and which son (about the year 813) has been justly termed the Augustus of Bagdad. "Study, books, and men of letters, (I am quoting the eloquent pages of De Sismondi On the Literature of the Arabians,) almost entirely engrossed his attention. Hundreds of camels might be seen entering Bagdad loaded with nothing but manuscripts and papers. Masters, instructors, translators, and commentators, formed the court of Al-Mamoun, which appeared rather to be a learned academy than the centre of government in a warlike empire."

The gardens of Epicurus, and of Pisistratus, Cimon, and Theophrastus, were the most famous of any in the Grecian empire. Those of Herculaneum may be seen in the 2nd vol. of the paintings found there. The luxurious gardens of the affluent Seneca, and the delight with which Cicero speaks of his paternal seat, (which enraptured his friend Atticus with its beauty,) and the romantic ones of Adrian, at Tivoli, and of Lucullus, of Sallust, of the rich and powerful Crassus, and of Pompey, shew the delight which the old Romans took in them. One may gather this also from Livy; and Virgil's energy of language warmly paints the

flowering pride

Of meads and streams that through the valleys glide.

A country cottage near a crystal flood,

A winding valley, and a lofty wood.

*

Leisure and calm in groves, and cooling vales;

Grottoes and babbling brooks, and darksome dales.

Messaline (says a translation of Tacitus) avoit une passion extreme pour les jardins de Lucullus, qu'il embellisoit superbement, ajoûtant tous les jours quelque nouvelles beautez á cellés qu'ils avoint receuës de leur premier maitre.

We are reminded in a magic page of our own immortal poet, of those of Julius Cæsar, and of

his walks,

His private arbours, and new-planted orchards,

when the noble Antony invokes the Romans to

kiss dead Cæsar's wounds,

And dip their napkins in his sacred blood.

Horace's incomparable lines on the happiness and delight of a country life, his country granges, his woods, his garden, and his grove; and many of the other Roman writers, abundantly shew their attachment to gardens, as accompaniments to their splendid villas. There was scarcely a romantic valley that was not crowded with their villas.

Martial and Juvenal ridicule the clipped box trees, cut dragons, and similar grotesque fancies, at some of their villas, both admiring the nobler grace with which nature adorned each spot.*

The Romans were perhaps the first who introduced that art into Britain, meagerly as they did introduce it. The earliest account I can find of an English writer on Gardening, is,

Alfred, an Englishman, surnamed the Philosopher, much respected at Rome. He died 1270, and left four books on the Meteors of Aristotle; also one on Vegetables, and five

*Nearly eight pages of Mr. Loudon's Encyclop. are devoted to a very interesting research on the gardens of the Romans. Sir Joseph Banks has a paper on the Forcing Houses of the Romans, with a list of Fruits cultivated by them, now in our gardens, in vol. 1 of the Hort. Trans.

on the Consolations of Boethius. We are not very likely to discover his portrait. Nor that of the following:

Henry Daniel, a Dominican friar, said to be well skilled in the natural philosophy and physic of his time, left a manuscript inscribed Aaron Danielis. He therein treats De re Herbaria, de Arboribus, Fructibus, &c. He flourished about the year 1379.-N. B. I have copied this article from Dr. Pulteney's Sketches, vol. 1, page 23.*

I believe there are no Portraits engraved, nor perhaps yet discovered, of the following sixty-nine persons; at least I know of none:

RICHARD ARNOLDE, who in his Chronicle, printed in 1502, has a chapter on "The crafte of graffynge, and plantyne, and alterynge of fruyts, as well in colours, as in taste." The

* Dr. Pulteney gives a list of several manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, the writers of which are unknown, and the dates not precisely determined, but supposed to have been written, if not prior to the invention of printing, at least before the introduction of that art into England. I select the two following.

No. 2543. De Arboribus, Aromatis, et Floribus.

No. 2562. Glossarium Latino-anglicum Arborum, Fructuum, Frugam, &c. And he states the following from Bib. S. Petri Cant:

No. 1695. Notabilia de Vegetabilibus, et Plantis.

Dr. Pulteney observes, that the above list might have been considerably extended, but that it would have unnecessarily swelled the article he was then writing.

The Nouv. Dict. Hist. mentions a personage whose attachment to his garden, and one of whose motives for cultivating that garden, does not deserve a notice:—“ Attale III. Roi de Pergame, fils de Stratonice, soùlla la thrône en répandant le sang de ses amis et de ses parens. Il abandonna ensuite le soin de ses affaires pour s'occuper entirement de son jardin. Ily cultivoit des poisons, tels que l'aconit et la ciguë, qu'il envoyoit quelque fois en présent a ses amis. Il mourut 133 ans avant Jesus Christ."

celebrated poem of the Nut-brown Maid first appeared in this Chronicle. Sir E. Brydges, in vol. 6 of his Censura Literaria, has transcribed the whole poem as it appears in Arnolde.

THOMAS TUSSER, whose memory has had the felicity to merit the notice of Mr. Warton, in his History of English Poetry, from his having published his poem of "A Hundreth good Pointes of Husbandrie, imprinted at London, in Flete strete, within Temple barre, at the syne of the Hand and Starre, by Richard Totell, An. 1577." A copy of this first edition (probably unique) is preserved in the British Museum. A re-print of this singular literary rarity is given in Mr. Hazlewood's British Bibliographer. The subsequent editions of this curious book are interestingly enumerated by Mr. Mavor, in his edition of Tusser. No portrait I believe has been discovered of this benevolent man, whose good sense, impressive maxims, enlightened and philosophic turn of mind and feeling for the poor, shine through most pages of his poem:

What better bed than conscience good, to pass the night with sleep,
What better work, than daily care, from sin thyself to keep?
What better thought, than think on God, and daily him to serve,
What better gift than to the poor, that ready be to sterve?

His estimate of life is concise:

To death we must stoop, be we high, be we low,
But how and how suddenly few be that know;
What carry we then but a sheet to the grave,

(To cover this carcass) of all that we have?

His hospitable heart thus pleads for the desolate, during the festivities of Christmas, and his love of "mirth and good cheer" makes him not forget Harvests home:

At Christmas, the hardness of winter doth rage,
A griper of all things, and specially age;
Then sadly poor people, the young and the old,
Be sorest oppressed with hunger and cold.

At Christmas, by labour there's little to get,
That wanting-the poorest in danger are set:
What season then better, of all the whole year,
Thy needy, poor neighbour, to comfort and cheer.

At Christmas be merry, and thankful withal,

And feast thy poor neighbours, the great with the small:
Yea all the year long, to the poor let us give,
God's blessing to follow us, whiles we do live.

In harvest time, harvest folk, servants and all
Should make, all together, good cheer in the hall;
And fill out the black bowl of blythe to their song,
And let them be merry all harvest time long.

Once ended thy harvest, let none be beguil❜d,

Please such as did help thee—man, woman, and child,---
Thus doing, with alway, such help as they can,
Thou winnest the praise of the labouring man.

Now look up to God-ward, let tongue never cease
In thanking of him, for his mighty increase,
Accept my good will-for a proof go and try;

The better thou thrivest, the gladder am I.

Tusser died about the year 1583, aged about sixty-five, and is buried in St. Mildred's church, in the Poultry. His epitaph is preserved in Stowe's Survey of London; and (as Mr. Mavor observes) it is perfectly in character with the man and his writings; and if conjecture may be allowed, was penned by himself:

Here Thomas Tusser, clad in earth, doth lie,
Who sometime made the Points of Husbandry.