in their old taste for
mockery and mummery. I must add in connexion with our main inquiry, that
our own ancient beggars had their songs, in their old cant language,
some of which are as old as the Elizabethan period, and many are
fancifully characteristic of their habits and their feelings.

INTRODUCERS OF EXOTIC FLOWERS, FRUITS, ETC.

There has been a class of men whose patriotic affection, or whose
general benevolence, have been usually defrauded of the gratitude their
country owes them: these have been the introducers of new flowers, new
plants, and new roots into Europe; the greater part which we now enjoy
was drawn from the luxuriant climates of Asia, and the profusion which
now covers our land originated in the most anxious nursing, and were the
gifts of individuals. Monuments are reared, and medals struck, to
commemorate events and names, which are less deserving our regard than
those who have transplanted into the colder gardens of the North the
rich fruits, the beautiful flowers, and the succulent pulse and roots of
more favoured spots; and carrying into their own country, as it were,
another Nature, they have, as old Gerard well expresses it, "laboured
with the soil to make it fit for the plants, and with the plants to make
them delight in the soil."

There is no part of the characters of PEIRESC and EVELYN, accomplished
as they are in so many, which seems more delightful to me, than their
enthusiasm for the garden, the orchard, and the forest.

PEIRESC, whose literary occupations admitted of no interruption, and
whose universal correspondence throughout the habitable globe was more
than sufficient to absorb his studious life, yet was the first man, as
Gassendus relates in his interesting manner, whose incessant inquiries
procured a great variety of jessamines; those from China, whose leaves,
always green, bear a clay-coloured flower, and a delicate perfume; the
American, with a crimson-coloured, and the Persian, with a
violet-coloured flower; and the Arabian, whose tendrils he delighted to
train over "the banqueting-house in his garden;" and of fruits, the
orange-trees with a red and parti-coloured flower; the medlar; the rough
cherry without stone; the rare and luxurious vines of Smyrna and
Damascus; and the fig-tree called Adam's, whose fruit by its size was
conjectured to be that with which the spies returned from the land of
Canaan. Gassendus describes the transports of Peiresc, when, the sage