Sir Timuifam temple 99 



writings of an age and nation so refined and 

 exquisite in all sorts of delicious luxury. 



The charming description Virgil makes of the 

 happy apple, must be intended either for the 

 citron, or for some sort of orange growing in 

 Media, which was either so proper to that 

 country as not to grow in any other (as a cer- 

 tain sort of fig was to Damascus), or to have lost 

 its virtue by changing soils, or to have had its 

 effect of curing some sort of poison that was 

 usual in that country, but particular to it : I 

 cannot forbear inserting those few lines out of 

 the second of Virgil's Georgics, not having ever 

 heard anybody else take notice of them. 



Media fert tristes succos, tardumque saporem 

 Felicis mali ; quo non prcssentius ullum, 

 Pocula si quandu sczvcz infecere noveraz, 

 Auxilium venit, ac membris agit atra venena : 

 ipsa ingens arbos,faciemque simillima lauro ; 

 Et, si non altos latejactaret odores, 

 Laurus erit ; folia haud ullis labentia ventis ; 

 Flos apprima tenax : animas et olentia Medi 

 Orafovent illo, ac senibus medicantur anhelis. 



"Media brings pois'nous herbs, and the flat taste 

 Of the bless'd apple, than which ne'er was found 

 A help more present, when curs'd step-dames mix 

 Their mortal cups, to drive the venom out : 

 'T is a large tree, and like a bays in hue ; 

 And, did it not such odors cast about, 

 'T would be a bays ; the leaves with no winds fall; 

 The flowers all excel : with these the Medes 

 Perfume their breaths, and cure old pursy men." 



