TULIP. 435 



the eastern Tulip known by a description and figure. Bal- 

 binus asserts that Busbequius brought the first Tulip-roots 

 to Prague, whence they were spread all over Germany. 

 Busbequius himself says, in a letter written in 1754, that 

 this flower was then new to him. We know that he col- 

 lected natural curiosities, and brought many from the Le- 

 vant. He relates that he paid very dear to the Turks for 

 Tulips ; but he nowhere affirms that he was the first who 

 brought them from the East. In 1565, there were Tulips 

 in the garden of Mr. Fugger, from whom Gesner wished 

 to procure some. The first Tulips planted in England 

 were sent from Vienna about the end of the sixteenth 

 century*. 



Churchill erroneously supposes the Tulip to be a native 

 of Holland : 



" The tulip, idly glaring to the view, 

 Who, though no clown, his birth from Holland drew, 

 Who, once full-dressed, fears from his place to stir, 

 The fop of flowers." 



These flowers, of no further utility than to ornament 

 gardens, and whose duration is short and very precarious, 

 became, in the middle of the seventeenth century, the object 

 of a trade for which there is no parallel, and their price rose 

 beyond the value of the most precious metals. Many authors 

 have given an account of this trade, some of whom have 

 misrepresented it. Menage called it the Tulipomania, at 

 which people laugh because they believe that the beauty 

 and rarity of the flowers induced florists to give such extra- 

 vagant prices. But this Tulip-trade was a mere gambling 

 commerce, and the Tulips themselves were only nominally 

 its objects : many bargains being daily made, and the roots 

 neither given nor received. A long and curious account of 



* See Beekmann's History of Inventions, vol. i. 



F F 2 



