236 OUR COMMON FRUITS. 



stead of bread, and, indeed, as a general article of pro- 

 vision, sometimes taking the place of all other kinds, and 

 probably proving no ineffectual substitute ; for it is said 

 that on one occasion the army of Philip of Macedon owed 

 its preservation to the figs brought to it, when nought 

 else was available, by the Magnesians. 



Nor is it only in Scripture or in mythologic lore that 

 the fig-tree has met with honourable mention, for in later 

 days the Mussulmans have not been behindhand in ren- 

 dering their tribute of respect to it, one chapter of the 

 Koran being entitled " The Fig ;" while Allah himself is 

 represented as swearing by it and by the olive, because, 

 say the commentators, of the great uses and virtues of 

 these two fruits. 



In our own country the records of fig cultivation might 

 almost pass for a page out of ecclesiastical history, so inti- 

 mately, and almost exclusively, are all early notices of it 

 connected with clerical names. A couple of trees, which 

 long enjoyed the credit of having been the first grown in 

 England, are said to have been brought here from Italy by 

 Cardinal Pole in 1548, when they were planted against 

 the walls of the archiepiscopal palace at Lambeth, where 

 they were still flourishing so lately as in 1817, and though 

 destroyed soon after, during some repairs of the palace, 

 cuttings from them are said to be now growing in the 

 archbishop's kitchen garden. Another very aged tree, 

 now also destroyed, but growing a few years back in the 

 garden at Mitcham, the private estate of Archbishop 

 Cranmer, was said to have been planted by that prelate's 

 own hand ; and the dean's garden at Winchester was 

 graced by another veteran, trained against a stone wall, on 

 which was an inscription testifying that, in 1623, James 

 I. " tasted of the fruit of this tree with great pleasure." 

 Again, the first tree of the kind known in Oxford was a 

 " White Marseilles," brought there by the great Oriental 

 traveller, Dr. Pocock, and planted in the garden of Christ's 

 Church College in 1648. It is related of Dr. Kennicott, 

 the celebrated Hebrew scholar, that being passionately 

 fond of figs, and seeing on this tree a particularly fine 

 one which was not yet fully ripe for gathering, to secure 



