54 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN 



told that Adam never did pick it, but received it from the 

 hand of Eve ? But this is a trifling criticism on a useful 

 and original article. Mrs. Paul makes a great many- 

 delightful quotations from Parkinson, and says that he is 

 ' not content to deny that single flowers can be trans- 

 formed into double " by the observation of the change of 

 the Moone, the constellations or conjunctions of Planets 

 or some other Starres or celestial bodies." Parkinson 

 holds that such transformation could not be effected by 

 the art of man.' In her condemnation of bedding-out 

 and in her admiration of the old-fashioned English 

 garden, read by the light of these sixteen years, Mrs. 

 Paul's article is almost prophetic. The ' Paradisi in Sole ' 

 is essentially a book describing a garden of 'pleasant 

 flowers ' and with many interesting details about their 

 cultivation. There is no allusion to medical matter at 

 all, though, as usual, the botanist was a doctor. The 

 woodcuts are rather coarser and rougher than in the 

 Dutch book before described, but they are fairly drawn 

 and generally Mke ISl ature. In a little book by Mrs. Ewing, 

 called ' Mary's Meadow,' the author speaks a good deal 

 of this book of Parkinson's, and in a footnote she alludes 

 to the fact that the title is an absurd play upon words, 

 after the fashion of Parkinson's day. Paradise is 

 originally an Eastern word, meaning a park or pleasure 

 ground. Paradisi in sole Pa/radisus terrestris means 

 Park-ia-son's Earthly Paradise ! 



1640. We now come to Parkinson's second book, 

 ' The Theatre of Plants, or an Universal and Complete 

 Herbal. Composed by John Parkinson, Apothecary of 

 London and the King's Herbarist ' — (' the King ' being 

 Charles I., at the time just preceding his execution). 

 The frontispiece is quite as curious in its way as the 

 one in the ' Paradisi in Sole.' It has a portrait of old 

 Parkinson in a skull-cap, looking very wise and holding 



