CHAPTER It* 
William Lawson, in 1597. In 1600, Sit 
Hugh Platt, the author of many other 
ufeful tradts, put forth his Garden of 
Eden a book of great merit in its 
time. All thefe paffed through numerous 
editions, and the laft preferved credit to the 
end of the century. 
Parkinson however, as I apprehend, 
was the fir ft author, who feparately defcrib- 
ed and figured the fubjedts of the Flower 
Garden. The Paradifus 'Terrejlris is there- 
fore, at this time, a valuable curiofity, as 
exhibiting the moft compleat view of the 
extent of the Englifh garden at the begin^ 
ning of the laft century. Intertropical 
produdions had been but fparingly import- 
ed. The real ftove plants are very rare 
throughout the book. There are fome 
American fpecies, and particularly from 
Virginia^ as being a part of that continent 
with w^hich 'England had the moft frequent 
intercourfe. But the principal productions 
of the Englifh gardens were exotic Euro- 
pean, and Grecian plants, fome Afiatic, and 
a few from the northern coafts of Africa. 
A modern florift, wholly unacquainted 
with 
