THE SIX OF SPADES. 195 



bright-eyed brother, producing reverently an ancient 

 Hebrew manuscript, and asking the commissioner to 

 note the 8th verse of the 2nd chapter of the Book of 

 Genesis : " And the Lord God planted a garden east- 

 ward in Eden ; and there He put the man whom He 

 had formed ; " and another comes forward with 

 parchment pages of Greek, and he points to the word 

 Gethsemane, and to the 41st verse of St. John's 19th 

 chapter : " Now in the place where He was crucified 

 there was a garden; and in the garden a new 

 sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid." And 

 then I hear them urge that a garden was to them a 

 place of holy recollections, of humble penitence, of 

 faithful hope, as well as of refreshment, and rest, and 

 peace. 



Grave and solemn though his vocation be, the 

 country parson " nevertheless " (as good George 

 Herbert writes) "sometimes refresheth himself, as 

 knowing that nature will not bear everlasting droop- 

 ings," and " because all men shun the company of 

 perpetual severity ; " and where shall he refresh 

 himself so healthfully, so harmlessly, as in a garden ? 



Let me try to prove this yet more practically to 

 assert not only the happy influence, but the profitable 

 use of horticulture, by borrowing friend Chiswick's 

 Fairy and Gourd, and by taking you in imagination 

 through my garden-ground. And I have a favour to 

 ask, before we step into the pumpkin, do not think 

 me Pharisaic when I speak of the little gifts which go 

 from my garden to the poor ; do not liken me to that 

 proud young Horner who displayed his fruit, and 

 withal his arrogance ; do not regard me as the 



