THE END.
FOOTNOTES.
[[001]] Some of the finest Florists flowers have been reared by the mechanics of Norwich and Manchester and by the Spitalfield's weavers. The pitmen in the counties of Durham and Northumberland reside in long rows of small houses, to each of which is attached a little garden, which they cultivate with such care and success, that they frequently bear away the prize at Floral Exhibitions.
[[002]] Of Rail-Road travelling the reality is quite different from the idea that descriptions of it had left upon my mind. Unpoetical as this sort of transit may seem to some minds, I confess I find it excite and satisfy the imagination. The wondrous speed--the quick change of scene-- the perfect comfort--the life-like character of the power in motion, the invisible, and mysterious, and mighty steam horse, urged, and guided, and checked by the hand of Science--the cautionary, long, shrill whistle--the beautiful grey vapor, the breath of the unseen animal, floating over the fields by which we pass, sometimes hanging stationary for a moment in the air, and then melting away like a vision--furnish sufficiently congenial amusement for a period-minded observer.
[[003]] "That which peculiarly distinguishes the gardens of England," says Repton, "is the beauty of English verdure: the grass of the mown lawn, uniting with, the grass of the adjoining pastures, and presenting that permanent verdure which is the natural consequence of our soft and humid clime, but unknown to the cold region of the North or the parching temperature of the South. This it is impossible to enjoy in Portugal where it would be as practicable to cover the general surface with the snow of Lapland as with the verdure of England." It is much the same in France. "There is everywhere in France," says Loudon, "a want of close green turf, of ever-green bushes and of good adhesive gravel." Some French admirers of English gardens do their best to imitate our lawns, and it is said that they sometimes partially succeed with English grass seed, rich manure, and constant irrigation. In Bengal there is a very beautiful species of grass called Doob grass, (Panicum Dactylon,) but it only flourishes on wide and exposed plains with few trees on them, and on the sides of public roads, Shakespeare makes Falstaff say that "the camomile the more it is trodden on the faster it grows" and, this is the case with the Doob grass. The attempt to produce a permanent Doob grass lawn is quite idle unless the ground is extensive and open, and much trodden by men or sheep. A friend of mine tells me that he covered a large lawn of the coarse Ooloo grass (Saccharum cylindricum) with mats, which soon killed it, and on removing the mats, the finest Doob grass sprang up in its place. But the Ooloo grass soon again over-grew the Doob.
[[004]] I allude here chiefly to the ryots of wealthy Zemindars and to other poor Hindu people in the service of their own countrymen. All the subjects of the British Crown, even in India, are politically free, but individually the poorer Hindus, (especially those who reside at a distance from large towns,) are unconscious of their rights, and even the wealthier classes have rarely indeed that proud and noble feeling of personal independence which characterizes people of all classes and conditions in England. The feeling with which even a Hindu of wealth and rank approaches a man in power is very different indeed from that of the poorest Englishman under similar circumstances. But national education will soon communicate to the natives of India a larger measure of true self-respect. It will not be long, I hope, before the Hindus will understand our favorite maxim of English law, that "Every man's house is his castle,"--a maxim so finely amplified by Lord Chatham: "The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the forces of the Crown. It may be frail--its roof may shake--the wind may blow through it--the storm may enter--but the king of England cannot enter!--all his force dares not cross the threshold of the ruined tenement."
[[005]] Literary Recreations.
[[006]] I have in some moods preferred the paintings of our own Gainsborough even to those of Claude--and for this single reason, that the former gives a peculiar and more touching interest to his landscapes by the introduction of sweet groups of children. These lovely little figures are moreover so thoroughly English, and have such an out-of- doors air, and seem so much a part of external nature, that an Englishman who is a lover of rural scenery and a patriot, can hardly fail to be enchanted with the style of his celebrated countryman.--Literary Recreations.
[[007]] Had Evelyn only composed the great work of his 'Sylva, or a Discourse of Forest Trees,' &c. his name would have excited the gratitude of posterity. The voice of the patriot exults in his dedication to Charles II, prefixed to one of the later editions:--'I need not acquaint your Majesty, how many millions of timber-trees, besides infinite others, have been propagated and planted throughout your vast dominions, at the instigation and by the sole direction of this work, because your Majesty has been pleased to own it publicly for my encouragement.' And surely while Britain retains her awful situation among the nations of Europe, the 'Sylva' of Evelyn will endure with her triumphant oaks. It was a retired philosopher who aroused the genius of the nation, and who casting a prophetic eye towards the age in which we live, has contributed to secure our sovereignty of the seas. The present navy of Great Britain has been constructed with the oaks which the genius of Evelyn planted.--D'Israeli's Curiosities of Literature.
[[008]] Crisped knots are figures curled or twisted, or having waving lines intersecting each other. They are sometimes planted in box. Children, even in these days, indulge their fancy in sowing mustard and cress, &c. in 'curious knots,' or in favorite names and sentences. I have done it myself, "I know not how oft,"--and alas, how long ago! But I still remember with what anxiety I watered and watched the ground, and with what rapture I at last saw the surface gradually rising and breaking on the light green heads of the delicate little new-born plants, all exactly in their proper lines or stations, like a well- drilled Lilliputian battalion.