324 
THE LADY S COUNTRY COMPANION. 
know, but which;, we will engage, contains also 
a good deal that they do not know, and might 
have gone on improving for years and still 
not know. Those who are, and there may 
be such, already well-experienced in the cul- 
tivation of this beautiful family of exotics, 
will, perhaps, consider the thousands who are 
not so wise in their vocation, and who will 
seek with avidity for all that can be learned 
upon a subject of, what may be fairly called, 
modern introduction, but which seems, by its 
magnificent and extraordinary flowers, to be 
usurping the places of many previously fa- 
vourite Stove-plants. 
THE LADY'S .COUNTRY COMPANION.* 
Mrs. Loudon is following the example of 
industry so ably set by her late husband; and, 
in addition to her numerous works on Garden- 
ing, in its varied forms, we have now a 
thorough domestic volume, including advice 
and instruction in all the duties and recrea- 
tions of a country gentlewoman. These are 
arranged in a series of letters to a young 
friend about to be married, when they com- 
mence, and of these letters many are easy, 
natural, unstudied, and interesting. The first 
is a mere introduction, in which the authoress, 
like a good counsel, states the case, which is 
simply that, as her friend is going to be 
married to a country gentleman, she ought to 
learn how to enjoy a country life, and that 
the authoress is about to teach her, Mrs. 
Loudon, exemplifying in her own person and 
books — a conclusion to which most rational 
men have arrived — that the best instructor of 
females is woman ; and especially when the 
instructions are founded on what the teacher 
has experienced. And well does the authoress 
prepare her pupil (no ideal person) for the 
reception of her lessons, by mentioning the 
difficulties encountered in early life, under 
somewhat similar circumstances, — 
" I was then," says Mrs. Loudon, "young 
and thoughtless; I had no sisters; and having, 
like you, been brought up in a town, I had 
no ideas of the country but as a place where 
eggs, cream, and fruit were in abundance ; 
where I might keep as much poultry as I 
liked ; and where there were shady lanes, and 
green fields abounding with pretty flowers. 
" The place we went to live at had a good 
house, commanding a splendid view; an excel- 
lent garden; three fish-ponds, and about thirty 
acres of grass land, which enabled us to keep 
cows and horses, without troubling us with 
any of the laborious duties of cultivating 
arable land. 
* The Lady's Country Companion; or, How to 
Enjoy a Country Life Rationally. By Mrs. Loudon. 
London : Longman and Co. 
" At first I was enchanted with the change. 
1 was never tired of feeding my poultry 
watching the dairy-maid, and managing the 
fruit and flowers ; but, alas ! I soon found 
that there are few roses without thorns. My 
first trouble was three gentlemen calling on 
us one day unexpectedly, and my father ask- 
ing them to stay dinner. We were seven 
miles from the town where Ave had formerly 
lived ; and, though there was a small town 
within two miles of us, the road was bad, and 
the miles very long ones ; while the town 
itself, when we reached it, was one of those 
provoking places the shopkeepers of which 
never have what is wanted, though they 
always say they had abundance of the re- 
quired article the week before, and believe 
they shall have it again the week after. I 
need not enter into the details of my troubles 
in preparing for this well-remembered dinner. 
Meat was out of the question ; and though I 
was enabled, by having recourse to the 
poultry-yard and the dovecot, to give my 
father's friends enough to eat, no one but a 
young housekeeper in a similar situation can 
have any idea of what I suffered. The lesson, 
however, was not lost upon me ; and you 
may easily imagine that ever afterwards I 
took care to have a cooked piece of hung 
beef, or ham, or some similar substantial 
article of food in the house, that I might be 
provided for a similar occurrence. 
"The recollection of what I underwent 
while buying my experience makes me 
anxious to spare you, my dear Annie, the 
pain of a similar ordeal ; particularly as it is 
more disagreeable for a young newly-married 
woman to feel in housekeeping difficulties 
than a single one ; as it makes you fear your 
husband had a higher opinion of you than 
you deserve. In your situation the difficult}' 
is increased by your husband not having 
lived at the Manor- House since the death of 
his parents, when he was only ten years old ; 
so that he can have no idea of the petty trou- 
bles you will be exposed to. Under these 
circumstances I will do my best to clear the 
path that lies before you, and to teach you 
how to enjoy rationally a country life." 
The authoress first sets about advising an 
alteration in the house and grounds, and how 
to set about it. This we will not enter into 
further, than to observe, that the sketches of 
" The Manor-House," as it was, and as it is, 
give some evidence of taste. The work is 
interspersed with numerous recipes ; and we 
stop at page 27 to quote one that must in- 
terest every lover of cut flowers. The experi- 
ment may be tried at home first, because, if 
an exhibitor were to apply it to the flowers 
he is going to exhibit, he might find, like a 
Cambridge friend of ours, that his flowers 
