NOTES. XX1U 



preserved fruit trees and plants in flower throughout the winter. We find the 

 account of this banquet exaggerated into a tale of wonder in the Chronica 

 Joannis de Beta, written in the middle of the 14th century (Beka et Heda de 

 Episcopis Ultrajectenis, recogn. ab Arn. Buchelio, 1643, p. 79 ; Jourdain, 

 Kecherches critiques sur 1'Age des Traductions d'Aristote, 1819, p. 331 : 

 Buhle, Gesch. der Philosophic, Th. v. S. 296). Although some remains dis- 

 covered in the excavations at Pompeii shew that the ancients made use of 

 panes of glass, yet nothing has yet been found to indicate the use of glass or 

 forcing houses in ancient horticulture. The conduction of heat by the cal- 

 daria in baths might have led to an arrangement of artificially warmed places 

 for growing or forcing plants ; but the shortness of the Greek and Italian 

 winters no doubt rendered such arrangements less necessary. The Adonis 

 gardens (KTJTTOI ASwrtSos), so indicative of the meaning of the festival of 

 Adonis, consisted, according to Bockh, of plants in small pots, which were 

 no doubt intended to represent the garden where Aphrodite and Adonis met. 

 Adorns was the symbol of the quickly fading flower of youth of all that 

 flourishes luxuriantly and perishes rapidly ; and the festivals which bore his 

 name, the celebration of which was accompanied by the lamentations of 

 women, were amongst those in which the ancients had reference to the decay 

 of nature. I have spoken in the text of hothouse plants as contrasted with 

 those which grow naturally ; the ancients used the term " Adonis-gardens" 

 proverbiaDy, to express something which had sprung up rapidly, but gave no 

 promise of full maturity or substantial duration. The plants, which were not 

 many coloured flowers, but lettuce, fennel, barley, and wheat, were not forced 

 in winter, but in summer, being made to grow by artificial means in an un- 

 usually short space of time, viz. in eight days. Creuzer (Symbolik und 

 Mythologie, 1841, Th. ii. S. 427, 430, 479, and 481) supposes that the 

 growth of the plants of the Adonis garden was accelerated by the application 

 both of strong natural and artificial heat in the room in which they were 

 placed. The garden of the Dominican convent at Cologne recals the Green- 

 land (?) convent of St. Thomas, where the garden was kept free from snow 

 during the winter, being constantly warmed by natural hot springs, as is told 

 by the brothers Zeni, in the account of their travels (1388 1404), the 

 geographical locality of which is, however, very problematical. (Compare 

 Zurla, Viaggiatori Veneziani, T. ii. p. 6369 ; and Humboldt, Examen 

 critique de 1'Hist. de la Geographic, T. ii. p. 127.) Regular hothouses seem 

 to have been of very late introduction in our botanic gardens. Ripe pine- 

 apples were first obtained at the end of the seventeenth century (Beckmann, 



