NINETEENTH CENTURY 
283 
Attendant Nymphs her dulcet mandates hear, 
And nurse in fostering arms the tender year ; 
Plant the young bulb, inhume the living seed. 
Prop the weak stem, the erring tendril lead ; 
Or fan in glass-built fanes the stranger flowers, 
With milder gales, and steep with warmer showers. 
Delighted Thames through tropic umbrage glides, 
And flowers antarctic, bending o’er his tides ; 
Drinks the new tints, the sweets unknown inhales, 
And calls the sons of Science to his vales.” 
The importance of Kew gradually increased under the manage¬ 
ment of William Aiton. This able gardener was born in 1731, 
and obtained the appointment of Botanical Superintendent 
at Kew through the influence of Philip Miller. He brought 
out a catalogue of the plants grown at Kew in 1789. To each 
plant Aiton added the native habitat, and the date of intro¬ 
duction, and records, from his own recollection, those that 
were grown by Philip Miller at Chelsea. He identified those 
introduced by Peter Collinson with the help of his son Michael; 
while James Lee, of Hammersmith, and Knowlton, who had 
been gardener to James Sherard, also gave him what information 
they could. The plants are arranged on the Linnsean system, 
and include between five and six thousand species, this number 
being raised to eleven thousand in the second edition, published 
by the younger Aiton in 1810-1813, to which Dryander and 
R. Brown largely contributed. William Aiton died in 1793, and 
was succeeded by his son, William Townsend Aiton. In 1802 
the garden which had belonged to Kew House was joined to 
what was known as the Royal Garden at Richmond, which lay 
to the West, and various other alterations were carried out by 
Sir William Chambers, the designer of the “ Pagoda.'' Kent 
did some of the laying-out, and Kew did not escape the hands 
of “ Capability Brown." In 1841 a portion was first opened 
to the public, though only 15 out of the 75 acres ; the 
rest remained as a “ wilderness," and was used as a game 
preserve by the King of Hanover until 1850. By the end of 
the century the gardens covered 400 acres, and instead of 
attracting some nine thousand visitors a year, more than a 
hundred times that number annually flocked thither. Under 
the directorships of Sir William Hooker, Sir Joseph Hooker, 
and Sir William Thiselton-Dyer, Kew has ever been rising 
