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white figs were from Herculaneum, 

 rate, and Aratian ; the Chelidonian figs ard 

 the latest, and ripen against the winter : some 

 bear twice a year, and some of the Chalcidian 

 kind bear three times a year/' The Romans 

 had figs from Chalcis and Chios, &c. ; and 

 many of their varieties, it appears, were 

 named from those who first introduced or 

 cultivated them in Italy. The Livian fig was 

 so named after Livia, wife to the Emperor 

 Augustus, who, it is said, made an unnatural 

 use of it to poison her husband. 



If the fig-tree was ever brought to this 

 country by the Romans, it was, in all pro- 

 bability, confined to the southern counties ; 

 and not being generally cultivated, was de- 

 stroyed when their villas were demolished. 

 It is generally supposed that it was not plant- 

 ed in England before the reign of Henry the 

 Eighth, when luxury and the arts began to 

 be encouraged, and noblemen's houses first 

 put on the air of Italian magnificence. There 

 are, at the present time, some fig-trees, of the 

 white Marseilles kind, growing in the garden 

 of the Episcopal Palace, at Lambeth, which 

 are said to have been planted by Cardinal 

 Pole, who brought them from Italy during 

 the reign of Henry the Eighth. There is 

 also a fig-tree of the white sort, at Mitcham, 



Tlf 



