XXXV11 



and 40 of his lately published History of English Gar- 

 dening, with his elegant language and the flow of sen- 

 timent that pervades those pages, would make any 

 search or review of mine presumptuous. In those 

 pages, he dwells on the tendency which the then in- 

 troduction of the Christian religion had to soften the 

 manners of the people, and by thus rendering them 

 more domestic, gardening became an art congenial to 

 their feelings ; and whilst the country at large was 

 devastated by war, the property of the religious es- 

 tablishments was held sacred, and varieties of vegeta- 

 bles preserved, which otherwise would soon have be- 

 come extinct, if cultivated in less hallowed ground. 

 He then traces the existence of many gardens, or- 

 chards, and vineyards, belonging to our monasteries, 

 proving, that even in the time of the Danes, horticul- 

 ture continued " silently to advance," and that at the 

 time of the arrival of the Normans, gardens were 

 generally in the possession of the laity, as well as of 

 the ecclesiastics ; and he refers to Doomsday Book 

 for his assertion, that " there is no reason to doubt, 

 that at this period, every house, from the palace to 

 the cottage, was possessed of a garden of some size." 

 He concludes with interesting references to the gar- 

 dens, vineyards, and orchards, of the Abbot of Ely 

 and other monks. 



The above work of Mr. Johnson's is the result of 

 original thought, and of an ardent and extended 

 scientific research. Mine is a compilation, " made 

 with a pair of scissors," to copy the words of Mr. Ma- 



