d, and
yet pleased the Prince, that he commended it for the best Fish he had
ever eaten. Nor does all this exceed what every industrious _Gardiner_
may innocently enjoy, as well as the greatest Potentate on Earth.

Vitellius _his Table, to which every Day_
_All Courtiers did a constant Tribute pay,_
_Could nothing more delicious afford_
_Than Nature's Liberality._
_Help'd with a little Art and Industry,_
_Allows the meanest Gard'ners Board,_
_The Wanton Taste no Fish or Fowl can chuse,_
_For which the Grape or Melon she would lose._
_Tho' all th' Inhabitants of Sea and Air._
_Be lifted in the Glutton's Bill of Fare;_
_Yet still the_ Sallet, _and the_ Fruit _we see_
_Plac'd the third Story high in all her Luxury_.

So the Sweet [110]_Poet_, whom I can never part with for his Love to
this delicious Toil, and the Honour he has done me.

Verily, the infinite Plenty and Abundance, with which the benign and
bountiful Author of Nature has stor'd the whole Terrestrial World, more
with _Plants_ and _Vegetables_ than with any other Provision whatsoever;
and the Variety not only equal, but by far exceeding the Pleasure
and Delight of Taste (above all the Art of the _Kitchen_, than ever
[111]_Apicius_ knew) seems loudly to call, and kindly invite all her
living Inhabitants (none excepted) who are of gentle Nature, and most
useful, to the same _Hospitable_ and Common-Board, which first she
furnish'd with _Plants_ and _Fruit_, as to their natural and genuine
Pasture; nay, and of the most wild, and savage too _ab origine_: As in
_Paradise_, where, as the _Evangelical_ [112]Prophet adumbrating the
future Glory of the _Catholick Church_, (of which that happy _Garden_
was the _Antitype_) the _Wolf and the Lamb, the angry and furious Lion,
should eat Grass and Herbs together with the Ox_. But after all, _latet
anguis in herba_, there's a _Snake_ in the Grass; Luxury, and Excess in
our most innocent Fruitions. There was a time indeed when the Garden
furnish'd Entertainments for the most Renown'd Heroes, virtuous and
excellent Persons; till the Blood-thirsty and Ambitious, over-running
the Nations, and by Murders and Rapine rifl'd the World, to transplant
its Luxury to its new Mistriss, _Rome_. Those whom heretofore [113]two
Acres of Land would have satisfied, and plentifully maintain'd; had
afterwards their very Kitchens almost as large as their first
Territories: Nor was that enough: Entire [114]_Forests_