DISSERTATION. 



XJlMONGST the Chinefe, Gardening is held in much 

 higher efteem, than it is in Europe ; they rank a perfect 

 work in that Art, with the great productions of the 

 human underftanding ; and fay, that its efficacy in moving 

 the paffions, yields to that of few other arts whatever. 



Their Gardeners are not only Botanifts, but alfo 

 Painters and Philofophers, having a thorough knowledge 

 of the human mind, and of the arts by which its ftrongeft 

 feelings are excited. It is not in China, as in Italy and 

 France, where every petty Architect is a Gardener ; 

 neither is it as in another famous country, where peafants 

 emerge from the melon grounds to commence pro- 

 feflbrs ; fo Sganarelle, the faggot-maker, laid down his 

 hatchet to turn phyfician. In China, Gardening is a 

 diftincl; profeffion, requiring an extenfive ftudy; to the 



perfection 



