MISCELLANEOUS INTELLIGENCE. C9 



THE GARDENS 



OF THE 



ROYAL BOTANIC SOCIP.TY OF LONDON, 



INNER CIRCLE, REGENT'S PARK. 



(Continued from page 46.) 



Mr. D. R. Hay, of Edinburgh, an able writer on the subject, gives testi- 

 mony to the following effect . — "The vegetable kingdom presents the best 

 examples for study, and a taste for ornamental design is not only to be 

 acquired from the rare productions of the botanic garden, but both grace 

 and elegance ot form are to be found in fhe common dock, the thistle, the 

 fern, or even in a stalk of barley. When students come to examine the 

 ornamental remains of Athens and Rome, they will find themselves familiar 

 with the source from which such designs were derived, for the ancients un- 

 doubtedly owed their excellence in ornamental art to the study of nature. 

 Dr. Ure attributes the excellence of the French to the pursuit of art through 

 the medium of nature." 



The Chancellor of the Exchequer recently expressed himself in the House 

 of Commons to the following effect: — "fie thought it a disgrace to this 

 country, possessing as it did so many colonies, and such vast means of 

 collecting botanical specimens from all parts of the earth, that it should be 

 without an extensive botanical garden, for the benefit of medical students 

 and other scientific persons." 



While the importance of botanical study is such in the lower walks of 

 art, it is not of less necessity in its higher and more unequivocal branches. 

 The delineation of the flower has in all countries afforded many fine paint- 

 ings, a branch in which ladies have been particularly successful, and in 

 which it was the pride of Rubens to excel equally as in the other depart- 

 ments of art. In all that relates to decoration, however, its application is of 

 primary impoi lance. Foliage is the basis of the arabesques of Pompei, 

 and those of Giulmio Romano ; and while an increasing inclination is exhi- 

 bited for these styles among the patrons of art, the only true Bource of 

 their power should not be neglected. The details of architecture have, 

 even in the severest nations, derived their origin from this source, and the 

 palm leaf of the Temple, and the lotus of Egypt, were not less favourite 

 with their respective admirers than the variegated ioliaged ornamants of the 

 Greeks. These latter, in the acanthus and the honeysuckle, found a 

 harmony and beauty which, they made productive of the greatest effect, 

 while the Gothic architects, in the profusion of their architectural enrich- 

 ments, displayed even greater variety and research. 



Although we who are the most important commercial nation of the world, 

 have been thus negligent in our metropolis, foreign nations, to whom 

 botany is of far less pecuuiary interest, have not been unmindful of en- 

 couraging its study. Whether for medical purposes, or for those purely 

 scientific, or on a more extended scale, there is scarcely a town in Europe 

 without its botanic garden, and the extent of these establishments, and the 

 efficiency of some of (hem, is enough to cast shame on the negligence we 

 have hitherto displayed. The garden at Padua appears to have been the 

 first established in Europe, and was founded in the early part of the six- 

 teenth century, and shortly after others were formed at Pisa, Florence, and 

 Bologna. Since that period the progress lias been such, that there is hardly 

 a city in Italy without its botanic garden, although considerable difficulty 

 is felt there on account of the necessity of supplying water by irrigation. 

 The Dutch early cultivated this department, and from the garden of Am- 

 sterdam supplied the coffee plant from which all those in the French colonies 

 have been propagated. In France, the first establishment of this kind was 

 funned at Montpelier in 1597; but, by far the best known, and the most 

 important in Europe, is that of the Jardin des Plantes at Paris, founded in 



