OF FOREST-TREES. 143 



entertain the eye, and breathe their redolent odours and perfumes to the CHAP. VI. 

 smell. The golden fruit, the apples of the Hesperides, together with ^"■^V^^^ 

 the delicious Ananas, gratify the taste, whilst the cheerful ditties of 

 canorous birds recording their innocent amours to the murmurs of the 

 bubbling fountain, delight the ear. At the same time the charming ac- 

 cents of the fair and virtuous sex, preferable to all the admired composures 

 of the most skilful musicians, join in concert with hymns and hallelujahs 

 to the bountiful and glorious Creator, who has left none of the senses 

 which he has not gratified at once with their most agreeable and proper 

 objects. 



But, to return to Brompton: It is not to be imagined what a surprising 

 scene such a spacious saloon, tapestried with the natural verdure of the 

 glittering foliage, presents the spectator, and recompenses the toil of the 

 ingenious planter ; when, after a little patience, he finds the slender 

 plants (set but at five or six feet distance, nor much more in height, well 

 pruned and dressed) ascend to an altitude sufficient to shade and defend 

 his paradisian treasure, without excluding the milder gleams of the glo- 

 rious and radiant planet, with his cherishing influence and kindly warmth, 

 to all within the inclosure — refreshed with the cooling and early dew, 

 pregnant with the sweet exhalations, which the indulgent mother and 

 teeming earth sends up to nourish and maintain her numerous and tender 

 oflfspring. 



But, after all, let us not dwell here too long, whilst the inferences to 

 be derived from those tempting and temporary objects, prompt us to raise 

 our contemplations a little on objects yet more worthy our noblest spe- 

 culations, and all our pains and curiosity, representing that happy state 

 above, namely, the celestial paradise : Let us, I say, suspend our admi- 

 ration a while of these terrestrial gaieties, which are of so short continu- 

 ance, and raise our thoughts from being too deeply immersed and rooted 

 in them, aspiring after those supernal, more lasting, and glorious abodes, 

 namely, a paradise, not like this of ours, with so much pains and curiosity, 

 made with hands, but eternal in the heavens, where all the trees are 

 trees of life, the flowers all Amaranths ; all the plants perennial, ever 

 verdant, ever pregnant ; and where those who desire knowledge may 

 fully satiate themselves ; taste freely of the fruit of that tree which cost 

 the first gardener, and posterity, so dear ; and where the most voluptuous 



