NINETEENTH CENTURY 283 



Attendant Nymphs her dulcet mandates hear. 

 And nurse in fostering arms the tender year ; 

 Plant the young bulb, inhume the living seed, 

 Prop the M^eak stem, the erring tendril lead ; 

 Or fan in glass-built fanes the stranger flowers. 

 With milder gales, and steep with warmer showers. 

 Delighted Thames through tropic umbrage glides. 

 And flowers antarctic, bending o'er liis tides ; 

 Drinks the new tints, the sweets unknown inhales. 

 And calls the sons of Science to his vales." 



The importance of Kew gradually increased under the manage- 

 ment of William Alton. This able gardener was born in 173 1, 

 and obtained the appointment of Botanical Superintendent 

 at Kew through the influence of Phihp Miller. He brought 

 out a catalogue of the plants grown at Kew in 1789. To each 

 plant Alton added the native habitat, and the date of intro- 

 duction, and records, from his own recollection, those that 

 were grown by Philip Miller at Chelsea. He identified those 

 introduced by Peter CoUinson with the help of his son Michael ; 

 while James Lee, of Hammersmith, and Knowlton, who had 

 been gardener to James Sherard, also gave him what information 

 they could. The plants are arranged on the Linnaean system, 

 and include between five and six thousand species, this number 

 being raised to eleven thousand in the second edition, published 

 by the younger Alton in 1810-1813, to which Dryander and 

 R. BrowTi largely contributed. William Alton died in 1793, and 

 was succeeded by his son, William Townsend Alton. In 1802 

 the garden which had belonged to Kew House was joined to 

 what was known as the Royal Garden at Richmond, which lay 

 to the West, and various other alterations were carried out by 

 Sir William Chambers, the designer of the " Pagoda." Kent 

 did some of the laying-out, and Kew did not escape the hands 

 of " Capability Brown." In 1841 a portion was first opened 

 to the public, though only 15 out of the 75 acres ; the 

 rest remained as a " wilderness," and was used as a game 

 preserve by the King of Hanover until 1850. By the end of 

 the century the gardens covered 400 acres, and instead of 

 attracting some nine thousand visitors a year, more than a 

 hundred times that number annually flocked thither. Under 

 the directorships of Sir William Hooker, Sir Joseph Hooker, 

 and Sir William Thiselton-Dyer, Kew has ever been rising 



