SIR JOHN SALUSBURY 307 



century, and it has been suggested that a passage in a poem by 

 Salusbury's friend and ' Court poet ', Robert Chester, described the 

 site.^ Elsewhere Chester records in verse a failure of fruit due to an 

 unusually cold spring about the end of the sixteenth century.^ The 

 lines were written for A vierrimt of Christinas at the house of the 

 Right WorsJiipfull jfohn Sabisbicry of Leweny, Esq. After stating 

 that the occasion was one on which ' we of Arcadia sometime 

 froHque swaines ' 



' should heare present as newe yeares homely gift 

 peares Apples fild bieres or the hazell nut 

 or other fruite that this faire clymatt yelds 

 but nipping winter and a forward spring 

 blasted our trees and all our summer budds 

 whose blossomes should have yelded dainty fare ' 



the poet goes on to propose a hornepipe, songs, and a dance. 



Sir John grew three novelties which he considered worthy of 

 mention in his Herbal. Two of them he raised from seed, which 

 he may have obtained from Gerard, and to his evident satisfaction 

 they proved true to the pictures in the Herbal. 



Helianthus annuus, L. 



' This galant greate sunflower grewe in Sir John Salusbury's Garden at 

 Llewenye & cam to the full perfection of this portraiture the yeare 1607. 

 Dattira Meiel, L. The Smooth Thorn Apple introduced by Gerard from 

 Robin. 



' This faire herbe grewe to full perfection accordinge to the portraiture in 

 Sir J. S. his Gardeyne at Lleweny in the yeare of our Lord 1607.' 



Paris quadrifolia, L., he transplanted to his garden in 1608. 



Marks in the margins of the book show that he was well acquainted 

 with a large number of garden plants, but the only one that is 



^ Chester, Love's Martyr, p. 1 1 : 



Hard by a running streame or crystall fountaine, 

 Wherein rich Orient pearle is often found, 

 Enuiron'd with a high and steeple mountaine, 

 A fertill soile and fruitful plot of ground, 



There shalt thou find true Honors lovely Squit-e, 

 That for this Phoenix keepes Prometheus fire. 

 His bower wherein he lodgeth all the night, 

 Is fram'd of Caedars and high loftie Pine. 

 An ancient well-head is one of the antiquities at Lleweni, and there still 

 remains the stump of a very old cedar that is figured in one of the engravings 

 of the old Hall near the artificial lake. 



^ It has already been noticed that the weather about this time was most un- 

 propitious. ' For a series of years, wet summers had raised the price of corn, 

 and in 1596 wheat in London reached the famine price of ^5 4 o per quarter; 

 this too when the purchasing power of money was fully six times its present 

 value.' Jackson, Gerard's Catalogue, vii. 



X 2 



