Iborace Walpole 237 



entered into and extended the domestic en- 

 closure. The good man Noah, we are told, 

 planted a vineyard, drank of the wine, and was 

 drunken, and everybody knows the conse- 

 quences. Thus we acquired kitchen-gardens, 

 orchards, and vineyards. I am apprised that 

 the prototype of all these sorts was the garden 

 of Eden, but as that paradise was a good deal 

 larger than any we read of afterwards, being 

 enclosed by the rivers Pison, Gihon, Hiddekel, 

 and Euphrates, as every tree that was pleasant 

 to the sight and good for food grew in it, and 

 as two other trees were likewise found there, 

 of which not a slip or sucker remains, it does 

 not belong to the present discussion. After the 

 fall no man living was suffered to enter into the 

 garden ; and the poverty and necessities of our 

 first ancestors hardly allowed them time to make 

 improvements on their estates in imitation of 

 it, supposing any plan had been preserved. 

 A cottage and a slip of ground for a cabbage 

 and a gooseberry-bush, such as we see by the 

 side of a common, were in all probability the 

 earliest seats and gardens : a well and bucket 

 succeeded to the Pison and Euphrates. As 

 settlements increased, the orchard and the 

 vineyard followed ; and the earliest princes 

 of tribes possessed just the necessaries of a 

 modern farmer. 



