THE GARDEN OF CYRUS 



ous plantation of aconites, henbane, hellebore, Cyrus, 



and plants hardly admitted within the walls of that 



. splendid 



Paradise; while many of the ancients do poorly p i ant er 



live in the single names of vegetables ; all sto- 

 ries do look upon Cyrus as the splendid and 

 regular planter. 



According whereto Xenophon describeth 

 his gallant plantation at Sardis, thus rendered 

 by Strebseus. "Arbores pari intervallo sitas, 

 rectos ordines, et omnia perpulchrl in Quin- 

 cuncem directa" Which we shall take for grant- 

 ed as being accordingly rendered by the most 

 elegant of the Latins, and by no made term, but 

 in use before by Varro. That is, the rows and 

 orders so handsomely disposed, or five trees so 

 set together, that a regular angularity, and thor- 

 ough prospect, was left on every side. Owing 

 this name not only unto the quintuple number 

 of trees, but the figure declaring that number, 

 which being double at the angle, makes up the 

 letter X, that is, the emphatical decussation, 

 or fundamental figure. 



Now though, in some ancient and modern 

 practice, the area, or decussated plot might be 

 a perfect square, answerable to a Tuscan pedes- 

 tal, and the quinquernio or cinque point of a dye, 

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