THE TULIPOMANIA. 155 



epoch in horticultural annals. The towns of Amsterdam, 

 Haarlem, Utrecht, Alkmar, Leyden, and Rotterdam, were the 

 head-quarters of the new trade. 



The years 1634 to 1637 marked its apogee, its culmina- 

 tion ; it was the reign of the tulipomania, a malady which, 

 notwithstanding its severity, does not figure among our 

 pathological nomenclatures. Bulbs of the variety called 

 Viceroy were sold for 3000 florins (^23 5) each ; and 

 amateurs paid even as high as 5000 florins (^43 o) for the 

 Semper Augustus variety! Those who had not the need- 

 ful amount of ready money disposed of their goods, their 

 cattle, and their furniture. And not only the horticulturists, 

 but the seamen, and artisans, and servants, plunged head- 

 long, into this frantic gambling. Tulip bulbs were then as 

 eagerly sought after as shares in the company of the Missis- 

 sippi in the days of Law, or in the South Sea Stocks, also 

 set afloat by that ingenious financier. 



But it was not so much a love of flowers as a lust of 

 speculation which lay at the bottom of this famous mania. 

 For example, a gentleman engaged a merchant to deliver, 

 at the end of six months, a bulb worth 1000 florins. When 

 the time came, the price of the bulb had either gone up 

 or down, and the contractor paid only the difference j as 

 for delivering the wares, neither party cared about it. It 

 was, therefore, the exact equivalent of a speculation in the 

 funds or in railway shares. The transactions took place on 

 the public exchanges, as well as in coffee-houses, inns, and 

 on the promenades. They originated a fertile crop of abuses, 



