266 
ARGUS OF CLUMBER, ON 
ture. This acknowledgment comes with the 
better grace from Dr. Lindley, from the fact that 
the author of these standards is the editor of a 
rival paper (The Gardener's Gazette), and a 
writer diametrically opposed upon almost every 
subject, but most of all upon some parts of 
that science of which the Doctor is so dis- 
tinguished a professor. 
We wish we could say as much for others 
who have meddled with these subjects ; but 
while we bear honourable testimony to the 
candour and integrity of Dr. Lindley, we are 
at a lops for terms in which to denounce the 
unprincipled conduct of those committees and 
individuals who have endeavoured to separate 
these properties from their author, by re- 
publishing as their own Mr. Glenny's standards 
for the properties of flowers, not fairly copied, 
but described in other words, as if to get rid 
of the legal responsibility of piracy, by chang- 
ing the terms in which the same identical 
standards of perfection are explained. We 
think that in a case like this, the legal re- 
sponsibility is not got rid of by any change in 
the language. Some practice in the courts 
enables us to say, that if a man invents or 
originates a code of laws for the judgment of 
any subject, no matter what, and publishes 
them, it would be held in equity that those 
laws were his copyright, and that no change 
of language would free those who infringed 
them from the legal responsibility. If, for 
instance, no other writer on floriculture ever 
gave as the proper standard of perfection in 
the form of a tulip, that it should be com- 
pletely spherical, that is to say, a portion of a 
hollow globe, the author of that law has a 
claim which none other can set up. If no other 
writer ever gave as the necessary quality of a 
Pansy, that it should be perfectly round and 
flat, the author of the whimsical fashion — for 
such it must have appeared at first — has a 
claim which no other could establish. If 
persons pretending to teach the properties of 
flowers, or to publish a code of laws for such 
purpose, have no legal right to adopt the original 
author's laws and publish them as their own, 
whether the shapes and properties are de- 
scribed in other words or not, we risk our 
reputation on the fact that the judge in a court 
of equity would rule that the original author 
should not be damaged by any evasion of his 
identical words; and so also with whatever 
other feature which may distinguish his stan- 
dards of perfection. We are not now going 
into the merits of these standards, nor are we 
inclined to show for our present purpose 
whether they are good or bad ; it is only 
necessary to show that the author published 
certain original ideas, that he either sold them 
to some one else, whose copyrights they 
became, or retained the copyright himself, it 
matters not which ; no man has a right to 
publish his standard of perfection, either in 
his own words or garbled and distorted in 
language. In equity the standards themselves 
are the copyright, and not the words in which 
such standards are described. But suppose it 
otherwise, is there no moral obligation that 
should restrain a society or an individual from 
either doing or countenancing any such act ? 
Is there not a positive obligation, equally 
binding, both upon societies and individuals, to 
abstain altogether from any act that inflicts 
injury upon another ? We think there is, 
and it is upon this conviction that we intro- 
duce the subject, and we hope by giving as 
briefly as possible an outline of these stan- 
dards, as defined by Mr. Glenny in 1832, we 
shall, by making the public acquainted with 
their origin, put a stop to further piracy, and 
do the author no injustice: we therefore add 
an abbreviation of — 
glenny's properties of flowers and 
PLANTS. 
The Auricula. — The pips round, flat, and 
smooth edged: the edging, the colour, and 
the eye the same width ; tube small, and 
bright yellow, filled with the pollen or thrum ; 
the paste of the eye smooth, even, and perfectly 
white and round ; truss not less than seven 
pips, edge to edge, and forming a globular 
surface. The truss leaves to form a green 
back ground ; the stem stiff', not less than six 
inches long, nor more than nine. When pairs 
or collections are shown, they should be of the 
same heights and different colours. 
The Polyanthus. — The edge should be 
scolloped, but not deeply ; the pips, in other 
respects, circular: the yellow eye perfectly 
round, the tube well filled with thrum. The 
centre of all the divisions of the pips similar 
to the side, the lacing to go down it to the 
eye, and down the sides of where they divide ; 
lacing the same width all over, and the same 
colour as the eye ; truss not less than seven 
pips, which should touch at the edges, but not 
overlap, forming a rounding surface. 
The Tulip. — From one third to one half a 
hollow globe, when expanded properly ; edge 
smooth and even, petals thick, marking un- 
broken round the exposed edges of the petals, 
when expanded, but not to be edged more than 
half way down the petal ; all six petals alike ; 
colours well defined, and the base of the petals, 
forming the bottom of the cup, must be free 
from the slightest stain ; the white or yellow, 
or any shade between them, must be pure, 
and all alike ; the stem straight and stiff, from 
18 inches to 3 feet in length. 
The Hyacinth. — The pips round in out- 
line, and also on the face, close together, with 
good stiff footstalks, standing well out from 
