134 Gleanings from the 



" Lord of few acres, and thofe barren too, 

 Yet labouring well his little fpot of ground, 

 Some Scattering pot-herbs here and there he found ; 

 Which cultivated with his daily care, 

 And bruifed with vervain, were his daily fare. 

 For every bloom his trees in fpring afford, 

 An autumn apple was by tale reftored. 

 He knew to rank his elms in even rows, 

 For fruit the grafted pear-tree to difpofe, 

 And tame to plums the fournefs of the floes. 

 With Spreading planes he made a cool retreat 

 To made good fellows from the Summer's heat. 

 Sometimes white lilies did their leaves afford, 

 With wholefome poppy-flow'rs to mend his homely board. 

 For late returning home he fupped at eafe, 

 And wifely deemed the wealth of monarchs lefs ; 

 The little of his own, becaufe his own, did pleafe." 



Another enumeration of garden flowers, as 

 prettily arranged as any nofegay, will be found in 

 the laft twenty lines of Virgil's " Culex," if that 

 poem be his, and not merely a monkifh cento. 



Having fpoken of prehiftoric gardens, it would 

 be unpardonable to forget the Egyptian kitchen- 

 gardens, wherein grew the leeks, onions, and 

 cucumbers for which the Ifraelites longed. The 

 fertility of thefe gardens was due then, as now, to 

 their proximity to the beneficent waters of the 

 Nile and the alluvial foil of which they were com- 

 pofed. The celebrated Perfian paradifes were not 

 gardens at all, but rather parks planted with knots 

 of trees, wherein meltered wild beafts until it 

 pleafed their owners to chafe them. The " terai " 

 on the flopes of the Himalayas at prefent forms a 

 good natural example of a paradife. We have men- 

 tioned the Saxon " wort-yard," and it is worth re- 

 marking that the South of England poflefled many 

 vineyards before the Conqueft, though their 



