140 FLORA HISTORICA. 



he set in the kitchen garden among the cabbages, 

 where most of them perished, except a few that 

 George Rye, a merchant of Mechlin, took under 

 his care, which produced a variety of beautiful 

 flowers. 



It is also related that a sailor having taken some 

 goods to a Dutch merchant, had a herring given 

 him for his breakfast, but seeing what he supposed 

 to be a kind of small onions lying on the counter, 

 the tar carelessly took up a handful, which he im- 

 mediately ate with his dried fish. These proved 

 to have been Tulips of so much value that it was 

 estimated a magnificent breakfast might have been 

 given to the heads of the Dutch government for 

 less expense than the cost of the condiment which 

 the sailor so inadvertently took with his salt herring. 



The Tulip was first introduced into England 

 when the sceptre of these realms was swayed by a 

 female monarch, who by encouraging her subjects 

 to make commercial visits to distant countries, was 

 the means of procuring many valuable and rare 

 plants that have since naturalized themselves to our 

 soil, so as to gratify the sight as well as the palate. 

 We are able to state the time when this gay flower 

 first flourished in our parterres with more accuracy 

 than can be given to most other plants of that early 

 period of our garden history. 



In the history of plants which Doctor William 



