II. 



LITERARY ANTIQUITIES THE VOCABULA- 

 RIES THE FIRST ENGLISH WORK ON 

 GARDENING. 



T cannot be very surprising to find the 

 firstfruits of gardening literature 

 tinctured by the prevailing supersti- 

 tions of the day about astronomical influences. 

 In the library of Trinity College, Cambridge, 

 is the poem of John the Gardener, written 

 in the fourteenth century, and the most 

 ancient production of the sort in our 

 language. It was to have been edited for 

 the Early English Text Society by Mr. Aldis 

 Wright ; but the plan was not carried out. I 

 regret that I have not seen it. But even at 

 a much later period the faith in astrology 

 governed the operations of the gardener, as 

 we can easily judge from the tract in the 



