THE FLORIST-FLOWER GARDEN. 531 



teens, he had accepted the hospitality of a suburban house, where he had 

 spent the day, and -was roused in the "small hours " by a furious banging of 

 doors and scuffling of feet beneath. The police had not then attained its 

 present efficiency, and the metropolis was yet ringing with comments on a 

 barbarous murder, in which a whole family had been slaughtered on their 

 own hearths ; his fii'st idea, therefore, was to rush to the window in order to 

 see how the land lay ; there a sight presented itself which increased his 

 Astonishment. A fine April day had been suddenly succeeded by a stormy night 

 of wind, hail, and sleet : the window looked into the garden, and the first 

 object which presented itself was a stoutish figure, in night gear, and nothing 

 else, rushing maniacally through the storm, while banging doors below inti- 

 mated some great commotion. Without wasting much time on the toilette he 

 was soon below, where the other inmates were rapidly assembling. The master 

 of the house, a retired tradesman who was here enjoying the retreat his in- 

 dustry had earned, had been infected with the floramania ; he had got together 

 a very choice collection of auriculas, tulips, and other florists' flowers, which 

 he had been exhibiting with great satisfaction the previous day. He had been 

 roused by the stoi-m, and suddenly recollected that, owing to the mildness of 

 the day, his beloved flowers had not received their usual protection, and were 

 now exposed to the pitiless pelting storm. Without other preparation than 

 that of slipping his naked feet into the "bauchles," as ho called the old shoes 

 which did duty for slippers, he had rushed to the rescue, leaving doors ajar, 

 which the wind had taken the hberty of banging in the manner described. A 

 severe attack of rheumatic gout was the consequence to our host, 



1654. Let us then advise, by all means, in places whers there is a 

 gardener living on the premises, that some spot should be laid a?Ide lor tne 

 culture of florists' flowers, either close to the house itself, or to the gardener^s 

 cottage. No large space need be appropriated, as the flowers, being chiefly 

 planted in beds, occupy little room comparatively, for a costly collection may 

 be planted in the space of a hundred square feet. 



1655, It is true " one does not now hear of 20,000 francs (£800) being 

 given for a tulip ; nor does the florist of our days deprive himself of his 

 food in order to add to his store of anemones ; neither does he pass whole 

 days, ardent as a young lover watching the changing emotions of his 

 mistress, in admiring the colours of a ranunculus, the beauty and fragrance 

 of a hyacinth, or trembling like the aforesaid lover lest a rival should injure 

 the bloom of a favoured auricula." Beckmann also tells us of 4,400 florins 

 (£366) being given for a small bulb of the tulip Admiral Leifkin, weigh- 

 ing something less than a grain, and 2,000 florins for Semper Augustus ; 

 while 120 other tulips sold for 9,000 florins— one of them (the Viceroy) 

 bringing 4,203 florins, as they did at Alkmaar in 1637,— the florin, according 

 to the then value of money, representing a bushel of wheat. Compared with 

 the prices which some of the finest bulbs now bring at our public sales, the 

 difference shows the extent to which the floramania was carried in the 

 seventeenth century. Nevertheless, rare bulbs do still bring extraordinary 



2 M 2 



