DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.50017#0172
9°
THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY
We pretend not to multiply vegetable divisions by
quincuncial and reticulate plants; or erect a new phytol-
ogy.1 The field of knowledge hath been so traced, it
is hard to spring any thing new. Of old things we
write something new, if truth may receive addition, or
envy will have any thing new; since the ancients
knew the late anatomical discoveries, and Hippocrates
the circulation.
You have wisely ordered your vegetable delights,
beyond the reach of exception. The Turks who
passed their days in gardens here, will have gardens
also hereafter; and delighting in flowers on earth,
must have lilies and roses in heaven. In garden
delights ’tis not easy to hold a mediocrity ; that
insinuating pleasure is seldom without some extremity.
The ancients venially delighted in flourishing gardens ;
many were florists that knew not the true use of a
flower ; and in Pliny’s days none had directly treated
of that subject. Some commendably affected plant-
ations of venomous vegetables, some confined their
delights unto single plants, and Cato seemed to dote
upon cabbage ; while the ingenuous delight of tulipists
1 As did Erasmus Darwin later.
THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY
We pretend not to multiply vegetable divisions by
quincuncial and reticulate plants; or erect a new phytol-
ogy.1 The field of knowledge hath been so traced, it
is hard to spring any thing new. Of old things we
write something new, if truth may receive addition, or
envy will have any thing new; since the ancients
knew the late anatomical discoveries, and Hippocrates
the circulation.
You have wisely ordered your vegetable delights,
beyond the reach of exception. The Turks who
passed their days in gardens here, will have gardens
also hereafter; and delighting in flowers on earth,
must have lilies and roses in heaven. In garden
delights ’tis not easy to hold a mediocrity ; that
insinuating pleasure is seldom without some extremity.
The ancients venially delighted in flourishing gardens ;
many were florists that knew not the true use of a
flower ; and in Pliny’s days none had directly treated
of that subject. Some commendably affected plant-
ations of venomous vegetables, some confined their
delights unto single plants, and Cato seemed to dote
upon cabbage ; while the ingenuous delight of tulipists
1 As did Erasmus Darwin later.