THE GARDEN OF CYRUS 



ing the old opinion concerning Paradise itself, The 



with many conceptions elevated above the plan J 



of the earth. Babylon 



Nebuchodonosor (whom some will have to 

 be the famous Syrian king of Diodorus) beauti- 

 fully repaired that city, and so magnificently 

 built his hanging gardens, that from succeeding 

 writers he had the honour of the first. From 

 whence overlooking Babylon, and all the region 

 about it, he found no circumscription to the 

 eye of his ambition; till over-delighted with the 

 bravery of this Paradise, in his melancholy met- 

 amorphosis he found the folly of that delight, 

 and a proper punishment in the contrary habita- 

 tion in wild plantations and wanderings of 

 the fields. 



The Persian gallants, who destroyed this 

 monarchy, maintained their botanical bravery. 

 Unto whom we owe the very name of Paradise, 

 wherewith we meet not in Scripture before the 

 time of Solomon, and conceived originally 

 Persian. The word for thatdisputed garden ex- 

 pressing, in the Hebrew, no more than a field 

 enclosed, which from the same root is content 

 to derive a garden and a buckler. 



Cyrus the Elder, brought up in woods and 

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