the African tribes, untouched. It is the key to the negro character, which is difficult to learn from mere experience. Those who are not accustomed to them have great trouble and difficulty in managing negroes; and in consequence thereof treat them badly. If their ethnology was better and more generally understood, their value would be greatly increased, and their condition, as a laboring class, would be more enviable, compared to the European peasants, than it already is. ART. V.-GARDENING.* Ir is said that a Chinese map of the world is covered with China. How delightful the idea of unfolding one covered with a garden! And is it not possible for man, in gratitude to that being who has made all nature "beauty to his eye,' to realize this charming illusion, so that "every drop of rain which cometh from heaven and watereth the earth, shall make it bring forth and bud?" The Lord himself planted the first garden, and appointed Adam to dress and to keep it, as an employment meet for the purity and perfection in which he was created. Amidst the blossoms of Eden, and under the shade of its bowers, did woman receive the breath of life, full of joy and fragrance. Such an abode was deemed worthy of the few innocent days of yet unfallen man, and the first fruits of his disobedience was to be forever banished from its goodly precincts. Milton represents as the first object of Eve's lament, on hearing the sentence pronounced by Michael, those flowers" which she had bred up with her tender hand;" and nothing can be more pathetic than the apostrophe with which she takes her last look of them. Not only as spreading a mantle of beauty over the scenes of industry and cultivation, has a garden ever been the favorite resort of man, and its employments been sought both for duty and relaxation, but the luxuriancy it unfolds, the tranquillity it inspires, the odors it diffuses, the harmony it breathes, the diversity it embraces, the health it promotes, and, above all, its unceasing repetition of hopes and enjoyments, of promises and fulfilments, have made it in all ages the favorite of the poet, and afforded him an exhaustless field of imagery and illustration. Who has not read of the famed gardens of Alcinous, and the golden orchards of the Hesperides? Who, amidst the creations of mythology, has not beheld Dryads and Hamadryads guarding every walk and sporting in every shade? Flora lends her blushes to the blossoms of spring, *By Charles Fraser, of Charleston, South Carolina. EARLY INSPIRATION OF GARDENING. 57 Pomona and Ceres display the golden treasures of autumn, and Faunus receives even the tribute of winter. "Spargit agrestes tibi sylva frondes." The prophets of old culled from a garden many of their most beautiful and striking allusions. The divine object of Isaiah's predictions was figuratively styled a "stem and a branch, and through him it was foretold" that the wilderness should rejoice, and the waste ground should be glad, and flourish as the rose. Solomon, in his prophetic inspirations, addresses the Savior of the world as "the Rose of Sharon,the lily of the valleys, the fountain of the garden;" and again, in all the pomp of Eastern imagery, he describes "his cheeks as a bed of roses, and as sweet flowers;" and so in Ezekiel, "the land that was desolate is become like the garden of Eden." It is remarkable that a garden was the scene of that Savior's last solemn act of devotion, "whither," we are told; "he had oftimes resorted with his disciples." And we know, that conformably to an ancient custom of the Israelites, the sepulchre in which he was laid was also in a garden. This is alluded to on account of the association it necessarily involves, that as a garden was the scene of man's first disobedience, so did it witness his triumph over the grave. "Here mankind fell, and hence they rose again." Now, if many of the pursuits, even of leisure and elegance, in which men are engaged, are the result of discoveries traceable to no very remote period, and recommended to their attention by successive improvements, in which their own ingenuity may perhaps have had a share, with what devoted zeal and unceasing delight ought they to cherish that art whose foundations were laid coevally with creation itself! How ought they to love an occupation endeared and consecrated, as gardening is, by the most solemn and affecting associations! Certain it is, as far as history informs us, that from the earliest ages it has been contemporary with national prosperity and popular refinement, and has always flourished together with other elegant arts, possessing this decided advantage over some of them, that, whilst they have obtained their acmé of improvement, and could advance no further, science is shedding on horticulture the rays of continued and progressive improvement, and encouraging its votaries with a boundless field of research, and daily results of interest and delight. In speaking of the antiquity of the art, as attested by history, we need not go beyond the days of Semiramis, who lived farther in time before the Christian era than we do after it. Amongst the embellishments of Babylon were the celebrated hanging gardens (pensiles horti,) constructed by her at immense expense, perhaps at the price of vanquished kingdoms, and certainly, as we are told, with the labor of an entire population. These were in the style of an amphitheatre, on terraces of successive elevation, accessible by flights of steps and supported by immense arches. On these terraces was a sufficient surface of soils for the roots of the largest trees, which flourished there in all the luxuriancy of their native forests, together with the richest variety of flowers and shrubs. The ancient Egyptians, who advanced the arts of civilized life to a degree of refinement which no one can venture to say has been surpassed or equaled in after times, bestowed great care upon their gardens, planning them upon a scale of great magnificence, and irrigating them with canals and reservoirs to ensure a continual luxuriance in their orchards and vineyards. Clarke, speaking of his passage up the Nile, says, "Upon each side of the river, as far as the eye could survey, were rich fields of corn and rice, with such beautiful groves, seeming to rise out of the watery plains, and to shade innumerable settlements in the Delta, amidst never-ending plantations of melons and all kinds of garden vegetables, that, from the abundance of its produce, Egypt may be deemed the richest country in the world." Their ancient taste for gardens still survives, for Cairo is said to embrace a prodigious number of them, and to be almost embosomed in trees. Hasselquist, a traveler of the last century, speaking of the roses of Egypt, and the water distilled from them, mentions an apothecary at Cairo, who annually purchases one hundred and eighty gallons of it. The poet Martial mentions a present of roses from the Pharian gardens to the Emperor, and those, too, of winter flowering roses. "Ut nova dona tibi Cæsar, Nilotica tellus, The early Romans cultivated their gardens with no other object than to supply them with vegetables and herbs, which induced that expression of Pliny, "ex horto enim plebei macellum;" for to them it was an abundant market, always at hand. Virgil's description of the old Corycian's garden, in his fourth Georgic, although brief, shows that, even in his day, this important object was not neglected; for amongst the roses and lilies, the popies, daffodils and myrtles-onions and cucumbers, parsley and other pot-herbs, were not neglected. But in Virgil's day, it was not only arbores and olera, but aromatic plants, flowers, and evergreens, the myrtle, the ivy, the laurel, and the box, that exhibited the prominent beauties of the garden. We know that agriculture was always considered an honorable employment among the Romans. Many distinguished families took their names from the successful cultivation of particular grains, as Pliny informs us was the case with the Fabii, Lentuli and the Pisones, who were all distinguished husbandmen. The name of Cicero was derived from the vetch, or cicer, cultivated by one of his ancestors. So great was their love for gardening, that the Roman generals, on their return from foreign conquests, particularly in Asia, introduced and naturalized into their orchards and vinyards, many valuable fruits from the countries they had subdued, and of which they were the native product. Cherries were brought from the borders of the Euxine, and varieties of apples from Greece, Syria, and other parts. Pears were brought from Alexandria, and also from Syria-"Syriisve pyris;" peaches from Persia, apricots from Epirus and Armenia, plums from Damascus and Syria, pomegranates from Cyprus and Carthage, and olives and figs from Greece. And we further read, that many of these fruits were distinguished by the names either of those who had introduced or successfully cultivated them. The very Corycian of whom we have spoken, it is said, was brought by Pompey into Italy, from Corycus, a city of Cilicia which he had conquered. All these facts show that the Romans, even amidst the successful career of conquest and victory, did not neglect the "cura colendi," nor, indeed, anything that might promote the glory and happiness of their country. We cannot here forget the story of an orchard of ripe fruit, within the limits of a Romish camp, that was left untouched by the soldiers. Pliny, in his chapter on gardens, speaking of the encroachments of wealth upon the rights of plebeian industry, in monopolising rare herbs and vegetables for its own luxurious. enjoyments, complains of it as inconsistent with the impartial bounty of nature. Adverting to the change, both at Athens and Rome, in the ancient purposes of a garden, which were altogether those of utility, he remarks that it is no longer cultivated for the support of an industrious owner, but had become the ornament of cities, and under the name of Hortus, was converted, as he emphatically says, into "delicias, agros, villasque;" and it is well known that the gardens in and about Rome were adorned with the utmost magnificence. Horace, in one of his Epistles, alludes to the custom of ornamenting their palaces with shady trees: and again,— "Mempe inter varias nutritur silva columnas ;" nemus Inter pulchra situm tecta." Tibullus, in one of his elegies, also alludes to it: "Et nemore in domibus sacros imitantia lucos." Hence, also, that beautiful expression of Martial, which has become so trite from repetition, "Rus in urbe." Indeed, the gardens of Rome have quite a classical character, and are identified with its history and its poetry. Those of Lucullus, Caesar, and Sallust, will live unfading verdure. The poet Martial beautifully describes the garden-like appearance of Rome to a stranger, on his first visit to it: "Urbis ut intravit limina, Sie, quacumque vagus, gressumque oculosque forebat, This fondness of blending the beauty and luxuriancy of nature, with the uniformity and regularity of art, has prevailed in every city where climate and situation have favored it. Man longs, amidst the lines and angles, and the artifical ornaments of even a palace, to behold the unmeasured variety of nature. And it is to that particular taste or propensity, to which Horace so aptly and forcibly applies that well-known obser vation: "Naturam si expellas furca, How proud the distinction, even amongst comparative barbarians, is that attributed to one of the cities of India, "the city of one hundred thousand gardens "-the city of the rose and the nightingale! A recent English periodical styles the residences of some of the great nobility in London, city parks; and mentions that even a part of one of their gardens would let for sixteen or eighteen thousand pounds a year. The royal gardens of Aranjuez, in Spain, if they still retain their former grandeur, must be the most delightful in the world. Situated on the banks of the Tagus, with every advantage of natural beauty, they were originally laid out with much of the formality of art; but nature, asserting her sway, has been allowed to intrude and break in upon that formality, advancing on the walks in some places, and receding in others, thus blending her luxuriancy with the regularity of art, and producing an effect altogether magical. Thus, we see that wealth and luxury have always claimed a garden as the favorite object of prodigal expense. But instead of imitating the simplicity of nature, they have too often disfigured her with the motley inventions of art, and loaded her with ornaments which she abhors; and which, "without speech or language," she is constantly reproving, even in the humblest of her productions. It is not in straight walks, clip |