lesh of oxen, sheep, and fatted swine,
(Far better cheer than he at home could find,)
And yet this child to stay had little minde.
"You have," quoth he, "no apple, froise, nor pie,
Stewed pears, with bread and milk, and walnuts by."

The enthusiasm of these transplanters inspired their labours. They have
watched the tender infant of their planting, till the leaf and the
flowers and the fruit expanded under their hand; often indeed they have
ameliorated the quality, increased the size, and even created a new
species. The apricot, drawn from America, was first known in Europe in
the sixteenth century: an old French writer has remarked, that it was
originally not larger than a damson; our gardeners, he says, have
improved it to the perfection of its present size and richness. One of
these enthusiasts is noticed by Evelyn, who for forty years had in vain
tried by a graft to bequeath his name to a new fruit; but persisting on
wrong principles this votary of Pomona has died without a name. We
sympathise with Sir William Temple when he exultingly acquaints us with
the size of his orange-trees, and with the flavour of his peaches and
grapes, confessed by Frenchmen to have equalled those of Fontainebleau
and Gascony, while the Italians agreed that his white figs were as good
as any of that sort in Italy; and of his "having had the honour" to
naturalise in this country four kinds of grapes, with his liberal
distributions of cuttings from them, because "he ever thought all things
of this kind the commoner they are the better."

The greater number of our exotic flowers and fruits were carefully
transported into this country by many of our travelled nobility and
gentry;[67] some names have been casually preserved. The learned Linacre
first brought, on his return from Italy, the damask rose; and Thomas
Lord Cornwall, in the reign of Henry VIII., enriched our fruit gardens
with three different plums. In the reign of Elizabeth, Edward Grindal,
afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, returning from exile, transported
here the medicinal plant of the tamarisk: the first oranges appear to
have been brought into England by one of the Carew family; for a century
after, they still flourished at the family seat at Beddington, in
Surrey. The cherry orchards of Kent were first planted about
Sittingbourne, by a gardener of Henry VIII.; and the currant-bush was
transplanted when our commerce with the island of Zante was first opened