FLOWERS AND PLANTS. 
105 
examined to see that they have not been dis- 
turbed, and they must be set to rights. 
Vines should be looked to, and nailed fast 
to walls, and if any pruning has been neg- 
lected no time must be lost. 
Wall-fruit Trees are by many persons 
protected by bunting or matting, but of late 
the transparent cloth, which does not exclude 
light, has the advantage of both. We, how- 
ever, do not care to protect them at all. We 
have fancied many times that there is as much 
harm as good. 
Look well to last month's directions, and do 
whatever is undone. 
THE FLOWERS AND PLANTS OF 
SCRIPTURE 
* 
The perusal of a work entitled a Scripture 
Herbal, by Maria Calcot, has so charmed us, 
that with twenty reserved points on which 
we differ from the authoress, we have to thank 
her for a volume of instruction; and while we 
regret she is no more, we admit that the fact 
of her producing such a book during a period 
of sickness, and so shortly before her death, 
attaches to the work an interest which we 
cannot describe. There is an air of charity, 
a halo of honesty, a voice of piety in every 
page. The very introduction is an acknow- 
ledgment of the obligations under which the 
author feels she labours, so different to all 
other persons in her situation, that many must 
blush at the rebuke it carries with it to those 
who appropriate without such plain avowals: 
there is an apparent dread of taking credit 
for anything belonging to another. Among 
a long catalogue of thanks to different indivi- 
duals, and acknowledgments to books, the 
writer expresses her gratitude to Robert 
Brown, Esq., for his advice and assistance in 
procuring her the use of the Hierobotanicum 
of Celsius, and in a note, almost prophetic, 
she says : — " It may seem vain-glorious thus 
publicly to boast of the friendship of this 
great botanist, who, by the universal voice of 
the naturalists on the continent of Europe, 
has received the title of Princeps Botani- 
corum, a title hitherto bestowed only on 
Linnaeus. But I shall soon be beyond the 
power of expressing gratitude in this world, 
and I am willing, with what breath I have, to 
thank him, and to express a regard that has 
lasted long and can only end with life. His 
friend, Mr. Bennet, has also done much for 
me, and must receive my thanks here for all 
his trouble." The entire Introduction, indeed, 
is a series of favourable notices of individuals 
who have aided the study of Scripture botany, 
travellers as well as authors, and of ackuow- 
* A Scripture Herbal. By Maria Calcott. London: 
Longman and Co. 1812. 
ledgments of assistance derived from their 
exertions and works in the completion of the 
present volume. The work is illustrated with 
a number of freely sketched and well-executed 
portraits of plants, and the author has carried 
her modest refusal to wear honours not strictly 
belonging to her to the extent of acknow- 
ledging the source of every engraving; some 
she had copied from works, every one of 
wdiich is named, others from nature, as she 
observes in one of the passages of the Intro- 
duction: — "I must now say something of the 
wood-cuts which head the descriptions of the 
plants; the collecting the figures and draw- 
ing them on the wood blocks, as it was a 
work of labour, so it was a labour of love. 
The authorities whence they are taken will 
be found in the Index to the cuts; and the 
great solace I have derived from the drawing 
of them, confined as I am to a sick-bed, makes 
up for whatever pain there might be in ac- 
knowledging that the faults are entirely my 
own, since my lines were most carefully and 
accurately followed, &c." Thus we observe, 
that throughout the work there is nothing 
appropriated without full credit being given 
to the source whence it was derived, a kind 
of honesty rather scarce in authors. The 
work comprises, as will be anticipated, a cata- 
logue of all the plants mentioned in the Holy 
Scriptures; nearly all the descriptions, with 
appropriate remarks on the texts which allude 
to them, are preceded by an engraving of 
some portion of the plant: they are, for the 
most part, very accurate. There is, of course, 
some speculation, some conjecture, some dis- 
putation, but all offered with a modesty not 
common in authors. Indeed, all writers upon 
the subject are lavish of their opinions, and 
seem to fancy, and a silly fancy it is, that 
they show their learning and research by specu- 
lative contradictions, and occasional inven- 
tions: many mistake their quality altogether. 
They are exercising cunning, not showing 
sound acquirements; there is a display of 
ingenuity rather than knowledge. However, 
we will quote portions of our author's remarks 
on a familiar subject, and one frequently met 
with in both Old and New Testament : — 
" Among the fruits brought by the Israelite 
spies to their brethren in the Desert, to prove 
the goodness of the promised land, were Figs. 
Yet the very next time they are mentioned, 
it is by the rebellious people, who murmured 
against Moses for bringing them to the Desert, 
which ' is no land of Figs.' 
" In Deuteronomy, Moses introduces the 
Fig, when enumerating the riches of their 
new home, in his farewell exhortation to the 
people whom he had so long led and governed; 
and, throughout the Bible, the Fig is generally 
named as a mark of fruitfulness. In the 
