brought from Soesdyke in Holland, the seat of Mr. Bentinck, afterwards Earl of Portland. The gardens of Holland were at that time the richest in Europe.

The great introducer of foreign trees in this century was Dr. Compton, who was the bishop of London from 1675 to 1713, and who may truly be said to have been the father of all that has since been done in this branch of rural improvement. Bishop Compton was the youngest son of Spencer, Earl of Northampton; he was made bishop of Oxford in 1674, and was translated to the see of London in the following year. He was a zealous protestant and a most excellent man. He lived a retired life at Fulham, attending to his episcopal duties and to his garden.

In the 32d book of Ray's Historia Plantarum, written in 1686, in which he treats of plants imperfectly known, there is a chapter on the rare trees and shrubs which he saw in the garden of Bishop Compton at Fulham. Among these are enumerated the tulip tree, the magnolia, the sassafras, the tree angelica (Aràlia spinòsa), the hickory, the box elder, the liquidambar, the Constantinople nut, some species of Crataegus, some of Rhús, some of Cornus, and some of Atriplex. Bishop Compton died in 1713, at the age of 81 years. His garden was visited by Sir William Watson in 1751, 48 years after his death; and he gave the following account of this bishop and his garden to the Royal Society:-"Dr. Henry Compton," he observes, "planted a greater variety of curious exotic plants and trees, than had at that time been collected in any garden in England. This excellent prelate presided over the see of London from the year 1675 to 1713; during which time, by means of a large correspondence with the principal botanists of Europe and America, he introduced into England a great number of plants, but more especially trees, which had never been seen here before, and described by no author; and in the cultivation of these (as we are informed by the late most ingenious Mr. Ray) he agreeably spent such part of his time as could most conveniently be spared from his other more arduous occupations. From this prelate's goodness, in permitting, with freedom, persons curious in botany to visit his garden, and see therein what was to be found nowhere else; and from his zeal in propagating botanical knowledge, by readily communicating to others, as well to foreigners as to our own countrymen, such plants and seeds as he was in possession of, his name is mentioned with the greatest encomiums by the botanical writers of his time; viz., by Hermann, Ray, Plukenet, and others. As this prelate's length of life and continuance in the see of London were remarkable, so we find the botanists, who wrote after Mr. Ray, most frequently mentioning in their works the new accessions of treasures to this

garden; and of this you meet with a great variety of examples in the treatises of Dr. Plukenet, Hermann, and Commelyn. Botanical much more even than other worldly affairs are subject to great fluctuations, and this arises not only from the natural decay of vegetables, and their being injured by the variety of seasons, but also from the genius and disposition of the possessors of them. So, here, upon the death of Bishop Compton, all the green-house plants and more tender exotic trees were, as I am informed by Sir Hans Sloane, given to the ancestor of the present Earl Tylney at Wanstead. And as the successors of this bishop in the see of London were more distinguished for their piety and learning than for their zeal in the promotion of natural knowledge, the curiosities of this garden were not attended to, but left to the management of ignorant persons; so that many of the hardy exotic trees, however valuable, were removed to make way for the more ordinary productions of the kitchen-garden." (Phil. Trans., xlvii. 243.)

ton.

Collinson, speaking of Bishop Robinson, Dr. Compton's successor, says, he was a man of "no such taste" as Bishop Comp"He allowed his gardener to sell what he pleased, and often spoiled what he could not otherwise dispose of. Many fine trees, come to great maturity, were cut down, to make room for produce for the table. Furber of Kensington, and Gray of Fulham, augmented their collections from this source, with plants not otherwise to be procured."

The following are the principal trees and shrubs which Sir William Watson found in the bishop's garden in 1751:Acerineæ. Acer rubrum, platanoides; Negúndo fraxinifolium.

Hippocastanea. Pàvia rùbra.

Terebinthacea. Pistàcia officinàrum, Rhús typhìna.

Leguminosa. Robínia Pseùd-Acàcia, Gleditschia triacanthos, Cytisus alpinus, Cércis Siliquástrum.

Amygdaleæ. Cérasus Laurocérasus.

Pomacea. Méspilus prunifòlia?

Ericaceæ. Arbutus Unedo.

Ebenacea. Diospyros virginiana.

Oleacea. O'rnus europa a, rotundifòlia; Syringa pérsica var. laciniata.

Laurineæ. Laúrus Benzoin.

Ulmacea. Céltis.

Juglándea. Juglans nigra.

Cupulifera. Quércus Suber, I'lex, álba; Córylus rostrata? Coniferæ. Cedrus Libàni, Làrix europæ`a; Pinus Pinea, Pináster; Abies Picea; Cupressus, the male cypress, the female cypress; Juniperus virginiàna.

Smilaceæ. Rúscus hypoglossum, racemosus.

These articles belong to 15 orders, or natural groups, and include 34 trees and shrubs.

A survey of the old trees at Fulham Palace was made by Lysons in 1793, and again in 1809, and published in Lysons's Environs of London; by which it appears that several of the trees mentioned by Sir William Watson were still in existence, and in a growing state. The girts of the following trees, taken at these two different periods, are here given from Lysons, as taken at 3 ft. from the ground, to which we have added the dimensions of such as are now (January, 1835) still in existence, which we are enabled to do through the kindness of Dr. Blomfield, the present bishop. We saw the trees ourselves in October last, and found most of those below mentioned still in a growing state, with some robinias and others in a state of venerable decay.

"There were also," says Mr. Lysons, in 1793, "the Quércus Suber, the Cytisus Labúrnum, the Robínia Pseud-Acàcia, and the Pinus Cèdrus, mentioned by Sir William Watson. The cedar of Lebanon was first planted at Fulham in 1683; the largest, of two measured in 1793, was only 7 feet 9 inches in girt." "Near the porter's lodge," he continues," are some limes of great age, one of which measured, in 1793, 13 feet 3 inches in girt. It is most probable that they were planted by Bishop Compton about the year of the Revolution (1688), when the fashion of planting avenues of limes was introduced into this country from Holland, where they ornamented the Prince of Orange's palaces."

Upon visiting the gardens at Fulham again in 1809," Lysons observes, "I could not find the Cupressus sempervirens, the Juniperus virginiana, or the Acer rubrum. The following trees still remain, and they will no doubt be regarded with veneration by the botanist, as the parent stocks of their respective races in the kingdom. The Acer Negúndo, the girt of which, at three feet from the ground, is now

(1809) 7 ft. 1 in.; the Juglans nìgra, 11 ft. 5 in.; the Pinus Pináster, 10 ft. 1 in.; the Quércus I'lex, 9 ft. 1 in.; the Quércus álba, 8 ft. 1 in.; the Quércus Sùber, of which I had not a satisfactory measure in 1793, is now (1809) 8 ft. 4 in. in girt; the largest cedar now measures 8 ft. 8 in. in girt; another, in a court of the palace, about 7 ft.: it is probable that the latter has been lessened in girt, from having been drawn up by its situation to a remarkable height. The lime tree above mentioned now measures 14 ft. 1 in. in girt. The Cytisus Labúrnum is an old decayed tree in the close (without the lodge) near the moat, about 3 ft. in girt. There are two of the

Robínia Pseud-Acàcia, one near the porter's lodge, and one on the lawn near the moat; they are both in a state of great decay, and their trunks in such a state as not to admit of measurement."

All the trees mentioned in the above extract, except those contained in the table, the large limes, the remains of the robinia, and one or two others, are decayed or taken down; the grounds having undergone several alterations during the occupancy of Bishop Porteus, between 1800 and 1816. Both Bishop Porteus and the present bishop have added considerably to the collection.

It would be interesting to know the means by which Bishop Compton procured his trees and shrubs from America, and who were the botanical collectors of that day. Several may have existed whose names are now lost. It appears highly probable that most of the American trees and plants at Fulham were introduced by the Rev. John Banister, who was sent by the bishop as a missionary to Virginia. John Banister, according to Dr. Pulteney (Sketches, &c., vol. i.), was one of the first British collectors in North America. He published a Catalogue of the plants he observed there, dated 1680. He is mentioned repeatedly by Ray, as having introduced many plants. Banister was one of the early martyrs to natural history, having, in one of his excursions, fallen from a rock and perished. His Catalogue will be found in the second volume of Ray's Historia Plantarum, and several of his papers are published in the Philosophical Transactions. Plukenet, describing the Azalea viscòsa, says that a drawing of it, by his own hand, was sent by him to Bishop Compton, his patron.

The name of Evelyn is well known, as belonging to this century. His Sylva was published in 1664, from which, and from his Calendarium Hortense, it appears that the number of species and varieties of trees and shrubs in the London gardens was then extremely limited. In one of the later editions of the Sylva, Evelyn mentions the tulip tree as having been introduced by Tradescant. His description of the tree is curious. "they have a poplar in Virginia of a very peculiar-shaped leaf,

He says,

as if the point of it were cut off, which grows very well with the curious amongst us to a considerable stature. I conceive it was first brought over by John Tradescant, under the name of the tulip tree (from the likeness of its flowers), but is not, that I find, taken notice of in any of our herbals. I wish we had more of them." (Sylva, edit. 1670.) The tulip tree was at that time known through all the English settlements by the title of poplar. (Hunter's Evelyn, i. 207.) Hermann says that he observed in the park of the Duke of Norfolk, five or six miles [Dutch miles] from London [? Deepdene], a tulip tree which had been planted there twenty years before, but which had never flowered or borne fruit. (Hort. Acad. Lugd. Bat. Cat. 1687, p. 615.) At Say's Court, Deptford, one of Evelyn's residences, he is said to have had a variety of trees; but Gibson, who visited it in 1691, after Evelyn had left it, found only the phillyrea and the holly: of the former, Evelyn had four large round and smoothly clipped plants, on naked stems; and of the latter, a hedge, 400 ft. long, 9 ft. high, and 5 ft. in diameter. Evelyn was very proud of this hedge, and mentions it more than once in his writings. It was ruined by Peter the Great, who, having taken the house at Say's Court, to be near the Deptford dockyards, had himself wheeled through this hedge in a wheelbarrow for amusement! Evelyn planted cedars, pines, silver firs, ilexes, and walnuts at Wooton, some of which we found still remaining there in 1830. Evelyn, however, was more anxious to promote the planting of valuable indigenous trees, than to introduce foreign ones.

Gibson, who made a tour through the gardens about London in 1691, which was published from his MS. many years afterwards in the Archæologia, tells us that he found Sir William Temple's garden, at West Sheen, to excel in orange trees and other "greens," as evergreen shrubs were called at that time: Among these "greens," Italian bays, laurustinuses, and striped hollies were included. Sir Henry Capell is said to have had as "curious greens, in his garden at Kew, as any about London." His two lentiscus trees (Pistàcia Lentíscus) for which he paid 401. to Versprit, were said to be the best in England. He had four white-striped hollies, about 4 feet above their cases, kept "round and regular," which cost him 57. a tree; and six laurustinuses, with large, round, equal heads, very flowery and showy." "In the garden of Sir Stephen Fox, at Chiswick (which, though only of five years' standing, is brought to great perfection for the time), are two myrtle hedges about 3 ft. high. They are protected in winter with cases of boards painted." Sir Josiah Child's plantations of walnuts and other trees, at Wanstead, are said by Gibson to be "much more worth seeing than his gardens, which are but indifferent." "Captain Foster's