o many several kinds of
pears, apples, plums, peaches, &c.

[3269] "Nunc captare feras laqueo, nunc fallere visco,
Atque etiam magnos canibus circundare saltus
Insidias avibus moliri, incendere vepres."

"Sometimes with traps deceive, with line and string
To catch wild birds and beasts, encompassing
The grove with dogs, and out of bushes firing."

------"et nidos aviumscrutari," &c.

Jucundus, in his preface to Cato, Varro, Columella, &c., put out by him,
confesseth of himself, that he was mightily delighted with these husbandry
studies, and took extraordinary pleasure in them: if the theory or
speculation can so much affect, what shall the place and exercise itself,
the practical part do? The same confession I find in Herbastein, Porta,
Camerarius, and many others, which have written of that subject. If my
testimony were aught worth, I could say as much of myself; I am _vere
Saturnus_; no man ever took more delight in springs, woods, groves,
gardens, walks, fishponds, rivers, &c. But

[3270] "Tantalus a labris sitiens fugientia captat
Flumina;"

And so do I; _Velle licet, potiri non licet_.[3271]

Every palace, every city almost hath its peculiar walks, cloisters,
terraces, groves, theatres, pageants, games, and several recreations; every
country, some professed gymnics to exhilarate their minds, and exercise
their bodies. The [3272]Greeks had their Olympian, Pythian, Isthmian,
Nemean games, in honour of Neptune, Jupiter, Apollo; Athens hers: some for
honour, garlands, crowns; for [3273]beauty, dancing, running, leaping, like
our silver games. The [3274]Romans had their feasts, as the Athenians, and
Lacedaemonians held their public banquets, in Pritanaeo, Panathenaeis,
Thesperiis, Phiditiis, plays, naumachies, places for sea-fights,
[3275]theatres, amphitheatres able to contain 70,000 men, wherein they had
several delightsome shows to exhilarate the people; [3276] gladiators,
combats of men with themselves, with wild beasts, and wild beasts one with
another, like our bull-baitings, or bear-baitings (in which many countrymen
and citizens amongst us so much delight and so frequently use), dancers on
ropes. Jugglers, wrestlers, comedies, tragedies, publicly exhibited at the
emperor's and city's charge, and that with incredible cost and
magnificence. In the Low-Countries (as [3277]Meteran relates) before these
wars, they had many solemn feasts, plays, challenge