Cultivation of Botani/ in England. 439 



Perhaps I shall be answered, " It is only possible in England ; 

 only the natives of that opulent isle could do so !" — I beg par- 

 don : Mr. Loddiges, the celebrated gardener and botanist, is 

 no Englishman ; he is — a German, a Hanoverian. In his 

 youth he came over to this country as a gardener, possessing 

 no other fortune than industry, talent and worth ; and he is 

 now an old man of eighty-six ; a millioniiaire^ the father of 

 many hundred English citizens ( ! ), who for almost half a 

 century have afforded to others the maintenance, without 

 which they might have starved. He has the felicity of seeing 

 two of his sons grown up, and very much like him ; and grand- 

 sons who promise to be so too. His name will shine conspi- 

 cuous in the annals of British Horticulture, and be pronounced 

 with respect by all who honour virtue and good sense. The 

 respectable old Loddiges strongly reminded both my son and 

 myself of my immortal friend the late Bertuch of Weimar. 



I have asked of many, I may say of very many Englishmen, 

 why the gi'eat island in the west, called Ireland, is less known 

 with respect to its botany, than Canada, Greenland, and Ice- 

 land. From all of whom I have received, instead of an an- 

 swer, the remark, " That is a land of ." Also I am as- 

 sured that " it is safer to travel among savages than in the 

 west coast of Ireland, where one is pestered by the Catholic 

 clergy, and in momentary danger of being knocked down by 

 the slaves." The exasperation of the English against the Irish 

 is truly excessive, and can never be removed while st) many 

 causes of irritation remain. It appears to me that the black- 

 guards must set the good neighbours together by the ears; 

 and this coursing, as they say in England, will be kept up 

 ii-om the east and from the north-east with gold and silver 

 " tam-tams" (?). There are two large islands in Europe, of 

 whose Flora we are totally ignorant; — one is Sardinia, the 

 other Ireland : both belong to the Infallible Church : had they 

 belonged to the other, we had long ere now been furnished 

 with a history of their vegetable productions; lor all botanists 

 have hitherto been members of the Fallible Church. 



Since writing the above remark, — that Ireland and Sardinia 

 are still terra; prorsus incognitis in the European Flora, — I have 

 received a letter from the very excellent Jialbis, of Lyons, in 

 which he informs me that his friend and former student, the 

 active Berlero, has received orders from the Royal Sardinian 

 Government to explore, with a botanical view, that hitherto 

 unknown island, and to compile a Flora of it. He will be 

 provided with all necessary assistance at the public expense: 

 and thus we shall become acquainted with the vegetation of 

 Sardinia, as wc arc with that of Sicil v and Corsica. Much may 



be 



