Reviews, and Notices respecting New Books. 411 
Frora Merropouitana; or Botanical Rambles within Thirty Miles 
of London. Being the results of numerous Excursions madein 1833, 
1834, 1835, furnishing a List of those Plants that have been found 
on the different Heaths, Woods, Commons, Hills, &c., surrounding the 
Metropolis (more particularly in the Counties of Surrey and Kent,) 
chiefly from actual Observation and the latest Authorities. Intended 
for the Student in practical Botany: with a List of the Land and 
Fresh-water Shells of the Environs of London. By Daniel Cooper, 
London: S. Highley, 32, Fleet street. 
After a long, wet, and dismal winter, in the dirt and smoke and noise 
of the City, there is something inspiring in the title of this little work,— 
“ Botanic Rambles within Thirty Miles of London.” At sight of it the 
sky seems at length to brighten, the air becomes mild, and our ima- 
gination carries us to many a delightful spot as we glance over the 
habitats which Mr. Cooper has recorded. Nor will the botanist of the 
provinces smile at his brethren in the Capital when they exult in the 
opportunities which are afforded them for their favourite pursuit, 
if he considers the beauty and variety of the country within a cir- 
cuit of thirty miles of London, and the innumerable means of con- 
veyance ready at every moment of leisure or fine weather to trans- 
port them to the scene of their investigations. Of this district also, how 
considerable is the portion in which Nature has maintained her un- 
disturbed sovereignty in spite of inclosure-acts, corn-laws, and those 
artificial prices which have too often brought the crooked ploughshare 
to violate tracts that mock at cultivation ; but which, when unappro- 
priated and unperverted, used to yield spontaneously a rich feast to 
our nobler appetites! The lover of heath and thicket and forest, 
down and marsh and wood, gliding stream, and shady lane, may 
certainly go further and fare worse ; nor will the pedestrian gene- 
rally meet with more comfortable and reasonable entertainment 
than the inns within this circuit afford. To all these advantages 
we may now add that London possesses admirable schools for re- 
gular botanical instruction, since that important step in our social 
progress, the foundation of the University of London, and the con- 
sequent establishment of King’s College: here the labours of such 
eminent botanists as Professors Lindley and Don cannot fail to 
be attended with extensive usefulness, not to mention other meri- 
torious teachers connected with our medical schools. Highly valu- 
able, however, as such aids unquestionably are, Botany, as Pro- 
fessor Martyn has well observed, “ is not to be learned in the closet; 
you must go forth into the garden or the fields, and there become fa- 
miliar with Nature herself,—with that beauty, order, regularity, and 
inexhaustible variety which is to be found in the structure of vegeta- 
bles, and that wonderful fitness to its end which we perceive in every 
work of creation.” It has also been justly said by another writer, 
that “ the plants which adorn and characterize a picturesque country, 
impressed on the recollection by that attention which the botanist is 
led to bestow on them while enjoying his rambles, contribute largely 
to the stock of delightful associations which he carries away with him, 
