IXTRODUCTION. 215 



they yet contributed, in the early stages of society, 

 to diffuse the knowledge of the arts of cultivation. 

 Plutarch, with the partiality arising from his subject, 

 says that Alexander, by his progress into India, 

 which opened communications between distant na- 

 tions, had more benefited mankind than all the spe- 

 culative philosophers of Greece. But when civilization 

 is advanced, war is no longer in any way an instru- 

 ment even of incidental good — it is an unmitigated 

 evil. 



The spread of a milder, though not a less power- 

 ful sway — that of the Church — introduced new fruits 

 into Great Britain. The monks, after the conver- 

 sion of the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity, appear 

 to have been the only gardeners. As early as 674, 

 we have a record, describing a pleasant and fruit- 

 bearing close at Ely, then cultivated by Brithnoth, 

 the first Abbot of that place. The ecclesiastics sub - 

 sequently carried their cultivation of fruits as far as 

 was compatible with the nature of the climate, and 

 the horticultural knowledge of the middle ages. 

 Whoever has seen an old abbey, where for gene- 

 rations destruction only has been at work, must 

 have almost invariably found it situated in one 

 of the choicest spots, both as to soil and aspect; 

 and if the hand of injudicious improvement has 

 not swept it away, there is still the " Abbey-gar- 

 den." Even though it has been wholly neglected 

 — though its walls be in ruins, covered with stone- 

 crop and wall-flower, and its area produce but the 

 rankest weeds — there are still the remains of the aged 

 fruit-trees — the venerable pears, the delicate little ap- 

 ples, and the luscious black cherries. The chesnuts 

 and the walnuts may have yielded to the axe, and 

 the fig-trees and vines died away ; — but sometimes the 

 mulberry is left, and the strawberry and the raspberry 

 struggle among the ruins. There is a moral lesson 



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