350 DeCandolle' s Icones selectee. 



Calcutta may have a suburban garden there, and a summer residence in Nepal, 

 though distant above 1000 miles. 



Art. III. Icones selectee Plantarum quas in Prodromo Systematis 

 universalis, ex Herbariis Parisiensibus prcesertim ex Lessertiano 

 descripsit Aug. Pyr. DeCandoUe. Editse a Berij. DeLessert. 

 Academise Scientiarum Socio honario, &c. Vol. IV. exhibens 

 Compositas. Figures of select Plants from the Herbariums of 

 Paris, and more especially that of Baron DeLessert, &c. Fol., 

 pp. 52, 100 plates. Paris, 1839. 



This is the fourth volume of an elaborate scientific work, prepared at the 

 expense of a wealthy amateur, and presented to the principal botanists and 

 public libraries of Europe. It is a useful, elegant, and certain mode of 

 erecting a monument to one's own memory, and we wish we could see it be- 

 come more fashionable in this country. The volumes are published from 

 time to time : vol. iii. is dated 1837, and contains figures of plants of thirty- 

 one natural orders on one hundred plates. This volume also contains an 

 index of names and synonymes to the engravings in vols. i. and ii., each of 

 which volumes also contains a hundred plates. The engravings in vol. iv. are 

 entirely of Compositas ; as in the other volumes, they are in number one hun- 

 dred. The descriptions occupy forty-four pages ; after which is an alpha- 

 betical index to the plates in all the four volumes. Throughout the whole 

 work the engravings are most beautifully executed in outline, and the de- 

 scriptions concise and comprehensive. In every point of view the work is 

 creditable to the artists and the press of France, and to the high intellectual 

 character of her scientific men. 



Art. IV. Instructions in Gardening, Jor Ladies. By Mrs. Loudon. 

 8vo, pp. 406, several wood-cuts. London, 1840. 



We cannot give abetter idea of the nature of this most excellent work than 

 by quoting the introduction, which, in every point of view, is quite charac- 

 teristic of the authoress. 



" When I married Mr. Loudon, it is scarcely possible to imagine any person 

 more completely ignorant than I was, of every thing relating to plants and gar- 

 dening; and, as may be easily imagined, I found every one about me so well 

 acquainted with the subject, that I was soon heartily ashamed of my ignorance. 

 My husband, of course, was quite as anxious to teach me as I was to learn, and 

 it is the result of his instructions that I now (after ten years' experience of 

 their efficacy) wish to make public, for the benefit of others. I do this, 

 because I think books intended for professional gardeners are seldom suit- 

 able to the wants of amateurs. It is so very difficult for a person who has 

 been acquainted with a subject all his life, to imagine the state of ignorance 

 in which a person is who knows nothing of it, that adepts often find it impos- 

 sible to communicate the knowledge they possess. Thus, though it may, at 

 first sight, appear presumptuous in me to attempt to teach an art, of which, 

 for three fourths of my life, 1 was perfectly ignorant, it is, in fact, that very 

 circumstance which is one of my chief qualifications for the task. Having 

 been a full-grown pupil myself, I know the wants of others in a similar situ- 

 ation; and, having never been satisfied without knowing the reason for every 

 thing I was told to do, I am able to impart these reasons to others. Thus, 

 my readers will be able to judge for themselves, and to adapt their practice 

 to the circumstances in which they may be placed. 



