Natural Hijlory of the Ancients. 135 



grapes would not probably be highly prized at 

 prefent. 1 Every monaftery and convent would 

 have its own patch of garden ground, and horti- 

 cultural fcience in England is largely indebted to 

 the culture and improved varieties of plants intro- 

 duced by the monks. The celebrated liqueur which 

 was recently made by the monks at the Grande 

 Chartreufe mows their {kill lingering to our own 

 day, as admirably exprefTed by Matthew Arnold : 



" The garden, overgrown yet mild, 

 Thofe fragrant herbs are flowering there ! 

 Strong children of the Alpine wild 

 Whofe culture is the brethren's care ; 

 Of human talks their only one, 

 And cheerful works beneath the fun." 



There is a Paradyfs (Paradife) mead near the 

 Priory of Selborne, Hants, which was probably en- 

 clofed ground, planted like an orchard with fruit- 

 trees, and pleafantly laid out. 2 Jedburgh, in old 

 days, was greatly renowned for pears ; while Buck- 

 faftleigh is faid to have firft introduced the apple 

 to Devon, owing to the monks at thefe religious 

 houfes having originally planted orchards. 



Burton 3 does not forget to eulogize the delights 

 of gardens: " To walk amongft orchards, gardens, 

 bowers, mounds, and arbours, artificial wilder- 

 neffes, green thickets, arches, groves, lawns, 

 rivulets, fountains, and fuch-like pleafant places, 

 like that Antiochan Daphne, brooks, pools, fifh- 

 ponds, betwixt wood and water, in a fair meadow, 



1 See Lappenburg, " Hiflory of England," ii. 359. 



2 White, "Antiquities of Selborne," Letter 25. 



3 " Anatomy of Melancholy," ed. 1826, vol. i., p. 407. 



