372 BRECK’S NEW BOOK OF FLOWERS. 
the Tulipomania; at which people laugh, because they be- 
lieve that the beauty and rarity of the flowers induced 
florists to give such extravagant prices. But this Tulip 
trade was a mere gambling commerce, and the Tulips 
themselves were only nominally its object, many bargains 
being daily made, and the roots neither given nor re- 
ceived. In Holland and Belgium the passion for Tulips 
among the florists became an absolute madness. Many 
thousand francs have often been given for a single root, 
and the commerce of this article in 1637, rose to some 
millions of francs, At the period of this effervescence, 
properties of considerable value were given for a single 
flower, and a memorable monument of this outrageous 
folly is still exhibited at Lille, in the Tulip Brewery, 
which, it is said, though valued at 30,000 francs, ($6000,) 
was given by its proprietor for a single root. At last the 
Tulip mania became so overpowing that the government 
of Holland, convinced of the evil effects which might re- 
sult from it, were obliged to interfere, and to pass laws of 
great severity against such transactions, limiting the ex- 
tent of the amount for any one bulb to 200 francs. To 
this day, a few of the choice and rare varieties are priced 
at that sum in the Dutch catalogues. During this Tulip 
fever, a merchant in Holland gave a herring to a sailor 
who had brought him some goods. The sailor, seeing 
some valuable Tulip roots lying about, which he consid- 
ered of little consequence, thinking them to be onions, 
took some of them unperceived, and ate them with his 
herring. Through this mistake, the sailor’s breakfast cost 
the merchant a greater sum than if he had treated the 
Prince of Orange. 
Another anecdote is told of an Englishman, who, be- 
ing in a Dutchman’s garden, pulled a couple of Tulips, 
on which he wished to make some botanical observations, 
and put them in his pocket; but he was apprehended as a 
