THE EXGLISH EOCK-GAEDEX 355 



war," which " even now prohibit such perpetual re-settings of the 

 type as would be necessary to bring it completely abreast of the 

 most recent discoveries and diagnoses." 



The introduction, of more than sixt}'' pages, contains practical 

 details as to the building of rock-gardens ; not the least useful portion 

 is that which shows how this should not be done, both as to material 

 and form. It also includes a long and detailed explanation ot the 

 objects Mr. Farrer had in view in writing the book, and the trouble 

 that he took in various directions in order to secure the success which 

 he evidently thinks he has attained — we have seldom met with a work 

 wherein the author's self-satisfaction was so conspicuous. And here 

 we are at once brought face to face with a defect which permeates 

 the wliole work : we refer to tlie litemry style, of which we cannot 

 give a better example than is afforded by Mr. FaiTer's own descrip- 

 tion of it. It has been his endeavour, he tells us, " all through the 

 book to preserve the vivid and personal note at any cost to the arid 

 gray gravity usually considered necessary to the dignity of a diction- 

 ary ; not only that so the work may perhaps be found more readable 

 and pleasant, but also that other gardeners, finding their best beloveds, 

 may be, here slighted or condemned, may be able to mitigate their 

 wTath by constant contemplation of the fact that such opinions are 

 but the obiter dicta of a warm-blooded fellow-mortal, not the weighed 

 everlasting pronouncements of some pompous and Olympian lexico- 

 grapher, veiled in an aw^ul impersonality that admits of no appeal " 

 (p. xxvi). 



In his endeavour to preserve the same note "all through the 

 book," Mr. Farrer has succeeded only too wtII : confused and compli- 

 cated construction, in-elevancies, and a plethora of words confront us 

 on almost every page : " he never uses one word where three would 

 suffice " was said of a verbose writer — Mr. Farrer is seldom content 

 with fewer than a dozen. He tells us that he has exceeded the space 

 allotted to him by " exactly one half " ; the book as it stands could 

 be reduced at least by that amount without any diminution of its 

 usefulness and to the comfort of the reader. 



If this mode of writing were confined to the introduction it would 

 not be so intolerable, but, as we have said, it permeates the book — 

 we take at random the first sentences on Pulmonaria : — 



" Tuhnonaria will not easiW find a lovelier representative than 

 the narrow-leaved brilliant Spotted-dog of the Dorsetshire woods, 

 with its 6- or 8-inch stems, and its hanging lovely bugles of rich 

 clear blue in April — so much more modest in the leaf, well-bred in 

 the growth, and brilliant in the flower than the towzled and morbid- 

 looking heaps of leprous leafage made by the common Lungwort of 

 gardens, with leafy stems and indecisive heads of dim pinky-blue 

 flowers that look as if they were going bad. This is sometimes 

 P. saccliarata of the Southern mnges, a species of even startling 

 foliage-beauty when you come upon the marvellous and awful 

 mottlings and splashed whitenesses of its lush leaves in the woods, for 

 instance above the Boreon, seeming as if some Suffragette had been 

 liberal in these parts with vitriol" (ii. 201). It may be noticed in 

 passing that Mr. Farrer's treatment of the genus is unsatisfactory ; 



