PEINCIPLES OF GARDENING. 



proceeded to examine and search out what is. The 

 Reformation, the spirit of the age, was then not con- 

 fined to rehgion. By dehvering the human mind 

 from thraldom, and teaching man to search all things, 

 hut to retain only that which is good because true, 

 it gave an impetus to improvement which no tyrant 

 opposition has ever since been enabled to check. 



Such men as Bacon, Peiresc, Evelyn, Grew and 

 Malpighi arose. Bacon was the first to teach aloud 

 that man can discover truth in no way but by observ- 

 ino- and imitating the operations of natm'e ; that 

 truth is born of fact, not of speculation ; and that 

 systems of Imowledge are to be founded not upon 

 ancient authority, not upon metaphysical theories, 

 but upon experiments and obsen-ations in the world 

 around us. 



Peiresc was a munificent man of letters, whose 

 house, whose advice, and whose purse were opened 

 to the students of eveiy art and science. His library 

 was stored with the literature of every age, and his 

 garden with exotics from exerj clime, from whence 

 he delighted to spread them over Em'ope^. 



Grew in England, and Malpighi in Italy, de- 

 voted themselves to the anatomical examination of 

 plants, and these were followed by Linnaeus, Gaertner, 

 and others, who, trusting only to the dissecting knife 

 and the microscope, soon precipitated into mins all 

 * History of English Gardening. 



