xxxiv PREFACE. 



For example, Richard Anthony Salisbury, Esq. the uni- 

 versally acknowledged head of our English botanists, no 

 longer cultivates his former gardens at Chapel Allerton, 

 Yorkshire, or at Mill Hill, Middlesex, but confines his at- 

 tention to a choice collection of the most curious plants in 

 pots, arranged in the yard of his house in Queen Street, 

 Edgeware Road. In like manner, Messrs. Loddiges, 

 nurserymen at Hackney, have a very large collection of 

 hardy herbaceous plants, in small pots, set on beds of 

 scoria, to keep the soil contained in them moist. 



June 5, 1825. 



Considerable additions have been made to this volume 

 since its first publication, as well with regard to the bio- 

 graphy of plants, and to their titles (whether of modern 

 date, or held by inheritance from a long line of noble an- 

 cestry), as to poetical illustrations. To the latter, indeed, it 

 is not easy to affix limits : a collection of all the passages on 

 this subject, even though it were confined to the poets of 

 our own country, would fill volumes ; yet it is often a 

 painful task to reject them. There is an inspiration in the 

 works of nature which gives a more than usual power even 

 to talents of a common order, when treating of them ; and 

 although we take greater delight in the rose, the violet, or 

 the lily, we also love to pluck from the hedge-side the haw- 

 thorn and the ragged-robin. Wordsworth very naturally 

 describes the inclination we have to gather wild flowers : 



- <f We paused, one now, 



And now the other, to point out, perchance 

 To pluck, some flower or water-weed, too fair 



