vallis arundineti; and so set down in the maps of Adricomius, and in our translation the river Kana, or brook of Canes. And Bellonius tells us that the river Jordan affordeth plenty and variety of reeds; out of some whereof the Arabs make darts and light lances, and out of others, arrows; and withal that there plentifully groweth the fine calamus, arundo scriptoria, or writing reed, which they gather with the greatest care, as being of singular use and commodity at home and abroad; a hard reed about the compass of a goose or swan's quill, whereof I have seen some polished and cut with a web [neb? or nib?]; which is in common use for writing throughout the Turkish dominions, they using not the quills of birds.

And whereas the same author, with other describers of these parts, affirmeth, that the river Jordan, not far from Jericho, is but such a stream as a youth may throw a stone over it, or about eight fathoms broad, it doth not diminish the account and solemnity of the miraculous passage of the Israelites under Joshua. For it must be considered, that they passed it in the time of harvest, when the river was high, and the grounds about it under water, according to that pertinent parenthesis;—" As the feet of the priests, which carried the ark, were dipped in the brim of the water, for Jordan overfloweth all its banks at the time of harvest."* In this consideration it was well joined with the great river Euphrates, in that expression in Ecclesiasticus, "God maketh the understanding to abound like Euphrates, and as Jordan in the time of harvest."+

48. The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field, but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares," or as the Greek, zizania, "among the wheat."

Now, how to render zizania, and to what species of plants to confine it, there is no slender doubt; for the word is not mentioned in other parts of Scripture, nor in any ancient Greek writer: it is not to be found in Aristotle, Theophrastus, or Dioscorides. Some Greek and Latin fathers have made use of the same, as also Suidas and Phavorinus; but probably they have all derived it from this text.

And, therefore, this obscurity might easily occasion such variety in translations and expositions. For some retain the word zizania, as the vulgar, that of Beza, of Junius, and also the Italian and Spanish. The low Dutch renders it oncruidt, the German oncraut, or herba mala, the French yuroye or lolium, and the English tares.

Besides, this being conceived to be a Syriac word, it may still add unto the uncertainty of the sense. For though this gospel were first written in Hebrew or Syriac, yet it is not unquestionable whether the true original be any where extant. And that Syriac copy which we now have, is conceived to be of far later time than St. Matthew.

Expositors and annotators are also various. Hugo Grotius hath passed the word zizania without a note. Diodati, retaining the word zizania, conceives that it was some peculiar herb growing among the corn of those countries, and not known in our fields. But Emanuel de Sa interprets it plantas semini noxias, and so accordingly some others.

Buxtorfius, in his Rabbinical Lexicon, gives divers interpretations, sometimes for degenerated corn, sometimes for the black seeds in wheat, but withal concludes, an hæc sit eadem vox aut species cum zizaniâ apud evangelistam, quærant alii. But lexicons and dictionaries by zizania do almost generally understand lolium, which we call darnel, and commonly confine the signification to that plant. Notwithstanding, since lolium had a known and received name in Greek, some may be apt to doubt why, if that plant were particularly intended, the proper Greek word was not used in the text. For Theophrastus* named lolium aiga, and hath often mentioned that plant; and in one place saith, that corn doth sometimes loliescere or degenerate into darnel. Dioscorides, who travelled over Judæa, gives it the same name, which is also to be found in Galen, Ætius, and Ægineta; and Pliny hath sometimes Latinized that word into æra.

Besides, lolium or darnel shews itself in the winter, growing up with the wheat; and Theophrastus observed, that it was no vernal plant, but came up in the winter; which will

οὐ ξαίρησθαι. Theophrast. Hist. Plant. lib. S.

not well answer the expression of the text, "And when the blade came up, and brought forth fruit," or gave evidence of its fruit, the zizania appeared. And if the husbandry of the ancients were agreeable unto ours, they would not have been so earnest to weed away the darnel; for our husbandmen do not commonly weed it in the field, but separate the seed after thrashing. And, therefore, Galen delivereth, that in an unseasonable year, and great scarcity of corn, when they neglected to separate the darnel, the bread proved generally unwholesome, and had evil effects on the head.

Our old and later translators render zizania tares, which name our English botanists give unto aracus, cracca, vicia sylvestris, calling them tares and strangling tares. And our husbandmen by tares understand some sorts of wild fitches, which grow amongst corn, and clasp unto it, according to the Latin etymology, vicia à vinciendo. Now in this uncertainty of the original, tares, as well as some others, may make out the sense, and be also more agreeable unto the circumstances of the parable. For they come up and appear what they are, when the blade of the corn is come up, and also the stalk and fruit discoverable. They have likewise little spreading roots, which may entangle or rob the good roots, and they have also tendrils and claspers, which lay hold of what grows near them, and so can hardly be weeded without endangering the neighbouring corn.

However, if by zizania we understand herbas segeti noxias, or vitia segetum, as some expositors have done, and take the word in a more general sense, comprehending several weeds and vegetables offensive unto corn, according as the Greek word in the plural number may imply, and as the learned Laurenbergius* hath expressed, runcare, quod apud nostrates weden dicitur, zizanias inutiles est evellere. If, I say, it be thus taken, we shall not need to be definite, or confine unto one particular plant, from a word which may comprehend divers. And this may also prove a safer sense,1 in such obscurity of the original.

De Horti Cultura.

This may also prove a safer sense.] disposed, with Forskäl, to consider it to But the later commentators seem rather have been the darnel.

from

And, therefore, since in this parable the sower of the zizania is the devil, and the zizania wicked persons; if any this larger acception will take in thistles, darnel, cockle, wild straggling fitches, bindweed, tribulus, restharrow and other vitia segetum; he may, both from the natural and symbolical qualities of those vegetables, have plenty of matter to illustrate the variety of his mischiefs, and of the wicked of this world. 49. When 't is said in Job, "Let thistles grow up instead of wheat, and cockle instead of barley," the words are intelligible, the sense allowable and significant to this purpose: but whether the word cockle doth strictly conform unto the original, some doubt may be made from the different translations of it; for the vulgar renders it spina, Tremellius vitia frugum, and the Geneva yuroye, or darnel. Besides, whether cockle were common in the ancient agriculture of those parts, or what word they used for it, is of great uncertainty. For the elder botanical writers have made no mention thereof, and the moderns have given it the name of pseudomelanthium, nigellastrum, lychnoides segelum, names not known unto antiquity. And, therefore, our translation hath warily set down ' noisome weeds' in the margin.

2

cockle.] Celsius, and after him Michaelis, supposes this to have been the aconite.

TRACT II.

OF GARLANDS AND CORONARY OR GARLAND PLANTS.1

SIR,

THE use of flowery crowns and garlands is of no slender antiquity, and higher than I conceive you apprehend it. For, besides the old Greeks and Romans, the Egyptians made use hereof; who, besides the bravery of their garlands, had little birds upon them to peck their heads and brows, and so to keep them [from] sleeping at their festival compotations. This practice also extended as far as India: for at the feast of the Indian King, it is peculiarly observed by Philostratus, that their custom was to wear garlands, and come crowned with them unto their feast.

The crowns and garlands of the ancients were either gestatory, such as they wore about their heads or necks; portatory, such as they carried at solemn festivals; pensile or suspensory, such as they hanged about the posts of their houses in honour of their Gods, as Jupiter Thyræus or Limeneus; or else they were depository, such as they laid upon the graves and monuments of the dead. And these were made up after

In the margin of Evelyn's copy is this manuscript note:-" This letter was written to me from Dr. Browne; more at large in the Coronarie Plants."

In order to preserve unaltered, as far as possible, the order of Sir Thomas Browne's published works, I have thought proper not to transplant into the "Correspondence" the present and several other Tracts, though they were, in fact, epistolary, and it has been ascertained to whom they were addressed. In the preface to Evelyn's Acetaria, (re-printed by Mr. Upcott, in his Collection of Evelyn's Miscellaneous Writings,) we find his "Plan of a Royal Garden, in 3 Books." It was in reference to this projected work, (of which however Acetaria

was the only part ever published,) that Browne's assistance was asked and given. Among the subjects named in that plan the following are referred to in the present Tract, and in other of Browne's Letters to Evelyn:

Book II. chap. 6. Of a seminary; nurseries; and of propagating trees, plants, and flowers; planting and transplanting, &c.

Chap. 16. Of the coronary garden. Chap. 18. Of stupendous and wonderful plants.

Book III. chap. 9. Of garden-burial. Chap. 10. Of paradise, and of the most famous gardens in the world, ancient and modern.