swedes, and hybrids, whose names and qualities
fill one of the many learned volumes in Chiswick
type, issued as trade circulars by the firm.
Behind, roots, specimens of grain in the ear,
wheat from every county and every country,
where fine samples, red or white, are to be
obtained; barley for beer, oats for horses and
Scotchmen, and buckwheat, which peasants eat
in France and pheasants in England. Grasses
support the grains in brilliant bunches; the
Italian rye-grass, a modern introduction, long
esteemed in the cheese farms of Lombardy,
which, properly watered with liquid manure,
gives six famous crops every year; the gigantic
Tussac grass from the wind-beaten Falkland
Islands, which at one time was to have made
the fortune of the cattle-feeders in the Orkney
Islands and the Hebrides, but somehow failed;
and the Pampas grass, and a dozen tall tufted
pasturage grasses for ornamenting clumps on
velvety lawns or quick covert for game. Then
the long wall of the arcade is covered not only
with specimens, but with water-colour drawings
of rare and beautiful flowers and pictures of the
pines—we beg pardon, the Coniferæ—in full
growth, whose merits, qualities, and prices also
form a volume at once learned and familiar. We
may judge something of the quality of the
visitors by the preparations made in this shop
and museum. Of every valuable or rare and
beautiful plant, shrub, or tree exhibited, there is
an attempt to give the seed, the flower, the
fruit, if any, in dried specimens, or in drawings
or in models, and to each specimen is attached
the scientific as well as the trade name. It is by
degrees that the shop has grown into a museum,
stimulating geographical as well as botanical
knowledge, and showing our agricultural friends
that commerce has laid the whole world under
contribution for their mutual benefit.

Spain and Russia, Italy and France, India
and China, Egypt and California, and all the
rest of the lately United States, have been
hunted over to supply grain, lentils, and oil-
seeds, roots, shrubs, trees, and flowers for use
and ornament for the farm, the garden, the park,
the lawn, or the hill-side plantation. The labours
of centuries are epitomised in this agricultural
pavilion.

We must add a few words at parting on the
financial results of the last great show. The
prizes given at Oxford amounted to quite eight
hundred pounds; at Leeds the amount was
exactly three thousand two hundred and forty-
two pounds. There was subscribed by the town
and neighbourhood five thousand pounds. There
entered in five days more than one hundred and
forty-five thousand visitors, who paid the first
day five shillings each, the second and third days
two shillings and sixpence each, the fourth
and fifth one shilling each, and altogether nine
thousand nine hundred and fifteen pounds. There
were sold of implement catalogues five thousand,
live-stock catalogues seven thousand eight
hundred and fifty-five, at one shilling each. Thus
Leeds produced in payments and subscriptions,
for one week's exhibition, fifteen thousand five
hundred and fifty-eight pounds twelve shillings,
while real business in sales of and orders for
stock and implements must have been little
under half a million—a very striking example of
what private enterprise and public spirit,
commerce and amusement, landlords and tenants,
men of business and men of rank combined can
do in this country to amuse themselves and
advance, the progress of agriculture. Therefore,
Long live the Royal Agricultural Society
Exhibition! May its shadow and its substance
never be less."

AN ENGLISH-AMERICAN SEA DUEL.

IN the year of grace 1813, the United States
flag having been planted aboard several English
prizes, there was immense self-laudation all
through America, and the British lion, formerly
so terrible on sea and land, was assumed to be
now quite toothless and worn-out, and not
worth the trouble of kicking. This sort of thing
got to be unbearable to the officers and crews of
the British blockading ships off Boston, and
Captain Philip Bowes Vere Broke, then
commanding his Majesty's Shannon, determined to
try what he could do to lower the arrogant
tone of the Americans.

The Shannon and her consort, the Tenedos,
had long been watching some American ships-
of-war—namely, the President, the Congress,
and the Chesapeake; but the first two managed
to sail away in the darkness, leaving the
Chesapeake fitting in new masts and bending
new sails in Boston harbour. It was provoking
that the others should have slipped from
his clutches, thought Captain Philip Broke,
but it would go hard with him if the Chesapeake
escaped him too; for the gallant captain
had it at heart to read the foe a lesson, and
make him learn the difference between the past
tense and the future. So he loitered and cruised
about, and on the 1st of June, 1813, as the
Chesapeake stood in the harbour with royal
yards across and ready for sea, the Shannon
appeared in the offing, and every one knew that
before night some bloody work would be done,
and that either America would have once more
triumphed, or the British flag be once more in
the ascendant. Seeing the Shannon all
prepared, Captain Broke sent on board a certain
Captain Slocum, an American prisoner, with a
letter to Captain Lawrance (promoted from
the victorious little United States Hornet to
the Chesapeake not many days before), which
letter began thus: "Sir,—As the Chesapeake
appears now ready for sea, I request you will
do me the favour to meet the Shannon with
her, ship to ship, to try the fortunes of
our respective flags." He then went on to
pledge his honour that no English ship should
interfere. The Chesapeake was superior to
the Shannon in size and crew. She carried
forty-nine guns, and the Shannon forty-four;
she had four hundred and forty men on board
(certainly somewhat disaffected because of
unpaid prize-money), the Shannon had but three