CHAP, iv S Y L V A 267 



from our common experience, even the cypress-tree 

 was, but within a few years past, reputed so tender, 

 and nice a plant, that it was cultivated with the 

 greatest care, and to be found only amongst the 

 curious ; whereas we see it now, in every garden, 

 rising to as goodly a bulk and stature, as most which 

 you shall find even in Italy it self; for such I remem- 

 ber to have once seen in his late Majesty's gardens at 

 Theobalds, before that princely seat was demolish'd. 

 I say, if we did argue from this topic, methinks it 

 should rather encourage our country-men to add yet 

 to their plantations, other foreign and useful trees, 

 and not in the least deter them, because many of 

 them are not as yet become endenizon'd amongst us : 

 But of this I have said enough, and yet cannot but 

 still repeat it. 



7. We may read that the peach was at first ac- 

 counted so tender, and delicate a tree, as that it was 

 believ'd to thrive only in Persia ; and even in the 

 days of Galen, it grew no nearer than Egypt, of all 

 the Roman provinces, but was not seen in the city, 

 till about thirty years before Pliny's time ; whereas, 

 there is now hardly a more common, and universal 

 in Europe : Thus likewise, the Avellana from Pontus 

 in Asia: ; thence into Greece, and so Italy, to the city 

 of Abellino in Campania. 



Una tan turn litera immutata, Avellina dici^ qu< prius Abellina. 



I might affirm the same of our Damasco plum, 

 quince, medlar, fig, and most ordinary pears, as well as 

 of several other peregrine trees, fruit-bearers, and others; 

 for even the very damask-rose it self, (as my Lord 

 Bacon tells us, Cent. 2. exp. 659.) is little more than 



