TEE VICTORIA EEGIA AND THE CRYSTAL PALACE. 



291 



examples in foreign countries show 

 that the task is too much for one 

 man, and that a society should alone 

 pretend to publish a standard dic- 

 tionary. In Johnson's Dictionary, 

 I can hardly find anything I look 

 for. It is full of words nowhere else 

 to he found, and wants numerous 

 words occurring in good authors. 

 In writing it is useful ; as, if one be 

 doubtful in the choice of a word, 

 it displays the authorities for its 

 mage. 



His Assays I detest. They are 

 full of what I call triptology, or re- 

 peating the same thing thrice over, 

 so that three papers to the same 

 effect might be made out of any 

 one paper in the Rambler. He 

 must have had a bad heart his 

 story of the sacrilege in his Voyage 

 to the Western Islands of Scotland 

 is a lamentable instance. (Wai- 

 pole.) 



FRENCH NATIONALITY. 



The Abbe Eaynal came, with 

 some Frenchmen of rank, to see 

 me at Strawberry-hill. They were 

 standing at a window, looking at 

 the prospect to the Thames, which 

 they found flat, and one of them 

 said in French, not thinking that 

 I and Mr. Churchill overheard them, 

 " Everything in England only serves 

 to recommend France to us the 

 more." Mr. Churchill instantly 

 stepped up and said, " Gentlemen, 

 wli-.m the Chcrokees were in this 

 country they could eat nothing but 

 train-oil." (Walpole.) 



THE VICTORIA REGIA AND THE 

 CRYSTAL PALACE. 



On new-year's day, 1837, a tra- 

 veller, proceeding in a native boat 

 up the river Berbice, in Demerat-a, 

 discovered on the margin of a lake 

 into which the river expanded, a 

 Titanic waterplaut, unlike any other 

 he had before seen, though an ac- 

 complished botanist, and familiar 

 with the flora of South America. 



"I felt as a botanist," said Sir Rich- 

 ard Schomburg, " and felt myself 

 rewarded. All calamities were for- 

 gotten. A gigantic leaf, from five 

 to six feet in diameter, salver-shap- 

 ed, with a broad rim of a light green 

 above, and a vivid crimson below, 

 rested on the water. Quite in cha- 

 racter with the wonderful leaf was 

 the luxuriant flower, consisting of 

 an immense number of petals, pass- 

 ing in alternate tints from pure 

 white to rose and pink," (and in 

 some instances fifteen inches across.) 

 " The smooth water was covered 

 with blossoms ; and, as I rowed 

 from one to the other, I always ob- 

 served something new to admire." 



Sir Robert dug up whole plants, 

 and sent first them, and afterwards 

 seeds, to England, where the mag- 

 nificent lily was named Victoria 

 Eegia. After some unsuccessful at- 

 tempts, the task of forcing it to 

 blossom in an artificial climate was 

 confided to Mr. (now Sir Joseph) 

 Paxton, the celebrated horticultur- 

 ist of the Duke of Devonshire's ce- 

 lebrated Chatsworth. 



When the Victoria Eegia was to 

 be fiowered,Mr. Paxton determined 

 to imitate nature so closely as to 

 make the innocent offspring of the 

 great mother lily fancy itself back 

 again in the broad waters, and un- 

 der the burning heats of British 

 Guiana. He deceived the roots by 

 imbedding them in a hillock of burnt 

 loam and peat ; he deluded the great 

 circular leaves by letting them float 

 in a tank, to which he communicat- 

 ed, by means of a little wheel) the 

 gentle ripple of their own tranquil 

 river ; and he coaxed the flower in- 

 to bloom by manufacturing a Ber- 

 bician climate in a tiny South Ame- 

 rica, under a spacious and splendid 

 glass house, invented by himself, 

 and beautifully adapted for the pur- 

 pose. 



This at length suggested the 

 giant palace in Hyde Park ; and so 

 it proved that the parent of the 



