62 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN 



plants are picked is always named, and it is pathetic 

 to think of the growth of the city, and how the places 

 mentioned are now densely covered with buildings and 

 streets. The second edition, in five or six volumes, 

 finished by Dr. Hooker, is far the more valuable and 

 complete. Curtis began his 'Botanical Magazine, or 

 Flower Garden Displayed' in 1778. I have the first 

 sixty-seven volumes of this lovely and best known of all 

 the Old English gardening publications. It is purely 

 horticultural. Every alternate page is an illustration, 

 with the letterpress on the opposite side describing the 

 nature of the plant, the country from which it comes, 

 and its cultivation here. With the same truthful accuracy 

 with which he tells the home of the wild plant, he names 

 the nurseryman or amateur who has flowered the exotic. 

 The best drawings by far are in the early numbers, and 

 were executed by Sowerby. The two who succeeded 

 him were Sydenham Edwards and Dr. Hooker. Spode, 

 the man who perfected the process of mixing bone-dust 

 into the paste used for china in the early part of this 

 century, used these illustrations a good deal for his pretty 

 china dinner and dessert services, with the names of the 

 flowers or plants marked at the back of the dishes. 



1791. ' The Loves of the Plants, in two parts : The 

 Botanic Garden and the Economy of Vegetation. A Poem 

 by Erasmus Darwin/ seems to me one of the real 

 curiosities of literature. It is unique, so far as I know, 

 in its sincere desire to clothe the latest science in the 

 garb of the Muse. The frontispiece, by Fuseli, is a 

 drawing most characteristic of that artist and full of all 

 his affectations. Flora, attired by the elements, is a 

 striking example of the fashion and bad taste of the day, 

 and yet it is full of ingenuity and skill in drawing. This 

 frontispiece is well worth, by itself, the price I gave for 

 the whole volume. Another print in the book, by the 



