12 
dictates her study ; and our gardens and conservato- 
ries would shine conspicuously by the harmonious 
blending of true species with curious and costly va- 
rieties. ‘Che perfection of her works is lost in the 
mutilations of art. We can admire a fine column, 
cr gaze with just admiration on a splendid edifice ; 
but even these shrink in comparison, and cannot bear 
the test of her unrivalled skill. If we carry our op- 
erations into her precincts, we cannot improve, we 
must mar. 
But, while thus advocating a more general intro- 
duction and cultivation of species, it would be equal- 
ly wrong, as presumptous, to deny, altogether, the 
merits of horticultural skill, in the production of hy- 
brids, or varieties. For splendid ornament, a group of 
many-petalled flowers is, indeed, more gaudily attrac- 
tive, for its borrowed excellence. than the simple pro- 
totype of a genus; and, undoubtedly, could he,* 
whose name is borne down to posterity by a single 
but universal favorite flower, witness the wonderful 
changes which have taken place in its organization, 
now bearing the envious title of some peerless beauty 
or mighty conqueror, he would scarcely recognize the 
unpretending inhabitant of a Mexican clime. ‘The 
modest violet is still now, as ever, attractive in its 
meek humility ; and the first vernal harbinger, with 
the last lingering blessoms of a fading year, are and 
ever will be of more intense interest in their native, 
unadorned simplicity, as monitors or promisers of 
what has past or is to come. 
Botany is not, however, by any means confined to 
rt pit Ne — 

* Dahl. 
