war and tempestuous love.
Then fat James of Scotland was made king of Great Britain; and Guy
Fawkes tried to blow him up with gunpowder, and failed; and the king
tried to blow out all the pipes in England with his COUNTERBLAST AGAINST
TOBACCO; but he failed too. Somewhere about that time, early in the
seventeenth century, a very small event happened. A new berry was
brought over from Virginia,--FRAGRARIA VIRGINIANA,--and then, amid wars
and rumours of wars, Doctor Butler's happiness was secure. That new
berry was so much richer and sweeter and more generous than the familiar
FRAGRARIA VESCA of Europe, that it attracted the sincere interest of all
persons of good taste. It inaugurated a new era in the history of the
strawberry. The long lost masterpiece of Paradise was restored to its
true place in the affections of man.

Is there not a touch of merry contempt for all the vain controversies
and conflicts of humanity in the grateful ejaculation with which the old
doctor greeted that peaceful, comforting gift of Providence?

"From this time forward," he seems to say, "the fates cannot beggar
me, for I have eaten strawberries. With every Maytime that visits this
distracted island, the white blossoms with hearts of gold will arrive.
In every June the red drops of pleasant savour will hang among the
scalloped leaves. The children of this world may wrangle and give one
another wounds that even my good ale cannot cure. Nevertheless, the
earth as God created it is a fair dwelling and full of comfort for all
who have a quiet mind and a thankful heart. Doubtless God might have
made a better world, but doubtless this is the world He made for us; and
in it He planted the strawberry."

Fine old doctor! Brave philosopher of cheerfulness! The Virginian berry
should have been brought to England sooner, or you should have lived
longer, at least to a hundred years, so that you might have welcomed a
score of strawberry-seasons with gratitude and an epigram.

Since that time a great change has passed over the fruit which Doctor
Butler praised so well. That product of creative art which Divine wisdom
did not choose to surpass, human industry has laboured to improve. It
has grown immensely in size and substance. The traveller from America
who steams into Queenstown harbour in early summer is presented (for a
consideration) with a cabbage-leaf full of pale-hued berries, sweet and
juicy, any one of which would outbulk a dozen of those that