24 



productions. The hanging gardens of Semiramis have 

 been accounted amongst the wonders of the world. Yet 

 nothing can be more certain than that the " Beauty of the 

 Chaldee's excellency" could afford the royal mistress of 

 Assyria not a single nosegay to be compared with the 

 meanest of those, which constantly grace your elegant and 

 spirited exhibitions. Were it not for the apparent neces- 

 sity of the case, arising from the absence of intercommu- 

 nication between different people, it would be unaccount- 

 able how little progress was made, for long ages, in an 

 art so eminently attractive in itself, and so universally 

 interesting to mankind. It is true, that conquerors, at all 

 periods of time, have traversed vast portions of the world. 

 But, v/ith the exception of the emperor Napoleon, the 

 pursuits of science, or the advancement of society, have 

 rarely entered into their schemes of personal or national 

 aggrandizement. But what vast improvements in this, as 

 in other respects, have resulted from the extending com- 

 merce of the world ! Of all the countless profusion of 

 fruits and vegetables which make the fertile face of Eng- 

 land " as the garden of the Lord," those indigenous to her 

 soil are of the most insignificant description. Few even 

 of those sweetest flowers, which her later poets have 

 woven into many a golden song, are of her own original 

 production. The oak, and some of the more common 

 forest trees, were all that her Druid grovQS could boast. 

 The very mulberry of Shakspeare was, in his day, a rare 

 exotic, and one of a large importation procured from the 

 continent by King James, in 1606. And if, as we are told, 

 in the times of Henry VII, apples were sold at one and 

 two shillings each, the red ones bringing the best price, 

 we may conclude, that when Justice Shallow treated Fal- 

 staff to a last yea}-^s pippin of his own graffifig, it might 

 be an entertainment, at least, commensurate with the dig- 

 nity of such a guest. 



