
          Misc. MFW.

Justice, James (d.1762 or 1763 )

Considerable personal information about Justice is found
in Johnson, Hist. Eng. Gard. (1829), p.206, and he is noted
in Britten & Boulger, Biog. Index (1931), p.170, whence it
appears that the title "Sir" in the "Calendar" of 1759, is
probably without grounds, as Britten & Boulger, who are extremely 
punctilious about titles, do not use it. Justice
was Clerk to the Sessions in Edinburgh, who on his retirement 
devoted himself to gardening and particularly to the
culture of flowers, to such good purpose that Haller, Bib.
Bot. 2:440, commends his book for its wisdom and accuracy.
Johnson says he died in 1762 or 1763, which is borne out
by the "Advertisement" of "The British gardener's director"
(Edinburgh, 1764), which is dated Edinburgh, September 1763,
and says: "His death has deprived the world of the fruit of
his after-labours, which his memorandums and notes left behind 
him give us room to think he intended, in proper time,
to have laid before the public".
The same "Advertisement" states that "The first edition
of this book appeared under the title of the Scots gardener's 
director", which title, it is said, the author thought
fit to change, as the book was equally adapted to northern
England as well as Scotland.
The first edition, "The Scot's gardiner's director, by a
gentleman" (1754), evidently does not have the author's name
in the title, as the Cat. Lib. Roy. Agr. Soc. (1918), p.173,
adds the note that the dedication is signed J. Justice. The
same is probably true of the 2d ed., 1759, a copy of which
was quoted in a letter of C. F. Swingle, Jan. 1928, without
the author's name. The name appears, however, in "The British 
gardener's calendar" of 1759.
This "Calendar" (1759), which Johnson regards as an edition 
of the "Director", but very different from the others,
seems to me an independent work. Some of the arguments are:
(1) it is the only work by Justice that calls itself a calendar, 
altho in other respects its title is very similar to
those of the "Directors" of 1764 and 1765; the fact that a
2d ed. of the "Director" was also issued in the year 1759
may easily have given rise to the idea that the "Calendar"
was identical with it; (2) the inclusion of the author's
name in its title, which was evidently omitted from that
of the "Director" issued the same year; (3) "the author's
preface, giving his apology for compiling a calendar, and
alluding to "Eden", i.e. the work of that title compiled
by John Hill, published in 1757, considerably later than
the original edition of "The Scot's gardiner's director."
        