1-2 A BOOK ABOUT THE GAtifiEN. 



grows, arid there only can it be seen in its perfection. 

 You may transplant, and by incessant care you may 

 obtain a similitude ; but there "will ever be the same 

 sad difference which exists between two plants of 

 Coleus the one in a stove, the other in a cold 

 clay soil ; or between the golden eagle rising from his 

 aerie, like a king from his throne, \vith a solemn grace 

 and beauty, and the same bird, heart-broken, diseased, 

 aud draggled in a cage. No, friend, earnestly as I 

 admire and love the arts, I am not to be an artist. 

 SVhen I had progressed as far as 'Home, sweet home ' 

 on the flute, I felt I had climbed my height ; and as 

 a painter my career was stayed by incapacity, 

 stubborn and chronic, to prevent the distant objects 

 of my landscape from advancing boldly in a line and 

 occupying the entire foreground." He favoured me 

 with a smile, half pity, half disgust, as though I were 

 one of those unhappy cripples whom one meets some- 

 times, strapped to a board upon castors, and propelling 

 themselves along our pavements ; and then he was 

 gone. 



Then came, last scene of all to end this strange, 

 and to me eventful history, the final ghost : and I 

 felt a presentiment, nay, a conviction, as he took the 

 chair opposite to mine, and filled the large white 

 bowl of his pipe, that he possessed the power to dispel 

 my doubts, and to reveal the object for which my spirit 

 yearned. He gave me that assuring smile which one 

 sometimes sees upon a partner's face, when, wanting 

 the odd trick to win a rubber, and having realized six 

 he holds the last trump card in his hand. The smile 

 lit up a face, which you could not mistrust, frank and 



