancement of 

 arboriculture. 



In the two first sections of his work, he des- 

 cants very eloquently on the utility and impor- 

 tance of arboriculture, and of the art of giving 

 immediate effect to wood, and learnedly traces 

 the history of the art, from the earliest down to 

 the present times — from the days of Theophras- 

 tus, Cato, Varro, and Columella, to those of Pliny 

 and the younger Seneca, instituting a comparison 

 between the Greek and Roman methods. Then 

 from the period of the art in the 17th century, 

 when Count Maurice, of Nassau, achieved such 

 wonders in his splendid gardens in Brazil, and 

 Louis XIV carried on his gigantic operations at 

 Versailles and the Bois de Bologne, while the art 

 was cultivated in England by Evelyn, Wise, and 

 Lord Fitzharding. An account is then given of 

 his Transplanting Machine, by that once overrated, 

 now underrated genius, Brown. The introduction 

 of landscape gardening into Scotland and Ireland 

 is then described, and its progress under White, 

 Robertson, Hayes and Boutcher, &c. Praise, with 

 certain judicious qualifications, is then given to 

 Marshall, whom Sir Henry calls " the best Eng- 

 lish planter of that day," and ho passes some se- 

 vere strictures on the lighting and lopping system 

 as desecrated by the ingenious Miller. From his 

 time to the present day, the art, in all countries 

 too vague, and seldom considered on fixed princi- 

 ciples, has been stationary; and Sir Henry hopes, 

 and after what he has achieved, we think not 

 presumptuously, that it may now be said to be not 

 only restored, but established on the laws of na- 

 ture. 



With all due admiration of Sir Henry's theory 

 and practice, we cannot think that his predeces- 



sors, in the art of transplanting, were all so imper- 

 fectly acquainted with the laws of Nature as be 

 seems to suppose, or that they all went to work 

 in comparative ignorance or contempt of the spirit 

 in which she performs her wonderful processes. 

 On the contrary, we do not doubt that all great 

 and good transplanters — and that, there have been 

 many such, he himself shows by beautiful descrip- 

 tions of some of their achievements — knew much 

 of the true principles of transplanting; and that 

 his own merit chiefly consists in having formed a 

 system, in which all their excellencies have been 

 united, and from which all their errors have been 

 excluded ; while unquestionably his own sagacity 

 and experience have supplied something new to 

 finish and complete his theory. This, if true, so 

 far from detracting from his merit, is a proof and 

 a pledge of it; for discoveries at this day of the 

 world, laying claim to perfect originality, are on 

 that very account of a suspicious character; and 

 we confess that we have all along felt this book 

 to be a most delightful one, because in every 

 paragraph the process described appears so uatu- 

 ral as almost to be self-evidently right — nothing 

 startling or very recondite, puzales, perplexes, or 

 appals — and we are assured, from what we have 

 ourselves already known or done, that we have 

 been only more fully enlightened on a subject not 

 unfamiliar to us, by a person who has studied it 

 more earnestly and profoundly, and from the very 

 first brought to that study a clear head, habits of 

 close and accurate observation, and much of that 

 enthusiasm without which no mind ever yet saw 

 far or clearly into the laws of nature, or gained 

 from that knowledge power to assist her opera- 

 tions. What knowledge of the true principles of 

 transplanting must not have been possessed by 

 those who worked the wonders so finely described 

 in the following passage? 



" Among the earliest and most successful plant- 

 ers, on a great scale, was Count Maurice of Nas- 

 sau, who figured as Governor of Brazil in 1636, 

 when that settlement was in the hands of the 

 Dutch. This prince was a man of taste and ele- 

 gance, for the age in which he lived ; and ho 

 adorned his palace and gardens there, with a 

 magnificence worthy of the Satraps of the East. 

 Caspar Barlseus, one of the best poets of his time, 

 is the historian of tho expedition; and he has 

 given the narrative in a style, that, on some oc- 

 casions, will bear a comparison with the delinea- 

 tions of Livy or Tacitus. 



" The governor's residence was upon an island, 

 formed by the confluence of two rivers, which are 

 called, by Barloeus, tho CapeYaribis, and the Bi- 

 beribis, and was named Friburg. Before tho 

 Prince commenced his improvements, as the his- 

 torian informs us, it was a very hopeless subject; 

 a dreary waste, an uncultivated plain, without a 

 treo or bush to shelter it; and, in a word, equally 

 worthless and unattractive. Here, notwithstand- 

 ing, he orocted a splendid palace, and laid out 

 gardens around it, of extraordinary extent and 



