202 Mr. J. Hardy on the Antiquity of some Border Pears. 



very wholesome meat for the sick, as well as for the healthy. 

 Pray what do you call them ? No otherwise than you have 

 heard, replied Homenas. We are a plain, downright sort of 

 people, as God would have it, and call figs, figs ; plums, 

 plums ; and pears, pears. Truly, said Pantagruel, if I live 

 to go home — which I hope will be speedily, God willing — 

 I'll set off and graff some in my garden in Touraine, by the 

 banks of the Loire, and will call them bon-Christian, or 

 good-Christian pears"*. Benedict Curtius, who wrote at 

 Lyons in 1560, relates how celebrated they were in France. 

 When old, he says, being sliced sideways and put in rose- 

 water and sugared, they were eaten raw. The Bon-Chre'tien 

 is of late occurrence in English writers. The first date I 

 find is 1629, in Parkinson's " Paradisus," &c, p. 590, &c. ; 

 but there appears to be an earlier record, in a work of 

 Leonard Mascall's, of which I have only a copy dated 1640. 

 There are numerous varieties of the Bon-Chretien. One of 

 the finest of French Pears is by a singular misrepresenta- 

 tion made "Le Bon Chretien Turc "; and no less an indignity 

 is done to the name by its being corrupted in England into 

 u Bon-Crutchling."-f* The ridiculous cost at which one 

 variety was introduced at Sion, is recorded by Parkinson. 

 " The ten pound peare, or the hundred pound peare, the 

 truest and best, is the best Bon Chretien of Syon, so called, 

 because the grafts cost the Master so much the fetching by 

 the messengers expences, when he brought nothing else." \ 

 Sion House was famous in that age for its pear trees. " The 

 biggest," says Coles, " that ever I saw of them growing 

 against a wall was in the garden of the Earle of Northum- 

 berland at Sion, neere Brainford, whose branches extended 

 themselves after a very wonderful manner."§ 



2. Bergamot. Benedict Curtius Symphorianus, a canon 

 at Lyons, who wrote "Hortorum Libri xxx.," A.D. 1560, 

 during his travels in Italy, ascertained that the " Bergomatia" 

 rendered famous the town of Bergamo, and he commemor- 

 ates their recent importation into France. Agostino Gallo, 

 in 1550, had already described the excellence of the "Peri 

 Bergomoti." The " Bergomata " are likewise mentioned by 



* " CEuvres de F. Rabelais," par L. Jacob, Paris, 1842, p. 428. " Rabelais' 

 Works," Vol. ii., p. 352, 353, Bohn. 

 f "Vegetable Substances," &c, Lib. Ent. Knowl., p. 233. 

 % "Paradisus Terrestris," p. 593. 

 § "Adam in Eden, or Nature's Paradise," London, 1657, p. 259. 



