782 
THE GARDENERS’ 
CHRONICLE. 
[June 4, 1887, 
mark the summit which forms a rendezvous in 
summer for crowds of excursionists from the 
populous towns of this district. We are here on 
the green borderland of the Black Country. On 
the north Brierly Hill marks the seat of some 
well known ironworks ; in the north-east Dudley 
Castle presents the singular contrast of a Norman 
feudal pile in the heart of the Black Country. 
In the same direction, ten miles distant, is the 
tance of 25 miles, the massive towers of Worcester 
Cathedral pleasantly recall the varieties of an 
English landscape, and the contrasts which lend 
salt and savour to our social life. Bi 
wide landscape also includes the. vales of the 
Severn as far as the hills of Malvern, the groves 
of Madresfield, the Herefordshire Beacon, and the 
Cotswold Hills. A small town for this populous 
ее though it holds now nearly 20,000 souls, 
lies in the plain four miles to the north, having 
а бшу hon church on а hill containing the dust of 
d th cent y Lyttletons, 
including Sir John, who judiciously marri 
the airteenth an 
Hagley of the Earl of Ormond in 1564, using it 
as a hunting seat. He was M.P. for Worcester- 
shire, а man of much importance, a and a holder of 
valuable offices in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, 
he died 1590. 
In the graveyard outside the church—fit rest- 
ing place for a pastoral poet—lies the poet 
Shenstone, the friend of Sir T h 
160 years, and, like him, М.Р. for Worcester- 
shire, and a Lord of the Admiralty under Sir 
Robert Walpole’s government. Near the town 
is the former residence of Thomas Shenstone, 
gentleman, who farmed an estate which his 
eldest son, the poet, inherited, and made famous 
by his landscape gard Dr. 
of him, “ His delight in rural pleasures, and his 
Ыса of rural elegance, induced him to point 
his prospects, to diversify his surface, to entangle 
his walks, and to wind his waters, which he did 
with sich judgment and fancy, as made his little 
domain the envy of the great out ud the admiration 
of the skilful, a place to be visited by travellers 
and copied by designers.” The Leasowes have 
changed hands several times since this was 
written, the famous ferme ornée of the past has 
lost its ornamental character, and its vases and 
urns and arcadian masquerade, which the taste of 
the last century permitted, have disappeared 
from the scene. 
That delightful writer, Isaac Disraeli, has 
sketched ‘Shenstone and The easowes in his 
Life of a е in the Curiosities of 
. We must, however, return to 
. Hagley, whose improvements by Lord Lyttleton 
from Shenstone’s designs were celebrated by the 
poet in pleasing verses, these among others :— 
че ке now, nor shaggy hill, nor Amine pun, 
rms the lone refuge of the 
Білсе зу унн най has crowned ré hiso dolia 
With softer pleasures and with fairer fame." 
А broad straight road runs from the village to 
the church, and the house stands within the park 
been described by 
ole as “a hill of three miles, but 
i beauty ; such lawns— 
Johnson says. 
such woods—rills, "wed: and a thickness of 
verdure quite to the summit of the hill, and 
Palmer for showing me the park, аз well as the 
pleasure grounds and gardens, which are his 
special care. 
Other laudatory pens besides those of Pope, 
Shenstone, Thompson, and the accomplished 
Horace alpole, have been engaged upon 
Hagley. The following verses, with many others, 
were achieved by a local poet about fifty years 
go:— 
* Here Pallas dwells, she "pum these т towers 
ound, an r Parnassian hills 
She formed these Лете es, are solemn 
owers, 
These ever meand ring streams and ever trickling 
rills.” 
Except in the eighteenth century, which 
covered the face of the country with many ugly 
features, the leaden shepherdesses and bedraggeled 
b теат a mock Arcadia have not been much 
ced in the gardens of this pei 
The. climax of that kind of ornamentation w: 
reached at Stowe under the liberal patronage of 
Lord Cobham, with the approval apparently of 
all his friends, including Pope himself. Hagley 
ad its Porch of the Temple of 
Theseus on a hill, with an obelisk on another 
prominence. It was called, like Stowe itself, 
the British Temple—very British, since it in- 
cluded a statue of Frederick, Prince of Wales, 
for whom was written the famous epitaph— 
omitted here, but commencing— 
* Here lies Fred, who was alive and is dead." 
Most of the commemorative erections at 
Hagley in y last century нены een of a 
much more respectable charac 
them, with their inscriptions, remain. чик к meet 
with them appropriately scattered in dells or 
on knolls of the park, nd they impart to this 
interesting placea quite unusual charm. Among 
them is Pope's UNE urn, bearing the follow- 
ing inscription :—“ The sweetest and m most elegant 
of English РЕ the severest chastener of vice, 
On 
XN the most саен teacher of virtue." 
urn read as CI :—“ To the 
mellióry of William Shenstone, Esq., in whose 
verses were all the natural ко, and in whose 
manners was all the amiable simplicity of pas- 
toral poetry, with the sweet tenderness of the 
elegiac." This ——— on a rough seat is 
perhaps a little trite :—“ Sedis contemplationis. 
Omnia vanitas." In this less classic age you may 
read sometimes the commonplace appeal, * Never 
cut a friend." 
Hagley Hall may be described as a portly 
building, more commodious than elegant, right 
angled, full of rooms, with a good hall 28 feet 
uare—a house of plain exterior, and very com- 
squar 
fortable within. Its pictures and decorations are . 
worthy of the scholarly Lyttleton. It should be 
added that the first Lord Lyttleton, but not the 
founder of the family, was a Chancellor of the 
Exchequer in 1757, and an author and poet who 
e gardens his frequent subject. 
As in the case of others of his name, his 
associates were the men of genius, the authors 
and artists of his time. His descendant, the late 
Lord Lyttleton was known for the happy i incon- 
gruity of his pursuits, as one of the tt 
scholarly noblemen in i 
student, almost 
and Latin verses w also аза 
and, a 
ost а а at times vt: me ` 
ere concerned, 
excellent Lord-Lieutenant, and an assiduous and 
downright labourer for the public good, especially 
in all that concerned the welfare of the m 
Conscious as he must have been of the good 
qualities of the Lyttletons, and of the talent and 
excellence they have manifested during three 
centuries, he consistently made ample provision 
for their continuance. His wife was the sister of 
Mrs. Gladstone. H. E. 
FICUS BENJAMINA. 
very ornamental shade tree, a native of the 
(fig. 139), a graceful drooping habit, and m ever- 
green foliage i is of so bright and attractive a charac- 
ter, even in the driest season, that few "en can 
for purposes of shade and ornament. It 
wn as cir- 
s is accomplished by placing a 
piece of fine copper wire tightly round a branch at 
the point where it is proposed to take it off. Round 
this area is placed а 
vertically, filled with soil kept moist. 
time, especially in the rainy season, roots will be 
copiously emitted above the stricture, and when this 
is done the new plant is gradually severed from the 
parent stem. Plants from 3 to 5 feet in height are 
thus easily produced, which soon grow into large 
shapely trees. The photograph from which the en- 
graving has been prepared was taken, at my request, 
growing in the Parade Garden, Ki 
D. Morris, Assistant- Director, Royal Gardens, Kew, 
NEW OR NOTEWORTHY PLANTS. 
ое ана 
ARISTEA PLATYCAULIS, Baker, n. sp.* 
Tuts is a very distinct new species of the genus 
Aristea, remarkable for its flattened stem and 
branches, which are nearly as broad as the leaves. It 
was flowered this summer b . H. Tillett, of 
Sprowston, near Norwich, who dived it from Port 
Grosvenor in Pondoland, in the eastern regions of 1 
Cape Colony. The genus Aristea has its head quar- 
ters at the Cape, and extends to Abyssinia mv the — 
highlands of M. 
Root-leaves ensiform, hewn i in texture, bright green, 
a foot long, an inch broad. Inflorescence an ampl 
panicle, 8—9 inches long, with all the am much 
flattened, the main one } inch broad; 
branches about five, the ‘sed overtopped > their 
in dense — with 
ورن تاا ووت 
TENET:‏ افو ت 
Bamboo joint, split in half 1 
the segments. Fruit oblong, à inch long, obtusely d 
angled, brown, rugose. 
li 
Allied to A. мари Buchinger, of 
ker. 
Agave (LrrrxaA) HENRIQUESII, Joh, n. рї 
This is a new species of the marginate Agaves, 1 
intermediate between A. xylican 
(Bot. Mag., t. 5660) and A. horrida, Lemaire (Bot. . 
TM NRG a. 
Natal | 
platycaults, Baker, п. sp.—Foliis ensiformibus rigi- | 
dulis viridibus, — valde ancipiti laxe — a 
floribus de capitulis in paniculam amplam 
positis, ; мн arent ems perianthii segmen- 
tis oblongis genitalibus bre vioribus, 
parvo oblongo subrugoso loculis dorso rotundatis. 
t Agave (Littea) Henriquesii, Baker, n. sp.— ae foliis 
шейка er aE п 
