PREFACE. XXX in 



Of rural scenes, compensating his loss 

 By supplemental shifts, the best he may ?" 



COWPER. 



With this passage, which brings us round to the direct 

 object of this little work, it will be as well for me to con- 

 clude the preface. I am as fond of books as of flowers ; 

 but in all that regards authorship, I fear I am as little able 

 to produce the one, as to create the others. I therefore 

 hasten to the more mechanical part of my work, and to the 

 kind aid of my quotations. I shall only add, if any body 

 would like to have additional authority for the culti- 

 vation of a few domestic flowers, that Gray, with all his 

 love of the grander features of nature, and all his nice 

 sense of his own dignity, did not think it beneath him to 

 supply the want of a larger garden with flower-pots in his 

 windows, to look to them entirely himself, and to take them 

 in, with all due tenderness, of an evening. See his de- 

 lightful letters to his friends. 



For a poetical translation of some quotations, of which 

 there was before either no English version, or none that 

 did justice to the original, as well as for some general cor- 

 rections, &c. I am indebted to the assistance of a friend, 

 whose kindness I most gratefully and somewhat proudly 

 acknowledge, in sparing a few hours from his own im- 

 portant studies, to give this little volume some pretension 

 to public notice. 



Although no other flowers are considered in this work, 

 but those usually grown in pots ; yet this comprises a 

 larger collection than most persons are likely to cultivate. 

 They indeed who are much attached to the beauties of 

 the vegetable tribes may add others not here mentioned, 

 go very deep into the science of botany, and yet keep within 

 the limits of a garden of pots. Some even of the most 

 scientific botanists prefer a domestic garden of this kind. 



