560 Garden Calls: — 



afterwards describe as about to be adopted by an eminent nurseryman. The 

 length of the home shrubberies and plantations destined to receive this 

 arboretum is about 2^ miles, so that nothing hitherto executed in pleasure- 

 grounds or ornamental plantations will equal it. Mr. Brooks deserves the 

 highest credit for an improvement which will soon be found productive of 

 so much interest as to be frequently adopted. The ground hitherto occupied 

 by the arboretum and the botanic collection, atFlitwick House, will be laid 

 out as a Natural Arrangement of Herbaceous Plants, combining also an 

 exemplification of each of the classes and orders of Linnaus. A Natural 

 Arrangement will, in a short time, we trust, be as common to every gentle- 

 man's seat as a flower-garden ; and will, we have no doubt, take the place 

 of the sort of mixed botanical flower-garden in present use almost ever}'- 

 where, as being much more truly beautiful and intellectual. (.Vol. III. p. 300.) 

 Trotter, the gardener here, is enthusiastically devoted to his profession, and 

 much attached to the place and to his master ; the latter knows the value 

 of a good servant, and has presented him with a copy of the EncyclopcBcUa 

 of Plants. Most employers, we hope, will place this work in the library of 

 their gardens ; but Mr. Brooks has not only placed one in his library, for 

 the general use of all his future gardeners, but given one to his present 

 gardener individually. Such attentions on the part of masters to faithful 

 servants are mutually gratifying and beneficial. 



Woburn Abbey ; the Duke of Bedford. July 28. — We have been blamed 

 by some correspondents and readers, who have lately been here, for not 

 saying more of a place which, taking it altogether, is perhaps the very first 

 in England, and at which so many improvements are now going forward. 

 No one has more respect for the high and consistent character of the family 

 which owns this property than we have, because we think there are ievf 

 families in Britain, to whom estates have passed from the church, that have 

 managed them in a way calculated to do so much good to all the occupiers 

 and dependants ; and because we consider Woburn Abbey, and the sur- 

 rounding farms, as standing examples of good management and rational mag- 

 nificence. If the great mass of society in England had remained in the state 

 of ignorance in which they were before the abolition of religious houses, 

 we have no hesitation in saying it would have been much more for their 

 happiness that the church propertj^ should have remained untouched ; and 

 that, instead of the palaces, castles, and mansions of the present nobles and 

 gentry, open only to their friends and equals, we had the monastic abbeys 

 and priories of former times, open and hospitable to all, from the beggar to 

 the prince. But freedom and knowledge have increased by this change of 

 property ; instead of depending on voluntary charity, the poor are supported 

 as a matter of right; and, though this last provision of the legislature, has 

 led to the greatest abuses; still, on the whole, the chains of mental slavery 

 have been broken, and we believe human improvement and happiness have 

 gained by the change. The statistics of Woburn Abbey and its dependen- 

 cies, in 1500 and in 1800, if they could be obtained, would be a striking 

 exemplification of the difference between a society consisting of rich men and 

 slaves, partly beggars, and one consisting of free men, some of them beggars, 

 and some of them rich and powerful, but all of them free, and subject to 

 the same laws. We admire, in the present and late Dukes of Bedford, the 

 simple manners and style of living of the private gentleman, notwithstand- 

 ing the enjoyment of an income which could command all the personal 

 sumptuosness of a Continental prince. A Duke of Bedford has a legal and 

 prescriptive right to surround his person with all the pomp and splemlour, 

 all the lacqueys and trappings, the heralds, the guards, and what not, of a rich 

 duke of the age of Louis XIV. or Charles IL ; but a duke of the present 

 day shows great superiority of mind, as well as worldly wisdom, in not doing 

 so. In fact, there is too much good sense in this country for a man to 

 procure himself any sort of credit or applause from his personal retinue ; it 



