There is something very interesting too, in the biography of our old patriarchs of English gardening. There is scarcely one of those large nurseries and gardens round London but is connected with them, as their founders, or improvers--as the Tradescants of Lambeth,--London and Wise of Brompton,--Philip Miller of Chelsea,--Gray of Fulham,--Furber of Kensington,--Lee of Hammersmith. It is cheering to observe how much our monarchs, from Henry VIII. to George III. were, with their principal nobility, almost to a man, whatever was their character in other respects, not even excepting the dissipated Charles II., munificent patrons of gardening, and founders of grand gardens. It is interesting to read of the giant labours, and now apparently curious locations of our early gardeners and herbalists. How Dr. Turner imbibed botanical knowledge from Lucas Ghinus at Bologna, and came and established a “garden of rare plants” at Kew; while Mrs. Gape had another at Westminster, which furnished the first specimens for Chelsea garden. How Ray, and Lobel, and Penny, roamed everywhere in search of new plants. How Didymus Mountain published his “Gardener’s Labyrinth:” how Sir Hugh Platt, of Lincoln’s-Inn, gentleman, wrote the Jewel House of Art and Nature, the Paradise of Kew, and the Garden of Eden, and had, moreover, a garden in St. Martin’s Lane. How the “Rei Rusticæ” of Conrad Heresbach, counsellor to the Duke of Cleve, was translated by Barnaby Googe, and reprinted by Gervase Markham, gentleman, of Gotham in Nottinghamshire. How old John Gerarde travelled, when young, up the Baltic, and had his “Physick Garden” in Holborn. How John Parkinson travelled forty years before he wrote his “Paradisus,” and was appointed by Charles I. for his Theatre of Plants, Botanicus Regius Primarius. How Gabriel Plattes, though styled by his cotemporaries, “an excellent genius,” and “of an adventurous caste of mind,” died miserably in the streets. How Walter Blythe of Oliver Cromwell’s army wrote the “Survey of Husbandry,” which Professor Martyn pronounces “an incomparable work.” How Samuel Hartlib, the son of a Polish merchant, the friend of Milton, of Archbishop Usher and Joseph Meade, wrote his “Legacy,” and assisted in establishing the embryo Royal Society; how John Tradescant was in Russia, and accompanied the fleet sent against the Algerines in 1620, and collected on that occasion plants in Barbary, and in the isles of the Mediterranean; and how his son John, afterwards made a voyage in pursuit of plants to Virginia, “and brought many new ones back with him.” How their Museum, established in South Lambeth, and called “Tradescant’s Ark,” was the constant resort of the great and learned; how it fell into the hands of Elias Ashmole, and became the _Ashmolean_ Museum.