208 
i the million who can afford a shilling to see good gar- 
i dening in all its departments—to say nothing of the 
j other arts—the Crystal Palace is about to he established, 
j To use the phrase of the most energetic of its friends, 
j “ It will be an illustration of The Cottage Gardener.” 
j Any one, without asking any other one's leave, may 
enter the grounds, see growing the plant of which he has 
I read, and may then and there judge for himself of its 
| habit, its culture, and the soil in which it will flourish. 
Within the three hundred acres which have been pur¬ 
chased, including the Annerley Arms, and other local¬ 
ities which might have led to a transgression of the 
rule against the use of intoxicating liquors in the 
gardens, will be found illustrations of some of the best 
| features of landscape, border, and shrubbery gardening; 
whilst within its glass structures will be all that can be 
effected in the stove, greenhouse, and conservatory. To 
the last, especially, on a most gigantic scale, will atten¬ 
tion be paid, so that even in the depth of winter there 
will be a vast garden under glass, entirely without that 
dangerous, and at all seasons oppressive, heat which 
renders the Palm-house at Kew a place of punishment 
as well as of pleasure. 
At one time we felt regret that the Crystal Palace was 
not established in the vicinity of Chiswick, not so much 
because we thought it might have stimulated the Horti¬ 
cultural Society into better gardening, but because we 
thought that it would there best secure those two desir¬ 
able circumstances—powerful patronage and easy access. 
Narrowly did the Crystal Palace escape being there 
located. Parties who could and would at once have 
placed it there, were only one day too late in coming 
forward as its purchasers; and even after it had passed 
into the hands of the present possessors, tempting offers 
came to them from Chiswick and from the South 
Western Railway, to induce them to change the locality 
to that aristocratic neighbourhood. Further considera¬ 
tion, however, had convinced the purchasers that Syden¬ 
ham was to be preferred, for that, whilst it would be 
equally easy of access as Chiswick to all, it would be 
more easy of access to its best patrons—the majority of 
the people. “ Sydenham,” says one of its ablest friends, 
“ combines pure air and beautiful scenery, with maximum 
accessibility. It is within fifteen minutes of the London 
Bridge Terminus, through which 6,000,000 of suburban 
passengers already pass annually.” “ There were per¬ 
sons connected with the Great Exhibition who predicted, 
only a week before it opened, that the maximum traffic 
would be 3000 per day—the actual average was 43,000. 
Mr. Fuller predicted a receipt of £500,000, and the 
actual receipt was £506,000. The same authority esti¬ 
mates the return of the Crystal Palace Company at 30 
per cent., and that Brighton shares will go up to 120. 
No doubt this is but a guess, but who so competent to 
guess as he who before guessed right ? ” 
We have nothing to do—nothing to influence us—in 
the jousting which is now proceeding as to whether the 
Brighton Railway shareholders should bestir themselves 
! an ^ sanction an outlay to prosper such an undertaking. 
One “ John Small,” either with ideas equivalent to his 
July 1. 
assumed name, or with cunning equally deserving of it, 
has opposed the employment of that effort and outlay ; 
but we cannot think that the shareholders will be misled 
by his “ cautions,” since we are told that the South 
Western Railway offered some tens of thousands of 
pounds to have the Crystal Palaco located on their 
line, and that the secretary of this railway corrected 
the proofs of the pamphlet! So far as we are per¬ 
sonally concerned, wo should prefer having it on the 
South-Western line, but for the sake of the “mil¬ 
lion,” we throw in our vote in favour of Sydenham; 
and the more readily, because we would have no im¬ 
pediment placed in the way of Francis Fuller, Esq., 
and those other energetic gentlemen who have made 
such progress in its establishment, and whose judgment 
and power is evidenced by their having “raised £500,000 
to perpetuate it in all its glory, and secured the names 
of Paxton, Fox, Wyatt, and Owen Jones, to the back of 
the bill which they have drawn upon public confidence, 
as a guarantee that the large amount raised shall be 
well spent, and the national undertaking nobly carried 
out.” 
FORSYTH MSS. 
Balloon ascents are now so common that it is rather 
extraordinary if one or more of the certainly-not-wise 
men who thus fruitlessly jeopardize their lives are not 
dashed to pieces during each year. There was a time, 
however, some three-quarters of a century since, when 
it was an occurrence deemed so incredible for any one 
to travel through the air, that, as a contemporary wrote, 
“ The multitude scarcely believed that a man 
With his senses about him could form such a plan; 
And thought that as Bedlam was so very nigh, 
• You had better been there than turned loose in the sky.” 
The travelling among the clouds to which these lines 
allude, was that of Vincent Lunardi, in 1784. Of this 
he published a narrative in that year, entitled, An 
account of the first aerial voyage in Britain, in a series 
of letters to his guardian, the Chevalier Glierardo Com- 
pagni. 
The balloon descended in a field near Colliers End, 
in the parish of Standon, Herts, on the left of the high 
road from London to Cambridge, where is a stone, 
bearing on a copper-plate an inscription, of which the 
following is a portion— 
“Let posterity know, and knowing be astonished, that on 
the 15th of September, 1784, Vincent Lunardi, of Lucca, in 
Tuscany, the first aerial traveller in Britain, mounting from 
the Artillery ground in London, traversing the regions of 
the air for two hours and fifteen minutes, on this spot 
revisited the earth.” 
Mr. Baker, then a neighbouring magistrate, residing 
at Bayfordbury, caused this monument to be erected, 
and actually took depositions on oath of those who 
witnessed Lunardi’s descent. 
The following letter, headed “ Bayfordbury, Mr. 
Baker’s,” is among the Forsyth MSS., and, although 
without a date, evidently states particulars of this 
voyage. Lunardi, at the time, was secretary here to the 
Neapolitan Legation. He died of a decline, on the 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
