506 Retrospective Criticism. 



Ireland ; and that I know of no part of it where the wages, without the 

 addition of a house, or some equivalent, are so low as here stated ; and 

 that, if Lord Doneraile suffers his dependants to exist in the state of 

 wretchedness depicted in your correspondent's letter, he richly deserves 

 the odium which the observations contained in that letter tend to cast 

 upon him. 



Comparisons are odious ; and the reflections which the ignorant were 

 wont to cast on ever}' country except their own, are, happily, even amongst 

 that description of persons, growing obsolete : did I, however, choose to 

 retaliate, 1 need only refer to the " description of an English cottage," by 

 Sir John Cox Hippesley, Bart., in the 15th vol. of the Bath and West of 

 England Society's Papers, which is too humiliating to be quoted. The 

 effect of this description was to inspire me with regret, and with a convic- 

 tion of the truth of Mr. Cobbett's assertion as to the state of degradation 

 to which, from the enviable station on which he once stood, the English 

 labourer has been reduced. Having, I trust, said sufficient to convince 

 Mr. Howden that fame is not to be acquired by holding up to the scorn of 

 the world a class of people who have been reduced to their present forlorn 

 condition more by the neglect and oppression of their natural guardians 

 than by any fault of their own, and regretting the occasion which called 

 forth a communication so little calculated to advance the science in which 

 the majority of your readers are engaged, and which is more than sufficient 

 to occupy our every thought, I remain, yours, &c. — Michael Murphy^ 

 Gardener to Lord CasUemain. Aloydrum Castle, Athlone, March 17. 1831. 



Grevillea. concinna of Broivn.jind Grevillea. conc'inna ofLindley. — At p. 201. 

 we (i. e. ./. Z). for Cond.) erred egregiously in asserting the G. concinna of 

 Lindley, in the Botanical Register (t. 1383.), to be identical with G. Cunning- 

 hams of Brown's Supplement. No two plants of one genus need be more 

 distinct. We ask pardon for the error, which arose from confusing the 

 remarks of our kind informant, Mr. Sweet, who, in the same conversation in 

 which he assured us that the G. concinna of Mr. Lindley, in the Botanical 

 Register (t. 1383.), published January 1. 1831, is most perfectly distinct from 

 the G. concinna of his own FPora Aiistraldsica and of Brown, also gave us in- 

 formation respecting Banksw Cunninghamii. On Mr. Sweet's subsequently 

 admonishing us of the error we had committed, we solicited the favour of 

 a statement of thespecific differences between the two GreviWecB in question, 

 that when we should correct the error those differences might be exhibited. 

 This statement Mr. Sweet obligingly supplied onMay 1-1.; too late for inser- 

 tion in the June Number, but where, however, we inserted remarks on the 

 Banks/a CunninghamK (p. 337.), and on Dietes bicolor (p. 340.), with 

 which he had also favoured us. Mr. Sweet's note is as follows : — " Dear 

 Sir, I have waited to get a fine specimen of the Greville« in flower, and 

 can now give you its full history and description. I raised it from seeds at 

 the time I was with Mr. Colville. The seeds were given me about eight 

 years ago, by a great friend of mine, the Honourable Mrs. Emily Seymour, 

 of Woburn, Bedfordshire. This lady had received them from a person in 

 Van Diemen's Land, for whom the Honourable Mr. Seymour had procured 

 a situation there. The plant, which is decidedly a distinct species, and no 

 variation of G. concinna, may be denominated G. Seymoun'ce, in compli- 

 ment to the above lady, and be thus characterised : — G. Seymoun'<2? Sweet. 

 MSS. ; foliis elongato-linearibus mucronatis planis, super glabris, subtus 

 costaque sericeo-pilosis, ramulis sericeo-tomentosis, ovariis stylisqueglaber- 

 rimis apice sericeo-pubescentibus, perianthiis extus adpresse pilosis intus 

 dense barbatis, pedicellis ovario longioribus. This species belongs to 

 Mr. Brown's first section Lissostylis, and division A of that section, and 

 must come in between G. strictaand G. ripsiria, but differs from these two, 

 and, I believe, from all others in the section, by its flat leaves not recurved 

 or reflexed at tlie margins. I have sent you flowers, that you may see that 

 the ovarium is quite smooth, which organ in G. concinna is woolly; a 



