HÉCART, Gabriel-Antoine-Joseph.   LES BOSQUETS D'AGRÉMENT, PÖEME EN QUATRE CHANTS;   Suivi Des Arbres Toujours-Verts, Poëme En Stances Régulières.      Paris: Hécart fils,   1808.          Hécart (1755-1838) was a provincial French polymath who spent his entire life in the northern city of Valenciennes. Although he published profusely on a variety of topics, botany and literature were his most passionate interests. His LES BOSQUETS D'AGRÉMENT is a didactic poem very much in the tradition of Delille and his other imitators. Current with the taste of the time, it advocates a garden based on nature rather than artifice, with a focus on the natural bosquet as its primary feature. Particular attention is paid to the different types of trees and plants that can be used there and the various effects to be obtained with each variety. Many of these are footnoted and receive more detailed explanation in the 22 pages of notes which are included at the end. A shorter poem on evergreens is also included, and even more heavily annotated. Indeed, the 7 pages of notes for this poem contain more text than the poem itself, and can almost be read as a descriptive catalogue of ornamental evergreen trees and shrubs. Also bound in with this copy, but not normally present, is an eight page review of the book signed by "E. Midy." The book was published to raise money for a philanthropic cause and includes a subscribers list with approximately 200 names, nearly all of them from Valenciennes. It is unlikely that many additional copies were printed, and the work is now rare. OCLC locates a single copy (Harvard) and CCFr locates two other copies in France.   8vo (18.1 x 11.5 cm); xvi + 112 pp. + 8 pp.            Recently rebound in marbled boards with leather spine label. $500.00

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