all ways of art, compactile, sutile, plectile; for which work there were spavλóxo, or expert persons to contrive them after the best grace and propriety. Though we yield not unto them in the beauty of flowery garlands, yet some of those of antiquity were larger than any we lately met with; for we find in Athenæus, that a myrtle crown, of one and twenty foot in compass, was solemnly carried about at the Hellotian feast in Corinth, together with the bones of Europa. And garlands were surely of frequent use among them; for we read in Galen, that when Hippocrates cured the great plague of Athens by fires kindled in and about the city: the fuel thereof consisted much of their garlands. And they must needs be very frequent and of common use, the ends thereof being many. For they were convivial, festival, sacrificial, nuptial, honorary, funebrial. We who propose unto ourselves the pleasures of two senses, and only single out such as are of beauty and good odour, cannot strictly confine ourselves unto imitation of them. For, in their convivial garlands, they had respect unto plants preventing drunkenness, or discussing the exhalations from wine; wherein, beside roses, taking in ivy, vervain, melilote, &c. they made use of divers of small beauty or good odour. The solemn festival garlands were made properly unto their gods, and accordingly contrived from plants sacred unto such deities; and their sacrificial ones were selected under such considerations. Their honorary crowns triumphal, ovary, civical, obsidional, had little of flowers in them: and their funebrial garlands had little of beauty in them beside roses, while they made them of myrtle, rosemary, apium, &c. under symbolical intimations; but our florid and purely ornamental garlands, delightful unto sight and smell, nor framed according to any mystical and symbolical considerations, are of more free election, and so may be made to excel those of the ancients: we having China, India, and a new world to supply us, beside the great distinction of flowers unknown *De Theriaca ad Pisonem. 2 discussing.] Dr. Johnson quotes the word discuss in the sense of disthis passage as his example of the use of perse. unto antiquity, and the varieties thereof arising from art and nature. But, beside vernal, æstival and autumnal, made of flowers, the ancients had also the hyemal garlands; contenting themselves at first with such as were made of horn dyed into several colours, and shaped into the figures of flowers, and also of as coronarium or clincquant, or brass thinly wrought out into leaves commonly known among us. But the curiosity of some emperors for such intents had roses brought from Egypt until they had found the art to produce late roses in Rome, and to make them grow in winter, as is delivered in that handsome epigram of Martial. At tu Romanæ jussus jam cedere brumæ Some American nations, who do much excel in garlands, content not themselves only with flowers, but make elegant crowns of feathers, whereof they have some of greater radiancy and lustre than their flowers: and since there is an art to set into shapes, and curiously to work in choicest feathers, there could nothing answer the crowns made of the choicest feathers of some tomineios and sun birds. The catalogue of coronary plants is not large in Theophrastus, Pliny, Pollux, or Athenæus: but we may find a good enlargement in the accounts of modern botanists; and additions may still be made by successive acquists of fair and specious plants, not yet translated from foreign regions, little known unto our gardens; he that would be complete may take notice of these following, Flos Tigridis. Flos Lyncis. Pinea Indica Recchi, Talama Ouiedi. Herba Paradisea. Volubilis Mexicanus. Narcissus Indicus Serpentarius. Helichrysum Mexicanum. Xicama. Aquilegia nova Hispania Cacoxochitli Recchi. Aristochæa Mexicana. or Camaratinga sive Caragunta quarta Pisonis. Maracuia Granadilla. Cambay sive Myrtus Americana. Flos Auriculæ Flor de la Oreia. Floripendio novæ Hispaniæ. Zilium Indicum. Fula Magori Garcia. Champe Garcia Champacca Bontii. Daullontas frutex odoratus seu Chamamelum arbores cens Bontii. Beidelsar Alpini. Sambuc. Amberboi Turcarum. Nuphar Egyptium. Lilionarcissus Indicus. Bamma Ægyptiacum. Hiucca Canadensis horti Farnesiani. Bupthalmum novæ Hispaniæ Alepocapath. Valeriana seu Chrysanthemum Americanum Acocotlis, Capolin Cerasus dulcis Indicus Floribus racemosis. Syringa Lutea Americana. Bulbus unifolius. Moly latifolium Flore luteo.3 Conyza Americana purpurea. Salvia Cretica pomifera Bellonii. Lausus Serrata Odora. Ornithogalus Promontorii Bona Spei. Fritillaria crassa Soldanica Promontorii Bona Spei. Sigillum Solomonis Indicum. Tulipa Promontorii Bona Spei. More might be added unto this list; and I have only taken the pains to give you a short specimen of those, many more which you may find in respective authors, and which time and future industry may make no great strangers in England. The inhabitants of nova Hispania, and a great part of America, Mahometans, Indians, Chinese, are eminent promoters of these coronary and specious plants; and the annual tribute of the King of Bisnaguer in India, arising out of odours and flowers, amounts unto many thousands of crowns. Thus, in brief, of this matter. I am, &c. More might be added unto this list.] Which Sir Thomas sent me a catalogue of from Norwich.-MS. note of Evelyn's. This list has not been found. TRACT III. OF THE FISHES EATEN BY OUR SAVIOUR WITH HIS DISCIPLES AFTER HIS RESURRECTION FROM THE DEAD. SIR, I HAVE thought a little upon the question proposed by you [viz. what kind of fishes those were, of which our Saviour ate with his disciples after his resurrection?*] and I return you such an answer, as, in so short a time for study, and in the midst of my occasions, occurs to me. The books of Scripture (as also those which are apocryphal) are often silent or very sparing, in the particular names of fishes; or in setting them down in such manner as to leave the kinds of them without all doubt and reason for farther inquiry. For, when it declareth what fishes were allowed the Israelites for their food, they are only set down in general which have fins and scales: whereas, in the account of quadrupeds and birds, there is particular mention made of divers of them. In the book of Tobit that fish which he took out of the river is only named a great fish, and so there remains much uncertainty to determine the species thereof. And even the fish which swallowed Jonah, and is called a great fish, and commonly thought to be a great whale, is not received without all doubt; while some learned men conceive it to have been none of our whales, but a large kind of lamia. And, in this narration of St. John, the fishes are only expressed by their bigness and number, not their names, and therefore it may seem undeterminable what they were: notwithstanding, these fishes being taken in the great lake or sea of Tiberias, something may be probably stated therein. * St. John xxi, 9, 10, 11-13. what kind, &c.] MS. Sloan. 1827, reads, "of what kind those little fish were, which fed the multitude in the wilderness, or, &c." |
