260 THE PRAISE OF GARDENS 



AMOS ""PHUS we associate gardens and orchards with the perfect 

 condition of mankind. Gardeners ourselves by birthright, 



. 1799). we also mythologize and plant our Edens in the East of us, like 

 our ancestors ; the sacredness of earth and heaven still clinging 

 to the tiller of the ground. Him we esteem the pattern man, the 

 most favoured of any. His labours have a charming innocency. 

 They yield the gains of a self-respect denied to other callings. 

 His is an occupation friendly to every virtue ; the freest of any 

 from covetousness and debasing cares. It is full of honest profits, 

 manly labours, and brings and administers all necessaries ; gives 

 the largest leisure for study and recreation, while it answers most 

 tenderly the hospitalities of friendship, and the claims of home. 

 The delight of children, the pastime of woman, the privilege of 

 the poor man, as it is the ornament of the gentleman, the praise 

 of the scholar, the security of the citizen, it places man in his 

 truest relations to the world in which he lives. And he who is 

 insensible to these pleasures, must lack some chord in the harp 

 of humanity, worshipping, if he worship, at some strange shrine. 



Who loves a garden still his Eden keeps ; 



Perennial pleasures plants, and wholesome harvests reaps. 



Tablets. (The Garden, I. Antiquity.} 



Orchards are even more personal in their charms than gardens, 

 as they are more nearly human creations. Ornaments of the 

 homestead, they subordinate other features of it ; and such is 

 their sway over the landscape that house and owner appear 

 accidents without them. So men delight to build in an ancient 

 orchard, when so fortunate as to possess one, that they may live 

 in the beauty of its surroundings. Orchards are among the most 

 coveted possessions; trees' of ancient standing, and vines, being 

 firm friends and royal neighbors for ever. The profits, too, are 

 as wonderful as their longevity. And if antiquity can add any 

 worth to a thing, what possession has a man more noble than 

 these ? So unlike most others, which are best at first, and grow 

 worse till worth nothing ; while fruit-trees and vines increase in 

 worth and goodness for ages. (The Orchard.} 



