Introduction. 5 



"Banks of one of our neighbouring streams ; but we all 

 can enjoy our Botanic Gardens on the Tolka, at 

 Glasnevin, where Addison, Swift, and Delany, and 

 kindred spirits, spent many a classic hour in the 

 grounds of their friend Tickell. And here, in addi- 

 tion to natural beauty, we have enjoyment which 

 was not vouchsafed to ancient worthies, in the 

 ohoicest trees and shrubs and flowers which each 

 quarter of the world, vieing with the others, offers to 

 the admiration of our days. And I dare to say that 

 in such scenes the mind most highly and thoroughly 

 schooled in science, and accustomed to abstract 

 thought 



" with, filial confidence inspired, 



Can lift to Heaven an nnpresumptuous eye, 

 And smiling 1 say, My Father made them all." 



Disclaiming any pretension to treat scientifically 

 a subject on which the Press teems with works of 

 that character, I invite the attention of readers of all 

 ages and circumstances to varieties of interesting 

 plants, from which selections may be "made to please 

 any taste. I particularly address my brethren of the 

 working orders, for I believe never were such pur- 

 suits as ornamental gardening and kindred recrea- 

 tions so important as now to members of that class, 

 on whom political and social powers are daily devolv- 

 ing. For members of religious orders, and vast 

 numbers of other persons whom peculiar circum- 

 stances debar from many ordinary social enjoyments, 

 our subject seems specially suited ; and to clerics of 



