NATURE NOTES. 
2 i6 
been the great ecclesiastic’s favourite flower ; so early as 1827 he 
made it the subject of a poem — “a riddle for a flower book,” he 
called it — in which he embodied the same idea to which he refers 
in his later prose. “ There used to be much snapdragon growing 
on the walls opposite my freshman’s rooms, and I had for years 
taken it as the emblem of my own perpetual residence, even unto 
death, in my University.” So Canon Ellacombe cites, and the 
verses we have mentioned end 
“ then well might I 
In college cloister live and die.” 
A misprint of “ wallflowers ” for “ wall flowers ” led us to 
think that the Canon identified Tennyson’s “Flower in the 
crannied wall ” with the Cheiranthns, but the context shows that 
this is not the case. If we refer to another misprint, “ Thring” 
for “ Tring” (p. 276), it is that we may assure the writer that 
the “ beautiful hillside studded with Pulsatilla ” is by no means 
“ a thing of the past ; ” the pasque-flower still flourishes there, 
extending almost up to, but not across, the boundary between 
Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire. “ MeiAesii ” (p. 28^) is a 
curious slip for “ Menziesii,” and we are afraid that Canon 
Ellacombe places credence in the genuineness of T. F. Forster’s 
spurious antique, judging from his citation of this as evidence of 
the connection of the clematis with the Feast of the Assumption, 
for which connection there is, we believe, no other authority. 
But Mr. Alfred Austin calls us into “ Veronica’s Garden,” and 
thither we must accompany him. We have been there before,* 
and are not quite sure that we want to return just yet. There 
is much that is charming in the book, notably the author’s verses, 
some of which take rank with his best ; but we get a little tired 
of the highly refined people whom we meet, who become some- 
what wearisome on closer acquaintance. And we have a 
suspicion that Mr. Austin does not know quite so much about 
gardens as at first appeared ; certainly his knowledge cannot be 
compared with that of Canon Ellacombe or “ E. V. B.” The 
typography of his names is wanting in uniformity ; here on two 
opposite pages (102-3) have Centaurea candidissima “lobelia 
cardinalis,” and “ Bartonia Aurea.” And why should the 
Lupines and the Mallows be capitalized, while the pelargoniums 
and snapdragons have small beginnings? In mis-spelling 
“ Fuschia,” Mr. Austin has many companions ; folk would avoid 
this if they remembered that it commemorates Leonhard Fuchs. 
Still there are delightful passages in the book. Who that 
has travelled has not experienced the home feeling which fills 
the traveller when he is hurried through Kent on his return 
from “ abroad,” and which l\Ir. Austin so well expresses : — 
“ Fresh from [Italy] as I am, I gazed this afternoon, as I was borne swiftly 
homewards, on our fresh green English copses, on an English pasture with their 
See Nature Notes, 1894, p. 130. 
