isposed to think almost
too rapid. We should have enjoyed a volume or two more than half a
volume of such reading as the present; but as we are not purchasers,
and are unacquainted with the number to which the Society propose
to extend their works, we ought not perhaps to raise this objection,
which, to say the truth, is a sort of negative commendation. Hitherto,
we have been accustomed to see compilations of pretensions similar
to the present, executed with little regard to neatness or unity,
or weight or consideration. Whole pages and long extracts have been
stripped and sliced off books, with little rule or arrangement, and
what is still worse, without any acknowledgment of the sources.
The last defect is certainly the greatest, since, in spite of
ill-arrangement, an intelligent inquirer may with much trouble, avail
himself of further reference to the authors quoted, and thus complete
in his own mind what the compiler had so indifferently begun. The work
before us is, however, altogether of a much higher order than general
compilations. The introductions and inferences are pointed and
judicious, and the facts themselves of the most interesting character,
are narrated in a condensed but perspicuous style; while the slightest
reference will prove that the best and latest authorities have
been appreciated. Thus, in the History and Description of Fruits,
the Transactions of the Horticultural Society are frequently and
pertinently quoted to establish disputed points, as well as the
journals of intelligent travellers and naturalists; with occasional
poetical embellishments, which lend a charm even to this attractive
species of reading.

To quote the history of either Fruit entire, would not so well denote
the character of the work as would a few of the most striking passages
in the descriptions. In the introductory chapter we are pleased with
the following passage on _Monastic Gardens_.

"The monks, after the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity,
appear to have been the only gardeners. As early as 674, we have
a record, describing a pleasant and fruit-bearing close at Ely,
then cultivated by Brithnoth, the first Abbot of that place. The
ecclesiastics subsequently carried their cultivation of fruits as
tar as was compatible with the nature of the climate, and the
horticultural knowledge of the middle ages. Whoever has seen an old
abbey, where for generations destruction only has been at work, must
have almost i