HISTORY OF THE TULIP. 67 



Dutch merchant, had a herring given him for his breakfast; but 

 seeing what he supposed to be a kind of small onion lying on the 

 counter, the tar carelessly took up a handful, which he immediately 

 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 ex- 

 pense than the cost of the condiment which the sailor took with his 

 salt herring. 



It was towards the middle of the seventeenth century that the 

 rage for flowers, and particularly for Tulips, was carried to a very 

 great excess in Holland and in France ; so much so, that it brought 

 ruin and bankruptcy upon many families. The Tulipomania, as it 

 was justly termed, was entered into by these nations with as much 

 avidity, for a time, as the Mississippi and South Sea schemes were in 

 our own country. It would almost be impossible for us to credit 

 the extraordinary accounts handed down respecting the high prices 

 given for Tulips by the Dutch florists of that age, were we not ac- 

 quainted with their gambling speculations in this bulb, which carried 

 them to a much greater excess than their real fondness for flowers. 

 Bets to a ruinous amount were often made respecting the eventful 

 superiority of promising seedling bulbs ; and for the possession of 

 breeders of high merit, from which a superior variety was likely to 

 be produced, as large a sum was given as the fleetest race-horse ever 

 sold for. 



About the year 1636, the spirit of floral gambling was carried to 

 such excess at Haarlem, that during three years it is said to have 

 yielded to that city a sum not less than ten millions sterling ; for the 

 price of these bulbs rose higher than the most precious metal. 

 For a single Tulip, with the name of Semper Augustus, 4,000 

 florins, a beautiful new carriage, two horses with harness, &c, 

 were given; and another, of the same kind, was sold for 13,000 

 florins, upwards of £650. Twelve acres of land were given for a 

 single root, and engagements to the amount of £5,000 were made 

 for a superior tulip during the height of the mania ; and when a 

 bidder could not be found to offer a sum of money ecpaal to the ideal 

 value of a fine flower, it was fiequently dispased of by way of lottery 

 or raffle. It is also said, that a person who possessed a very fine 

 Tulip, hearing that there was a second root of the same kind at 



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