viii PREFATORY 



If we have borrowed their thunder, let them be 

 assured that it is only with the hope that an echo of 

 its reverberation may reach those at a distance, 

 and those who, had they been brought nearer 

 to its sound, might have been awed by its big 

 intensity of volume, or mentally distracted by the 

 polyglot and polysyllabic expressions these subjects 

 demand. 



While paying due homage to all these illustrious 

 extenders of a deep knowledge, and in no way wishing 

 to minimize the deep obligations that we owe them, 

 we read that it has been truly said, that when a book 

 is a large one, the majority of its readers become 

 only acquainted with it by extracts and abstracts. 

 Stupendous bulk is forbidding to those whose space 

 of time allotted to themx by reason of other duties in 

 life is limited to the short-cut route to a port of 

 lesser understanding. Piles of pages, and learned 

 dissertation in a language only half understood, 

 appal them, and they retire from the charge dis- 

 couraged. They clamour for a more unperplexing 

 catechism. Give them the abridgment process, 

 wherefrom they can perchance see a little daylight 

 peeping through the chinks of less thickened walls, 

 and maybe they return to the charge, even to the 

 time when they feel empowered to renew battle 

 against the very forces that at first so overwhelm- 

 ingly discomfited them. 



There are others we hope to help. We refer to those 

 upon whom but limited chances of travel are bestowed, 

 whose walks in life are far removed from recurring 

 opportunity of visiting those scenes where object- 

 lessons can be viewed at leisure. The fascinations of 

 Kew are to them a far cry, or a rare jaunt in the midst 

 of a busy life. The glories of our best-stocked 

 Pinetums are, again, to them often an unblessed 

 vision altogether, or at most a breve gaudium upon a 



