ON T9E.FOR(;|SXl-HOU«ES OF THE ROMANS. 151 



quent at the tables of opulent persons ; and some of them, 

 perhaps in less than half a century, be offered for sale on 

 every market day at Covent Garden. 



Subjoined is a list of those fruits cultivated at Rome, 

 in the ticne of Pliny, that are now grown in our English, 

 gardens. 



Almonds. — Both sweet and bitter were abundant. Modem fruUa 



Jpples.-^22 sorts at least : sweet apples (melimala) for t^e^R^mans^ 

 eating, and others for cookery. They had one sort without 

 kernels. 



Apricots. — Pliny says of the apricot {armeniaca) quae 

 sola et odore commendantur, lib. xv, sect. 11. He arranges 

 them among his plums. Martial valued them little, as 

 appears by his epig^rani, xiii, 4^. 



Cherries were introduced into Rome in the year of 

 the city 680, 73. A. C and were carried thence to Britain 

 120 years after, A. D. 480. The Romans had eight kinds, 

 a ped one, a black one, a kind so tender as scarce to bear 

 any carriage, a hard fleshed one {duracina) like our bigar* 

 reau, a small one with a bitterish flavour [laurea) like our 

 lifetle^wild black, also a dwarf one not exceeding three feet 

 high. 



Chestnuts. — They had six sorts, some more easily sepa* 

 rated from the skin than others, and one with a red sjcin ; 

 they roasted them as we do. . ^ 



-Fig-*.-^— -They had many sorts, black , and >vhite, large 

 and small, one as large as a pear, another no larger than 

 an olive. . 



Medlars, — They had two kinds, the one larger, and the 

 other smaller. , . 



Mulberries, — They had two kinds of the black sort, a 

 larger and a smaller, Pliny speaks also of a mulberry 

 growing on a brier: Nascuntur et in rubisy I. xv, sect. 27, 

 but wheiher this means the raspberr)'^, or the common black<^ 

 berry does not appear. 



Nuts— They had hazle-nuts and filberds; (has quoque 

 mollis protegitbarba) /. 15» sect. 24: they roasted these 



nuts, ,_^ i ;..'■.:. ; 



Pfar^.-— Of these they had many sorts, both sumpaer and 

 winter fruit, melting and hard, they b^ ijipre than thirty- . 



