482 Retrospective Criticism. 



Art. IV. Retrospective Criticism. 



THE Gardens of Frederick Bourne, Esq., and those of Counsellor West 

 (p. 83. 371.). — Sir, From some observations which occur in your last 

 Number, upon certain " corrections " which I lately sent you for the 

 Encyclopedia of Gardening, I feel it necessary to recur to them, and will 

 feel much obliged by your publishing the following, of which I doubt not 

 you will perceive the propriety : — The writer of these observations, who 

 is wholly unknown to me, says I have instituted an invidious comparison 

 between the gardens of Frederick Bourne, Esq., and those of Counsellor 

 West. I proposed no comparison of any kind : what I have said may be 

 erroneous ; but I deny that it is invidious. I am sorry to say, Mr Con- 

 ductor, that you are, I think, to blame in this matter. I sent you correc- 

 tions for a new edition of the Encyclopaedia of Gardening in a letter, part 

 of which was not intended for publication any where, and the rest cer- 

 tainly not in the Gardener's Magazine, but in the work which it proposed 

 to correct ; and there, altered, divided, and properly allocated, by ypu. 

 What I said of Mr. Bourne's gardens was intended to remove the im- 

 pression which its standing noticed in nearly " solitary grandeur " was 

 calculated to produce, and not with any view of decrying its intrinsic 

 merits, which are many. The communication was confidential, and I 

 must say you ought not to have crudely published it. I feel deeply con- 

 cerned that it has ever met the public eye ; the more especially, as I am 

 honoured with Mr. Bourne's acquaintance j from whose memory, I have 

 no doubt, should this " amende " meet his eye, the observations alluded 

 to will be wholly effaced ; and as you, Mr. Conductor, are not guiltless in 

 the transaction, you cannot better show your contrition, than by giving 

 with your usual candour the earliest possible insertion to this. I am, 

 Sir, yours, &c. — Robert Mallet. 94. Capel Street, Dublin, June 13. 1832. 



We hold ourselves perfectly guiltless. The communication (p. 83.) was 

 evidently intended for being made public, as any one may perceive by turn- 

 in<* to it. If it were not, why was it sent without being marked " private," 

 like a postscript, for example, in the letter now sent, which, of course, 

 we do not print ? We consider it our duty to the purchasers of the 

 next edition of our Encyclopaedia of Gardening, to publish the correc- 

 tions sent us for it first in the Gardener's Magazine, in order that their 

 accuracy may be tested, and the necessity of this precaution is proved by 

 our correspondent's letter. — We have received (this July 6th) certain iron 

 flower-stakes invented by Mr. Mallet, which we shall be happy to figure in 

 an early Number. — Cond. 



The Circulation of the Sap in Chdra, discovered by Mr. Farley, not by 

 Mr. Burnett, (p. 142.) — Sir, in the Gardener's Magazine, in the article 

 " On the Circulating System of Plants," p. 142 — 147., my name is mentioned 

 so as to leave an inference that I was in no way connected with the subject 

 there treated of. I will therefore restate it, with such addition of my 

 name, as those persons who know the facts have reason to expect. " On 

 the 17th of January last, he (Mr. Burnett) exhibited with a good micro- 

 scope, in which too great a glare of (it should have been, all lateral) light 

 was avoided, by interposing Varley's dark chamber, several specimens of 

 C'hara previously dissected (by Mr. Varley, that gentleman having suc- 

 ceeded in preserving the plant, and numerous young seedlings, in a thriving 

 state all through the winter, and having obliged those who applied to him, 

 with samples prepared and put up ready for microscopic exhibition) ; when 

 the motion of the sap was demonstrated to the satisfaction of the then chair- 

 man, Sir J. M'Gregor, and was seen by almost every one present. .... 

 The course of the sap in Chara is so far ascertained, that Mr. Burnett 

 thinks himself justified in declaring (in the words of Mr. Varley) that 



