THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS 37 



groves for shade, some parts wild, some exact ; and 

 fountains much in request among them. 



But after so much ramble into ancient times, and 

 remote places, to return home and consider the present 

 way and humour of our gardening in England ; which 

 seem to have grown into such vogue, and to have 

 been so mightily improved in three or four and twenty 

 years of His Majesty's reign, that perhaps few 

 countries are before us, either in the elegance of our 

 gardens, or in the number of our plants ; and I believe 

 none equals us in the variety of fruits, which may be ' 

 justly called good ; and from the earliest cherry and 

 strawberry, to the last apples and pears, may furnish 

 every day of the circling year. For the taste and 

 perfection of what we esteem the best, I may truly 

 say, that the French, who have eaten my peaches and 

 grapes at Shene, in no very ill year, have generally 

 concluded, that the last are as good as any they have 

 eaten in France, on this side Fountainbleau ; and the 

 first as good as any they have eat in Gascony ; I mean 

 those which come from the stone, and are properly 

 called peaches, not those which are hard, and are 

 termed pavies ; for these cannot grow in too warm a 

 climate, nor ever be good in a cold ; and are better at 

 Madrid, than in Gascony itself: Italians have agreed, 



