224 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN 



less exalted members of the peerage — some men, some 

 •women. The 'Magazine' to this day is interesting, 

 useful, and fuU of instruction as regards the cultivation 

 of desirable and uncommon greenhouse and stove plants. 

 The title-page is quite simple. Evidently the fashion for 

 adornment, allegorical or otherwise, hitherto so much in 

 use, seems to have entirely died away, and plainness 

 rules the day. The page has nothing on it but the title 

 and the famous Bacon quotation, which can never be too 

 often repeated : ' God Almighty first planted a garden, 

 and indeed it is the purest of human pleasures : it is the 

 greatest refreshment to the spirit of man, without which 

 buildings and palaces are but gross handiworks ; and a 

 man shall ever see that, when ages grow to civihty and 

 elegance, men come to build stately sooner than to garden 

 finely, as if gardening were the greater perfection.' 



Bacon is delightfully solemn, but one cannot help 

 remembering Adam found it so very dull tiU Eve came 

 that he even sacrificed a rib for the sake of a com- 

 panion. 



There is a sad falling-off in the plates, both wood-cuts 

 and coloured ones, though they are executed by different 

 people, and some are much better than others. Paxton 

 must have studied hard, as he constantly refers to the 

 older books. What is of chief interest about him is that 

 he was the greatest unconscious instrument in the move- 

 ment he helped to develop, which altered the gardening 

 of the whole of England, and consequently of the world. 

 He used the old patterns of Italy and Prance for designs 

 of beds, filling them, as had never been done before, with 

 cuttings of tender exotics, which were kept under glass 

 during the whole winter. Endless sums of money were at 

 his disposal, and everything was done which could f acihtate 

 his efforts to make the terraces of Chatsworth a blaze 

 of colour during the months of August and September, 



