i 3 4 A GARDEN DIARY 



and so I am sure every successful gardener 

 would be the first to say. So convinced do I 

 feel of its value that there are many succulent, 

 and quite wholesome vegetables, that I would 

 gladly see thrown away in order to make room 

 for more of it ! 



That admirable essayist, and, from his own 

 account, horticulturist also, Sir Thomas Browne, 

 evidently grew a good deal of it in his garden, 

 though with the odd humour that prevails 

 amongst its cultivators, he imagined that he 

 had very little, in fact none at all. Here is 

 the Religio Medici, so I have only to turn 

 to his panegyric of it, a panegyric all the more 

 satisfactory because he apparently intended it to 

 be the reverse. Perhaps though, as Mr. Pepys 

 would say, "That was in mirth." 



"I thank God amongst those millions of vices I 



O 



do inherit and hold from Adam, I have escaped this 

 one." [Millions of vices! now may heaven help 

 thee, Sir Thomas ! however one must remember 

 that he was a rhetorician.] " Those petty acqui- 

 sitions, and reputed perfections, that advance and 

 elevate the conceits of other men, add no feather 

 unto mine. I have seen a grammarian tower 

 and plume himself over a single line in Horace, 

 and show more pride in the construction of 

 one ode, than the Author in the composure 

 of the whole book. For my own part, besides 

 the jargon and patois of several provinces, I 



