are insignificant, but its leaves are large, and the character of its growth very ornamental. The finest tree in England of this kind is at Lord Petre's, at Brentwood. We believe there was once an avenue of them; at any rate there was (till lately) another as large, which was cut down for some purpose or other, by those who could not know its value. The trunk is as large as that of an ordinary apple tree. It grows on a kind of yellow stiff brickearth, in the kitchen garden. See also the garden at Dropmore.

VI. Cordata.-Not so handsome as the former, its blossoms small, of a bluish green, fading into yellow.There was a handsome tree in the garden at White Knights.

VII. Conspicua, or Ulang.-This is a Chinese plant, and flowers before it puts forth leaves. It is the most profuse flowerer of the whole tribe; and when a standard of any size, its large white blossoms, seen beneath a blue sky, and brilliant sun of April, are quite dazzling. Their perfume is weak and faint, but not unpleasing. They come one month too soon, for they are apt to be injured either by frost or driving rain, especially in valleys and low grounds. The best specimen near London is, that known to all florists, in Mr. Malcolm's garden at Kensington. There is also a fine one at Mr. Gray's at Hornsey, and some at Cobham. If the climate is favourable, and the seasons kindly, this plant is better as a standard, as the reflection of the sun's rays from the wall too rapidly expands and destroys the blossoms. We have also heard of a fine specimen of this tree at some park on the road between Canterbury and Dover, but we have forgotten the place. There is a beautiful variety called the Soulangia with purple on the external petals.

VIII. Purpura.-This also is from China. It does best against a wall, as its wood is rather weak, and its blossoms tender; its flowers are very beautiful, with a weak pleasing fragrance. The largest we know is in our possession, which is about 20 feet high, and bears hundreds of flowers every year. Of this plant, there is a pretty variety, called the 'Gracilis;' it differs from the other in its petals, being entirely purple in the exterior, whereGENT. MAG. VOL. III.

as the Purpurea' goes off into white towards the superior edge.*

IX. Auriculata.-A species hardly exceeded in beauty by any. Its flowers are large and cream-coloured, of a strong and pungent scent. Its leaves are nearly as large as those of the Tripetala. There are, we believe, some good specimens at Whitley and Bramer's, at Fulham Nursery; at least, we saw some very fine ones there a few years since.

X. Magnolia Macrophylla. We have now arrived at the most splendid and superb species of the whole. This plant was first introduced by Mr. Lyons, from the forests of Tenessee. Its leaves are sometimes a foot and a half, and even more, in length, and of proportionate breadth; its flowers of ample size, and brilliantly white. The finest specimen in England is at the Duke of Devonshire's, at Chiswick. There was one as fine at WhiteKnight's, and at Mr. Gray's, near Hornsey. It has not universally succeeded in England, from the softness and porousness of the wood being injured by the winter when young, therefore, it would be as well to cover them with mats. This tree is not common, and perhaps half a dozen specimens could not be procured of all the nursery

men.

Thus far have we gone in making a few practical observations on Mr. Loudon's list. We have seen two or three small specimens of other species at Mr. Lee's, at Hammersmith, but they have disappeared; at least we don't know whether they still survive and now we shall close our account of these delightful productions of nature, by saying, that the best soil for them is the black dry upland heath: in this they grow most luxuriantly, and their foliage assumes a rich dark green hue. Next to this is the peat, or bog earth, if taken off the surface of the soil: then follows the soil of Cobham, which is a light sandy loam. But while all American plants, rhododendrons, kalmias, as well as magnolias, will grow in loam, both soft and stiff,

it invariably takes from the beauty of the foliage, imparting to it a yellow and light hue, which may be seen in Mr. Curtis's garden at Glazen-wood, where this tribe of plants grows vigorously on a strong Essex loam, but does not look so healthy in foliage as when grown in a black soil. The climate of Devonshire, or the south of Hampshire, is more suitable to these plants than that of any other part of England; partly from the mildness of the winters, and partly from the prevalence of the moist south-western gales, and rain. Whereever the fig-tree in England will grow as a standard, the magnolia* will also succeed; and we have no doubt but in some of the beautiful and sheltered parts in the New Forest, tall groves of these magnificent trees might be raised with ease.

In Mr. Loudon's second number, is an interesting dissertation on the trees of Great Britain. We have only to remark, that we think Cæsar probably referred to the silver fir, when he used the term Abies, which tree he had been used to see covering the mountains and valleys of Helvetia; the fagus, we do not believe to be either the oak or beech, but the sweet chesnut, which, without doubt, the Romans brought to England; as the name would prove. Caphornius means that tree in the following lines of his fourth Eclogue,

Hybernâ prohibes jejunia solvere fago! -the inhabitants of the Apennines even now depending greatly on the

chesnut for their winter food; but we never heard of any tribe of people in Italy subsisting on beech-nuts, nor is the beech a common tree in Italy. We are glad to find Mr. Loudon at once destroying the absurd hypothesis

ROYAL ACADEMY.

of Sir Walter Scott, repeated by Mr. Gilpin and others, of our present plantations of pines being raised from Canadian seed, which produces a different tree from that of the Scottish mountains. We always knew its falsehood, from the concurrent testimony of nurserymen, whọ assured us that their seeds always came from Scotland. The fact is, our late plantations of Scotch firs are spoiled by the planter. Like all evergreen trees, they must have room to expand freely and unmolested, and throw their arms and limbs in the direction they best like. We can show firs of from 20 to 30 years old, with all the incipient fine romantic character of their admired ancestors: but they have been planted judiciously, and ample space and verge enough," has been allowed them. Like other evergreens, they never recover their beauty if once disfigured. The finest trees we know of this species are in Greenwich Park, at the bottom of the hill. They should be seen on a summer evening, when the sun setting over London, slants his beams through their dark and glowing umbrage, and lights up as with fire their rich auburn trunks. They are as grand as Cedars; and their ramification is always much superior to that of the Pinaster. We believe the yew to be indigenous : but not the arbutus. And thus we close our present observations on this well-designed and well-conducted work, urging Mr. Loudon to proceed,

and assuring him that the favour of the public is already most amply secured. Macte animo LoVDONE, et macte ingentibus orsis,

Nec tibi Naiades in tanti parte laboris Abnuerint viridem salicis de fronde co

ronam.

B-ll.

Feb. 16. Mr. Westmacott commenced his course of lectures on Sculpture. He stated, that to promote the improvement of those who attached themselves to this class of art, the Academy had appointed two officers from amongst their own mem

J. M.

bers- namely, a Visitor and a Professor The former had the daily duty to perform of selecting the antique statues, &c., for the students of that class; the latter had quite a different office, having annually to deliver discourses upon the history of the art from its infant state through its vari

ous progressions, from thence to its meridian splendour and decline, in the different ages and nations wherein it was cultivated. The Professor exhibited some drawings by M. Bonomi, of curious Chaldean monuments, and a cast from a basso relievo, supposed to represent an Assyrian Prince, with Egyptian and Chaldean tablets of a very curious description, discovered by that gentleman during a long residence in those countries. In all the Chaldean tablets the figures seem coming from the east. The Professor gave a very full and interesting description of the important discoveries made in the ancient land of the Volscians, a country which appears to have been, at some early period, thickly inhabited, if we may judge from the number of their tombs, of which upwards of 600 have been discovered opposite Tarquinii alone, with other evidences of a dense population. He displayed a drawing of an Etruscan tomb, of a conical form, which was adopted by this people and some others, whilst the Egyptians adopted the pyramid for similar purposes. He observed that both these forms were found in Mexico for similar purposes. The Professor described the construction of these mausolea, their interior decorations, paintings, colours, &c., and their early manner of inhumation, which was afterwards changed for the urns.

WINKLES' Cathedrals.-SALISBURY.

It is one of the greatest misfortunes that can happen to a critic, when performing the necessary duty of pointing out an author's inaccuracies, to have his own statement defaced by a typographical er

ror.

Mr. MOULE, the author of the letterpress to Winkles' Cathedrals, has written to complain that we have misrepresented him (in p. 193), as incorrectly stating the number of marks expended on the building of Salisbury cathedral, to have been 400,000 instead of 40,000. Such was not our intention; but all we meant was a harmless smile at his recondite calculation that forty-thousand marks, in the reign of Henry III. was "about 26,6661. 13s. 4d. present money!

Mr. Moule also tells us that he has not omitted the date of the foundation of the church; but that, if we did not find it accompanying his very incorrect account of the foundation in p. 3, we should by turning back to p. 1. Accordingly we there find it stated that it was in "A. D. 1220, the fifth year of the reign of Henry III." but, as the ceremony took place on the iv cal. of May, Mr. Moule will find it was in the fourth, and not the fifth, year of that reign. Our author then refers us to an epitaph, in old Latin (!) in Antiq.

Sarisburiensis (!) p. 137. We imagine he had never himself looked at that epitaph, or it might have still further puzzled him. It does not state, as Mr. Moule says it does, that the church was finished in 1260, but that it was finished in 1237. In fact, it is a very blundering inscription,—a blind leader of the blind; and not worthy of further examination, as the chronology of the church of Salisbury may be gleaned from better authority. How Mr. Moule

has done this, he provokes us to show. He says, 1. "that the cathedral was consecrated on Michaelmas day 1225, by Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury" (p. 3); then, 2. that "the solemn dedication took place in 1258" (p. 4); and 3. "in the same year that the edifice was consecrated, the bodies of three bishops were removed from the old cathedral." (ibid.) Now the real order of these proceedings is: 1. That it was visited, but not "consecrated," by Archbishop Langton, in 1225; 2. that the bodies of the Bishops were translated in 1226 (and not in the same year); 3. that the church was consecrated in 1258, and not (as a whole, but only certain altars) until then. So much for the historical accuracy of Mr. Moule ; and the danger of taking information from the tenth echo, instead of listening to the original voice. The plates in Messrs. Winkles' Second Part are hardly equal to those in the First. The distance in the Lady Chapel is ill-drawn.

COLMAN'S Normandy, Picardy, &c. Part I. Atlas 4to.-The most favourite subjects with artists in the districts of the Continent nearest home, are precisely those which we find in this work: a vignette of Mont St. Michel, Rouen from Mont Ste. Catharine, Rouen cathedral (from the south), the Great Clock-house at Rouen, and the interior of Chartres cathedral. All of these are already somewhat familiar to us: and all we can say as distinguishing them from the French lithographs, which are so numerous, is that they were drawn from nature, and transferred to the stone, by Mr. W. Gooding Colman himself, who has not only showed his proficiency in architectural perspective, but, in the distant view of Rouen, in landscape also. His figures are also characteristic and well-disposed. We trust his work, which is to be concluded in four parts, will be patronized as that of a native artist. It is accompanied by intelligent descriptions; from one of which we are sorry to learn, that a fire at Mont St. Michel, on the 22d Oct. last, destroyed a considerable portion of its buildings, and it is feared impaired its picturesque effect.