16 A GARDEN OF HERBS 



not to awaken the Dragon that is always lurking about the 

 Golden Fruit in the fair Garden of the internal Hesperides, 

 nor irritate the original poisons, nor raise combustions within 

 by falling into Disorders without ; but managing all things 

 in Temperance and Simplicity, and hearkening to the Voice 

 of Wisdom and the Dictates of Reason and Nature, thou 

 shalt transact the days of thy pilgrimage here in Peace and 

 Tranquility and be prepared for the fruition of more corn- 

 pleat and undisturbed as well as endless Felicity." 



Perhaps when we revive the old herb garden the herbs 

 will imbue us with more of the spirit of the old herbalists. 

 To read their works is to feel one knows at least something 

 of the minds of the writers ; and widely as their personalities 

 differ, one thing they all seem to have had in common, and 

 that was the spirit of the great Linnaeus, who, after seeing 

 a flower open said, " I saw God in His Glory passing near 

 me and bowed my head in worship." " If every herb," 

 says William Coles, " show that there is a God, as verily it 

 doth, the very beauty of Plants being an argument that 

 they are from an Intellectual principle; what Lectures of 

 Divinity might we receive from them if we would but attend 

 diligently to the inward understanding of them? " " They 

 are to be cherished," says Harrison, " and God to be glorified 

 in them because they are His good gifts and created to do 

 man help and service." The preface to Parkinson's Paradisi 

 is so beautiful that I cannot forbear quoting some of it at 

 length. " Although the ancient Heathens did appropriate 

 the first invention of the knowledge of Herbs and so con- 

 sequently of physicke, some unto Chiron the Centaure, and 

 others to Apollo or ^sculapius his sonne; yet we that are 

 Christians have out of a better schoole learned that God the 

 Creator of Heaven and Earth, at the beginning when he 

 created Adam, inspired him with the knowledge of all 

 naturall thinges : for as he was able to give names to all the 

 living Creatures, according to their severall natures ; so no 

 doubt but hee had also the knowledge, both what Herbes 

 and Fruits were fit, eyther for Meate or Medicine, for Use 

 or for Delight, and that Adam might exercise this know- 



