The poet stood in the sombre town, And spoke to his heart and said:

'0 weary prison, devised by man ! 0 seasonless place and dead !'

His heart was sad, for afar he heard The sound of the spring's light tread.

He thought he saw in the pearly East

The pale March sun arise; The happy housewife beneath the thatch,

With hand above her eyes, Look out to the cawing rooks, that built

So near to the quiet skies.

Out of the smoke and noise and sin

The heart of the poet cried: '0 God I but to be Thy labourer there,

On the gentle hill's green side-To leave the struggle of want and wealth,

And the battle of lust and pride !'

He bent his ear, and he heard afar

The growing of tender things, And his heart broke forth with the travailing earth,

And shook with tremulous wings Of sweet brown birds that had never known

The dirge of the city's sins.

And later, when all the earth was green

As the garden of the Lord-Primroses opening their innocent faces,

Cowslips scattered abroad, Blue-bells mimicking summer skies,

And the song of the thrush out-pouredThe changeless days were so sad to him

That the poet's heart beat strong, And he struggled as some poor caged lark,

And he cried,' How long-how long ? I have missed a spring I can never see,

And the singing of birds is gone.'

But when the time of the roses came

And the nightingale hushed her lay, The poet, still in the dusty town,

Went quietly on his way-A poorer poet by just one spring,

And a richer man by one suffering.

I must begin to tell you about my old garden books, and how I first came to know about them, and then to collect them. Until lately I was absolutely ignorant of their existence, and had never seen an illustrated flower book of the last century. About fifteen years ago I was living in London, with apparently small prospect of ever living in the country again, or of ever possessing a garden of my own. When 'A Year in a Lancashire Garden,' by Henry A. Bright, was published in 1879, the book charmed me, and I thought it simple, unaffected, and original. I had not then seen Dr. Forbes Watson's delightful little book, 'Flowers and Gardens,' alluded to by Henry Bright. 'A Year in a Lancashire Garden' has been much imitated, but, to my mind, none of the imitations possess the charm of the original. It is a fascinating chat about a garden to read in a town and dream over as I did. It revived in me, almost to longing, the old wish to have a garden, and I resolved, if it were ever realised, that every plant named by Henry Bright I would get and try to grow. This I literally carried out when I came to live in Surrey. His joys have been my joys, and his failures have sometimes been mine too. In the 'Lancashire Garden' I was delighted to find a sentence which exactly expresses an opinion I had long held, but never met with in words before. As I agree with it even more strongly now than I did then, it is well I should quote it here, for the evil it denounces exists still, not only in England, but even more in several countries I have visited abroad: 'For the ordinary bedding-out of ordinary gardens I have a real contempt. It is at once gaudy and monotonous. A garden is left bare for eight months in the year, that for the four hottest months there shall be a blaze of the hottest colours. The same combination of the same flowers appear wherever you go-Calceolarias, Verbenas, and Zonal Pelargoniums, with a border of Pyrethrums or Cerastiums; and that is about all. There is no thought and no imagination.' Yet twenty years ago this sort of garden was like Tory politics, or Church and State, and seemed to represent all that was considered respectable and desirable. I shall never forget the bombshell I seemed to fling into a family circle when I injudiciously and vehemently said that I hated parks and bedded-out gardens.

In Mr. Bright's book I first saw the mention of Curtis's 'Botanical Magazine,' and afterwards came across a few stray illustrations out of it. Many of these old gardening books were, I fear, cut up and sold for screens and scrap-books when there was no sale for the complete works. I was much struck with the beauty and delicacy of these hand-coloured flower plates, and so began my first interest in old flower books, which has led by degrees to my present collection. At one time I thought of giving some account of the Herbals and botanical works at the library of the South Kensington Natural History Museum, where there is a very fine collection, which begins with the early Herbals and includes botany and gardening books. This, however, proved to be too ambitious a work; but a short account of my own books may be of some interest, for these, though far from being a large collection, extend over nearly three hundred years. The knowledge of the very existence of these beautifully illustrated Herbals and old gardening books is even now limited, though they are within reach of everybody at the Natural History Museum. Probably the reason why these books so suddenly fell out of all knowledge is owing to the letterpress, which is often in Latin, having, for one reason or another, become obsolete. No one now consults Herbals medically, or goes to old books for botanical instruction.

I will arrange the account of my books in chronological order, according to the date of their publication:1614. 'Hortus Floridus, by Rembertus Dodonaeus and Carolus Clusius.' This is the earliest gardening book I possess. It was printed in Amsterdam, and is a real representation of cultivated garden flowers, not a Herbal in any sense. It has a frontispiece with the portraits of the two authors, which was common enough in the old Dutch books of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Jupiter and Diana are represented on either side of the page, with wreaths of flowers hung along the top, and plants growing in pots placed at the bottom. The title of the book is in the centre. The plates are not coloured, but the flowers are very well drawn. There are two charming pictures of Dutch gardens surrounded by an arched wall with creepers, straight paths, and beds edged with box. In one a woman is gathering Tulips, dressed in the quaint fashion of the period, and a man is leaning over a wooden or stone railing looking at her. The number and variety of exotic flowers figured in the book is surprising. Besides all the ordinary spring bulbs which are now grown, there are Sunflowers, called Indian Golden Suns (Helianthuses, of course, all came from America), Cannas, Marvels of Peru (called Merveille d'Inde d diverses coulettrs), Nicotiana, etc. Insects are introduced on several of the plates, and in one or two instances mice are feeding on the bulbs which lie on the ground. The African Agapanthus is called Narcissus marinus exoticus. Both the Hellebores are here, and all the flowers are so well drawn as to be perfectly recognisable. The book is an oblong shape, bound in unstiffened white parchment. It is well preserved, though some Philistine lady of the last century has, with patient industry, pricked some of the flowers and insects all round for the purpose of taking the outlines for needlework. The book historically is certainly interesting. The text is in Latin, but even the unlearned reader is able to realise how horticulturally perfect may have been the gardens of Europe where Louis XIII. of France played as a child, and the number and richness of the flowers which our Prince Charles of Wales (his future brother-in-law) may have gazed at from his palace windows or enjoyed when gathered. This, perhaps, helped to nourish the great taste for art which Charles I., more than all our other kings, developed later in life.