294 Landscape Gardening 



But it is a fitting close to such a beautiful season to end with 

 such a fruit as this. We believe, indeed, that strawberries, 

 if the truth could be known, are the most popular of fruits. 

 People always affect to prefer the peach, or the orange, or 

 perhaps the pear; but this is only because these stand well 

 in the world -- are much talked of - - and can give "the 

 most respectable references." But take our word for it, 

 if the secret preference, the concealed passion, of every 

 lover of fruit could be got at, without the formality of a 

 public trial, the strawberry would be found out to be the 

 little betrayer of hearts. Was not Linnaeus cured of the 

 gout by them? And did not even that hard-hearted mon- 

 ster, Richard the III, beseech "My Lord of Ely' to send 

 for some of "the good strawberries" from his garden at 

 Holborn? Nay, an Italian poet has written a whole poem, 

 of nine hundred lines or more, entirely upon strawberries. 

 "Strawberries and sugar" are to him what "sack and sugar" 

 was to Falstaff - - "the indispensable companion - - the 

 sovereign remedy for all evil - - the climax of good." In 

 short, he can do no more in wishing a couple of new married 

 friends of his the completest earthly happiness, than to 

 say- 



"E a dire chc ogni cosa lieta vada, 

 Su le Fragole il zucchero le cada." 



In short, to sum up all that earth can prize, 

 May they have sugar to their strawberries! 



There are few writers who have treated of the spring and 

 its influences more fittingly than some of the English essay- 

 ists; for the English have the key to the poetry of rural life. 

 Indeed, we cannot perhaps give our readers greater pleasure 

 than by ending this article with the following extract from 

 one of the papers of that genial and kindly writer, Leigh 

 Hunt: 



"The lightest thoughts have their roots in gravity; and 

 the most fugitive colors of the world are set off by the 

 mighty background of eternity. One of the greatest pleas- 

 ures of so light and airy a thing as the vernal season, arises 



