that has so heavily befallen us since the commencement of this work, which was intended for your amiable and accomplished pupil; the loss of whom has fixed the cypress too firmly in our bosoms ever to be entirely eradicated: but as the study of vegetable nature is one of the best cordials for sorrow, accept, dear madam, the nectar its flowers offer, which has proved so great a balm to

Your devoted and affectionate Husband,

HENRY PHILLIPS

Bedford Square,
Brighton.

Dulau

26-28

76874

2v.

PREFACE.

THE Planter of the Shrubbery has endeavoured to dispose his trees and form his groves in a manner that may render his walks agreeable to every age and class, that may be disposed to seek information or amusement among the various plants of the Sylva Florifera. Should his efforts fail of success, he will at least enjoy the consciousness of having attempted to please all the admirers of Nature's works, by studying to render every common an interesting pleasure ground, and every hedge a pleasing plantation, by the information he has endeavoured to collect respecting the plants that flourish in them.

The author has also tried to make his book an agreeable companion to the traveller, who, as he passes through woods and lanes, may never feel himself solitary, but have his

way enlivened by vegetable history and botanical beauties. These by their connection with anecdote, and their poetical celebrity, may agreeably beguile his time as he journeys by the humble bushes of the road, or the proud natives of the forest.

To those who tread the flowery paths of ornamental gardens, the writer would wish the secrets of each blossom to be fully expanded, that the wisdom of the Creator may always shine conspicuous in their walks. Thus also, the plants themselves may invite the youth and the fair to the study of botany, by exhibiting the beauty and simplicity of that science.

For the information of those who are forming landscape plantations, the author has assigned to each tree and shrub its proper station, and noticed the tints of its natural robe, with observations intended to assist the planter in effecting a harmony of colouring and an undulating appearance in the grove.

Non Chaonis abfuit arbos,

Non nemus Heliadum, non frondibus esculus altis,
Nec tilia molles, nec fagus, et innuba laurus,
Et coryli fragiles, et fraxinus utilis hastis,
Enodisque abies, curvataque glandibus ilex,
Et Platanus genialis, acerque coloribus impar,
Amnicolæque simul salices, et aquatica lotos,
Perpetuòque virens buxus, tenuesque myricæ,
Et bicolor myrtus, et baccis cærula tinus ;
Vos quoque flexipedes hedera venistis, et unà
Pampineæ vites, et amictæ vitibus ulmi:
Ornique, et piceæ, pomoque onerata rubenti
Arbutus, et lentæ victoris præmia palmæ :
Et succincta comas, hirsutaque vertice pinus
Grata Deum matri

OVID. Metamorph.

"Much can we praise the trees so straight and hy,
The sayling pine; the cedar proud and tall;
The vine-propt elme; the poplar never dry;
The builder oake, sole king of forrests all;
The aspine, good for staves; the cypresse funerall;
The laurell, meed of mightie conquerours

And poets sage; the firre that weepeth still;
The eugh, obedient to the bender's will;
The birch for shaftes; the sallow for the mill;

The mirrhe sweete-bleeding in the bitter wound;
The warlike beech; the ash for nothing ill;
The fruitful olive; and the platane sound;

The carver holme; the maple, seldom inward sound.”
SPENCER'S Faerie Queene, Book I. Canto 1.