NOVEMBER 207 



Ce mal qui courbait sur mon foyer vide 



Mon front desole 

 Ta complainte, vent, et ton souffle humide 



Me 1'ont revele ; 



C'est le mal des ans c'est la nostalgic 



Des printemps perdus : 

 Et ton vieux refrain n'est qu'une elegie 



Sur ce qui n'est plus 1 



Modern Gardening- Books. In the month of March 

 I finished noticing the books in my possession up to the 

 end of the last century. I begin again with this century, 

 and shall carry them down to the present day. 



1803. (An XI.) 'Le Jardin de la Malmaison.' By 

 Ventenat. Illustrated by P. J. Bedoute. In two folio 

 volumes. This is one of my great possessions a hand- 

 some book, sumptuously produced, as was likely to be 

 at the time, dedicated as it is to Madame Bonaparte, just 

 at the height of her power and influence. The implied 

 flattery in the dedication to her is as large and magnificent 

 as the paper is beautiful and the printing perfect. On 

 the title-page is a little motto in' Latin, saying that if the 

 praises of the woods are to be sung, the woods should be 

 worthy of the Consul. The book is an obvious imitation 

 of Jacquin's ' Flora Schoenbrunnensis.' The illustrations 

 are, I think, less artistic and certainly less strong than 

 Jacquin's. They are not hand-coloured, like his, but are 

 very fine examples of the best and most delicate (then 

 newly discovered) method of colour-printing. The reason 

 why Kedoute^s work is artistically inferior to Jacquin's 

 is, that in his delicate rendering of the flowering branch 

 he always puts it exactly in the centre of the page, without 

 reference to its size or growth. The plates are at the 

 end of each volume, and the descriptive text, which is in 

 French, at the beginning. Poor Josephine ! She was so 

 fond of her gardens ; and I am told there is still an order 



