THE 



GARDENER'S MAGAZINE, 



APRIL, 1841. 



ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. 



Art. I. A Gardening Visit to Paris, Jrom June 28. to August 16. 

 1840. By the Conductor. 



We went to Paris by BrightoR, Dieppe, Rouen, and St. Ger- 

 mains, and returned by St. Germains, Rouen, Havre, and South- 

 ampton. The health of one of our party being the principal 

 object of pursuit, we did not see so many gardens or other 

 objects as in former years, during the same space of time. We 

 took scarcely any notes, but our impressions were not the less 

 vivid; and we shall give, first, the general results of those im- 

 pressions, and, next, what may be called our personal narrative. 



We first saw Paris in July and August, 1815, remaining 

 there, at that time, above a month, and seeing every thing that 

 was then to be seen by a stranger. We subsequently passed 

 some time in Paris in the spring and autumn of 1819, on our 

 way to, and return from, Switzerland and Italy ; and again, as 

 appears in a former volume of this Magazine, in the autumn 

 and winter of 1828-29. We are thus enabled to speak of the 

 general progress of improvement in Paris during the last twenty- 

 five years, and it affords us the very greatest pleasure to state 

 that it has been far beyond our most sanguine expectations. 

 Since 1828, indeed, the improvement in almost every thing that 

 meets the eyes of a stranger is quite astonishing ; and a person 

 who carries in his mind Paris as it was previously to 1830, can 

 scarcely form an idea of what it actually is in 1840. The fun- 

 damental cause of all this improvement is intercommunication, 

 which, as Dr. Channing has said of cooperation, may be con- 

 sidered as one of the characteristic features of the present day, 

 and, in a certain sense indeed, a result of cooperation. The 

 intercommunication of authors and artists at home in conse- 

 quence of the formation of clubs and societies, and their assem- 

 blage at conversaziones, has rubbed off those asperities or 

 peculiarities which formerly used to render them unfit for 

 general society, and rooted out that gi'owling snarlish disposition 

 which led to mutual depreciation and abuse. Formerly every 

 author, every artist, and every naturalist, thought every other 



1841. — IV. 3dSer. o 



