797 



us with a volley of oaths, in the loudest and most discordant tones. 

 We were trespassing ! We, still the editorial unity apologized : " we 

 had no intention of trespassing ; the virgin soil had never been bro- 

 ken ; there were no traces of cultivation ; but, as we were wrong, we 

 would re-cross the fosse, and retire." Suiting the action to the word, 

 we vacated the enemy's territory ; but during the brief parley two 

 athletic fellows, armed with bludgeons, had joined the party, and 

 coarsely informed us that unless we gave them half a crown per head 

 they would dog us all day, and take us before a magistrate as soon as 

 we returned to our inn. We paid the fine, right glad to escape the 

 proximity of the bludgeons of such ferocious-looking banditti. Under 

 these circumstances, we feel entitled to advise the explorer of the 

 Malvern Hills, on a fine day, to provide himself with sufficient pocket- 

 money to buy off the mercantile vagrants, and also to observe very 

 carefully where he is treading, lest he inadvertently step over an 

 invisible fence, and thus commit a trespass. By strict attention to 

 this advice and caution, he may perchance attain that " quiet " for 

 which people visit such " sweet places." It is, however, a lamentable 

 thing, that almost every foot of uncultivated ground worth visiting is 

 beset by lazy and dissolute, but licensed, vagrants, who subsist on 

 the fears or the folly of the visitors. 



Having relieved our mind of these weighty matters, we dip into 

 Mr. Lees's little volume once more ; and we would venture to remark 

 that the new arrangement, or system, which Mr. Lees has introduced 

 does not seem to us any improvement on the usual mode. Mr. Lees 

 explains his system in these words : — " 1 have distributed the plants 

 in the three grand Natural Divisions, but subdivided them on the 

 Linnsean plan, for convenience' sake to the memory, and to avoid the 

 necessity of an index." Without gainsaying these merits, we may 

 perhaps be allowed to remark that they are not self-evident. Each 

 of the Linnean classes, Diandria, Triandria, Tetrandria, Hexandria, 

 Octandria, Monoecia, and Dioecia occurs twice over, an arrangement 

 that would not, at the first blush, strike any botanist as rendering 

 assistance to the memory. 



Eveiy local Flora is acceptable ; and this, penned by a botanist 

 who has so long resided on the spot, or in its immediate vicinity, is 

 doubly so, because we must regard it as in a great measure complete. 

 No one ever enjoyed the opportunity of more thoroughly investigating 

 a locality than Mr. Lees has that of Malvern ; and we give him cre- 

 dit for having availed himself, to the utmost, of the advantages which 

 long residence, industry, and a taste for the subject confer. We 



