ngland 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.

Shakespeare makes mention of garden _knots_ in his _Richard the Second_,
where