KEW GARDENS. 



3 



don is to be put under a glass roof. No project, based on this 

 principle, is too wild to be entertained with attention and discus- 

 sed seriously. But there may be lookers-on who believe that the 

 people are seized with a remittent covered-garden fever — an in- 

 fatuation from w^hich they will recover by-and-bye, though per- 

 haps after much outlay and disappointment, and after two or 

 three fortunes have been made by those w^ho minister to the ma- 

 nia. But wdiat can a cool and disinterested dissentient do, except 

 treat Master John Bull as a spoiled child clamouring for an expen- 

 sive toy, which, when he gets it, may do him more harm than 

 good ? A good-natured friend will endeavour to soothe and com- 

 fort the capricious young giant. He cannot immediately have his 

 glass-roofed garden — still the dear infant shall be sho^vn what 

 pretty gardens he nevertheless has to play in. He shall not be 

 contradicted, for fear of spoihng his temper, wdiich must not be 

 with a young gentleman come of such a good family and with 

 such large expectations. He shall be shown where to pop his head 

 and shoulders into Naples or Madeira any day of the year (except 

 Sunday) that he choses ; and if that will not do, he shall have a 

 little Calcutta to call his own ; but his guardians and tutors cannot 

 quite yet consent to a Sierra Leone. 



Let us, in short, respectfully suggest that it would be prudent 

 and wise to know and enjoy the good things w^e do possess, be- 

 fore running headlong after new inventions, and craving for acqui- 

 sitions of uncertain usefulness. ' The slothful man,' w^e have 

 been of old admonished, 'roasteth not that which he took in 

 hunting.' Englishmen in general are not justly chargeable with 

 slothfiilness, but if the power of accumulation be indulged to a 

 degree greatly disproportionate to the faculty of concocting and 

 digesting, the folly of the sluggard is in reality committed. And 

 is not Kew one remarkable enough instance of an accumulated 

 hunting, as yet but half or a quarter roasted and digested ? It is 

 only just beginning to be known throughout the country as a 

 public treasury of a certain class of facts. A principal bookseller 

 in an important provincial town, of whom we ordered the ' Guide' 

 a few months ago, was unacquainted with it, and thankful to be- 

 come cognisant of the existence of so useful a little book, \fo7^ 

 the sake of chance 2^urchasers and general readers.'' The number 

 of visitors to the Gardens has of late increased greatly, and may 

 be expected to do so still more, now that, by the liberality of her 



