98 



JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



when, some years after, I went to a Flower Show for poor 

 gardeners in Dean's Yard, Westminster, the principal prizes 

 were won by the occupants of " Peabody's Buildings," and to 

 George Peabody, and to all others who seek to make more 

 homelike the houses of working men, let us award first prizes 

 for garden craft. 



The weary woman stays her task 



The perfume to inhale ; 

 The pale-faced children pause to ask, 



" What breath is on the gale ? " 



And none that breathed that sweetened air 



But had a gentle thought — 

 A sense of something good and fair 



Across the spirit brought. 



Other interesting supplements might be added, such as a 

 collection of Japanese plants, the Maples especially, some of 

 which I prophesy will hereafter, like many other importations 

 from Japan, be established in our gardens, to the satisfaction of 

 the purchaser who ran the risk, and to the envy of those who 

 " Let I dare not wait upon I will." I speak from hopeful 

 experience of specimens which outlived the winter of 1894-95 in 

 my Midland garden. 



Eeverting to my visit to America, I saw near Albany a 

 collection which had been made by a lady after reading " The 

 Plant-lore of Shakspeare," by our famous fellow-craftsman, the 

 Rev. Canon Ellacombe. A small slip of our common English 

 Gorse, anxiously nursed in a pot under glass, first amused me, 

 and then suggested to an old sportsman melancholy regrets on 

 the impossibility of establishing in America the best of all 

 coverts for the fox ! 



In Shakspeare's own county, at Warwick Castle, there is, I am 

 told, a most interesting collection of the flowers mentioned in his 

 works, accompanied by quotations. 



There may be a garden of sweet odours, a collection of the 

 most fragrant flowers, such as I remember in the grounds of one 

 of our Nottinghamshire squires, to whom, their devoted admirer, 

 they offered, when he had lost his eyesight, the only solace they 

 could bring. 



A collection of plants having beautiful foliage : the Acanthus, 

 Golden and Silver Hollies, Euonymus, Bamboos, Eulalias, 

 Grape-vines. 



