THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS zi 



If we believe the Scripture, we must allow that 

 God Almighty esteemed the life of a man in a 

 garden the happiest He could give him, or else He 

 would not have placed Adam in that of Eden ; that 

 it was a state of innocence and pleasure ; and that the 

 life of husbandry and cities came in after the Fall, with 

 guilt and with labour. 



Where Paradise was, has been much debated, and 

 little agreed ; but what sort of place is meant by it, 

 may perhaps easier be conjectured. It seems to have 

 been a Persian word, since Xenophon and other Greek 

 authors mention it, as what was much in use and delight 

 among the kings of those Eastern countries. Strabo 

 describing Jericho, says, Hi est palmetum, cui immixte 

 sunt, etiam aft* stirpes hortenses, locus ferax, pa/mis 

 abundans % spatio stadiorum centum, totus irriguus, ibi est 

 Regia Iff Balsami Paradisus. He mentions another 

 place to be prope Libanum 5* Paradisum. And 

 Alexander is written to have seen Cyrus's tomb in a 

 paradise, being a tower not very great, and covered 

 with a shade of trees about it. So that a Paradise 

 among them seems to have been a large space of 

 ground, adorned and beautified with all sorts of trees, 

 both of fruits and of forest, either found there before 

 it was enclosed, or planted after ; either cultivated 



