134 A GARDEN DIARY 
and so I am sure every successful gardener 
would be the first to say. So convinced do I 
feel of its value that there are many succulent, 
and quite wholesome vegetables, that I would 
gladly see thrown away in order to make room 
for more of it! 
That admirable essayist, and, from his own 
account, horticulturist also, Sir Thomas Browne, 
evidently grew a good deal of it in 4zs garden, 
though with the odd humour that prevails 
amongst its cultivators, he imagined that he 
had very little, in fact none at all. Here is 
the Religio Medict, so 1 have only to turn 
to his panegyric of it, a panegyric all the more 
satisfactory because he apparently intended it to 
be the reverse. Perhaps though, as Mr. Pepys 
would say, ‘That was in mirth.” 
“I thank God amongst those millions of vices I 
do inherit and hold from Adam, I have escaped this 
one.” [Millions of vices! now may heaven help 
thee, Sir Thomas! however one must remember 
that he was a rhetorician.] ‘“ Those petty acqui- 
sitions, and reputed perfections, that advance and 
elevate the conceits of other men, add no feather 
unto mine. I have seen a grammarian tower 
and plume himself over a single line in Horace, 
and show more pride in the construction of 
one ode, than the Author in the composure 
of the whole book. For my own part, besides 
the jargon and patois of several provinces, I 
