most _Forty Years_: But
_Solomon_ built the First _Temple_; and what forbids us to hope, that as
Great a _Prince_ may build _Solomon's House_, as that Great _Chancellor_
(one of Your Lordship's Learned _Predecessors_) had design'd the _Plan_;
there being nothing in that _August_ and _Noble Model_ impossible, or
beyond the _Power_ of _Nature_ and Learned Industry.

Thus, whilst King _Solomon's_ Temple was _Consecrated_ to the _God_
of _Nature_, and his true Worship; _This_ may be _Dedicated_, and set
apart for the _Works_ of _Nature_; deliver'd from those Illusions and
Impostors, that are still endeavouring to cloud and depress the True,
and _Substantial Philosophy_: A _shallow_ and _Superficial Insight_,
wherein (as that Incomparable Person rightly observes) having made so
many _Atheists_: whilst a _profound_ and thorow _Penetration_ into her
_Recesses_ (which is the _Business_ of the _Royal Society_) would lead
Men to the _Knowledge_, and _Admiration_ of the _Glorious Author_.

And now, _My Lord_, I expect some will wonder what my Meaning is, to
usher in a _Trifle_, with so much Magnificence, and end at last in a
fine _Receipt_ for the _Dressing_ of a _Sallet_ with an Handful of
_Pot-Herbs_! But yet, _My Lord_, this _Subject_, as low and despicable
as it appears, challenges a Part of _Natural History_, and the Greatest
Princes have thought it no Disgrace, not only to make it their
_Diversion_, but their _Care_, and to promote and encourage it in the
midst of their weightiest Affairs: He who wrote of the _Cedar_ of
_Libanus_, wrote also of the _Hysop which grows upon the Wall_.

To verifie this, how much might I say of _Gardens_ and _Rural
Employments_, preferrable to the Pomp and Grandeur of other Secular
Business, and that in the Estimate of as Great Men as any Age has
produc'd! And it is of such _Great Souls_ we have it recorded; That
after they had perform'd the Noblest Exploits for the Publick, they
sometimes chang'd their _Scepters_ for the _Spade_, and their _Purple_
for the Gardiner's _Apron_. And of these, some, My _Lord_, were
_Emperors, Kings, Consuls, Dictators_, and Wise _Statesmen_; who amidst
the most important Affairs, both in Peace and War, have quitted all
their Pomp and Dignity in Exchange of this Learned Pleasure: Nor that
of the most _refin'd_ Part of _Agriculture_ (the _Philosophy_ of the
_Garden_ and _Parterre_ only) but of _Herbs_, and wholesom _Sallets_,
and other plain and useful Parts of _Ge