CHAP, ii S YL V A 219 



fertile banks of the Rhine should produce so soft and 

 charming a liquor, as does the same vine, planted 

 among the rocks and pumices of the so remote and 

 mountainous Canaries ? 



This for the encouragement and honour of those 

 who improve their countries with things of use and 

 general benefit : Now in the mean time, how have 

 I beheld a florist, or meaner gardener transported at 

 the casual discovery of a new little spot, double leaf, 

 streak or dash extraordinary in a tulip, anemony, 

 carnation, auricula, or amaranth ! cherishing and 

 calling it by their own names, raising the price of a 

 single bulb, to an enormous sum ; till a law in Holland 

 was made to check that tulipa-mania : The florist in 

 the mean time priding himself as if he had found the 

 elixir, or perform'd some notable atchievement, and 

 discover'd a new countrey. 



This for the defects, (for such those variegations 

 produc'd by practice, or mixture, mangonisms and 

 starving the root, are by chance met with now and 

 then) of a fading flower : How much more honour 

 then were due in justice to those persons, who bring 

 in things of much real benefit to their countrey ? 

 especially trees for fruit and timber ; the oak alone 

 (besides the shelter it afforded to our late Sovereign 

 Charles the II d ) having so often sav'd and protected 

 the whole nation from invasion, and brought it in so 

 much wealth from foreign countries. I have been 

 told, there was an intention to have instituted an 

 Order of the Royal-Oak ; and truly I should think it 

 to become a green-ribbon (next to that of St. George) 

 superior to any of the romantick badges, to which 

 abroad is paid such veneration, deservedly to be worn 

 by such as have signaliz'd themselves by their conduct 



