they will, if they will not ripen perfectly in our climate, they are better never planted, or never eaten. Now whoever will be sure to eat good fruit, must do it out of a garden of his own; for besides the choice so necessary in the sorts, the soil, and so many other circumstances that go to compose a good garden, or produce good fruits, there is something very nice in gathering them, and choosing the best even from the same tree. The best sorts of all among us, which I esteem the white figs and the soft peaches, will not carry without suffering. The best fruit that is bought, has no more of the master's care than how to raise the greatest gains; his business is to have as much fruit as he can upon a few trees, whereas the way to have it excellent is to have but little upon many trees. So that for all things out of a garden, either of salads or fruits, a poor man will eat better, that has one of his own, than a rich man that has none. And this is all I think of necessary and useful to be known upon this subject.-Essay, Of Gardening.

3. Retirement from Public Life.

UPON the survey of all these circumstances, conjunctures, and dispositions, both at home and abroad, I concluded in cold blood, that I could be of no further use or service to the king my master, and my country, whose true interests I always thought were the same, and would be both in danger when they came to be divided, and for that reason had ever endeavoured the uniting them; and had compassed it, if the passions of some few men had not lain fatally in the way, so as to raise difficulties that I saw plainly were never to be surmounted. Therefore, upon the whole, I took that firm resolution, in the end of the year 1680, and the interval between the Westminster and Oxford parliaments, never to

charge myself more with any public employments; but retiring wholly to a private life, in that posture take my fortune with my country, whatever it should prove: which as no man can judge, in the variety of accidents that attend human affairs, and the chances of every day, to which the greatest lives, as well as actions, are subject; so I shall not trouble myself so much as to conjecture: fata viam inveniant.

Besides all these public circumstances, I considered myself in my own humour, temper, and dispositions, which a man may disguise to others, though very hardly, but cannot to himself. I had learned by living long in courts and public affairs, that I was fit to live no longer in either. I found the arts of a court were contrary to the frankness and openness of my nature; and the constraints of public business too great for the liberty of my humour and my life. The common and proper ends of both are the advancement of men's fortunes; and that I never minded, having as much as I needed, and, which is more, as I desired. The talent of gaining riches I ever despised, as observing it to belong to the most despisable men in other kinds: and I had the occasions of it so often in my way, if I would have made use of them, that I grew to disdain them, as a man does meat that he has always before him. Therefore, I never could go to service for nothing but wages, nor endure to be fettered in business when I thought it was to no purpose. I knew very well the arts of a court are, to talk the present language, to serve the present turn, and to follow the present humour of the prince, whatever it is: of all these I found myself so incapable, that I could not talk a language I did not mean, nor serve a turn I did not like, nor follow any man's humour wholly against my own. Besides, I have had, in twenty years' experience, enough of the uncertainty of princes, the caprices of fortune, the corruption of ministers,

the violence of factions, the unsteadiness of counsels, and the infidelity of friends; nor do I think the rest of my life enough to make any new experiments.

And so I take leave of all those airy visions which have so long busied my head about mending the world; and at the same time, of all those shining toys or follies that employ the thoughts of busy men: and shall turn mine wholly to mend myself; and, as far as consists with a private condition, still pursuing that old and excellent counsel of Pythagoras, that we are, with all the cares and endeavours of our lives, to avoid diseases in the body, perturbations in the mind, luxury in diet, factions in the house, and seditions in the state.-Memoirs.

4. Holland.

WHATEVER it was, whether nature or accident, and upon what occasion soever it arrived, the soil of the whole Province of Holland is generally flat, like the sea in a calm, and looks as if, after a long contention between land and water, which it should belong to, it had at length been divided between them for to consider the great rivers, and the strange number of canals that are found in this province, and do not only lead to every great town, but almost to every village, and every farm-house in the country; and the infinity of sails that are seen everywhere coursing up and down upon them; one would imagine the water to have shared with the land, and the people that live in boats to hold some proportion with those that live in houses. And this is one great advantage towards trade, which is natural to the situation, and not to be attained in any country where there is not the same level and softness of soil, which makes the cutting of canals so easy work, as to be attempted almost by every private man: and one horse shall draw in a boat

more than fifty can do in a cart; whereas carriage makes a great part of the price in all heavy commodities: and, by this easy way of travelling, an industrious man loses no time from his business, for he writes, eats, or sleeps, while he goes; whereas the time of labouring or industrious men is the greatest native commodity of any country.

Another advantage of their situation for trade is made by those two great rivers of the Rhine and the Maes, reaching up, and navigable so mighty a length, into so rich and populous countries of the higher and lower Germany; which as it brings down all the commodities from those parts to the magazines of Holland, that vent them by their shipping into all parts of the world, where the market calls for them; so, with something more labour and time, it returns all the merchandizes of other parts into those countries that are seated upon those streams. For their commodious seat, as to the trade of the Straits, or Baltic, or any parts of the ocean, I see no advantage they have of most parts of England; and they must certainly yield to many we possess, if we had other equal circumstances to value them.

The lowness and flatness of their lands makes in a great measure the richness of their soil, that is easily overflowed every winter, so as the whole country, at that season, seems to lie under water, which, in spring, is driven out again by mills. But that which mends the earth, spoils the air, which would be all fog and mist, if it were not cleared by the sharpness of their frosts, which never fail with every east wind for about four months of the year, and are much fiercer than in the same latitude with us, because that wind comes to them over a mighty length of dry continent; but is moistened by the vapours, or softened by the warmth of the sea's motion, before it reaches us.

And this is the greatest disadvantage of trade they receive

from their situation, though necessary to their health; because many times their havens are all shut up for two or three months with ice, when ours are open and free.

The fierce sharpness of these winds makes the changes of their weather and seasons more violent and surprising, than in any place I know; so as a warm faint air turns in a night to a sharp frost, with the wind coming into the northeast and the contrary with another change of wind. The spring is much shorter, and less agreeable, than with us; the winter much colder, and some parts of the summer much hotter; and I have known, more than once, the violence of one give way to that of the other, like the cold fit of an ague to the hot, without any good temper between.

The flatness of their land exposes it to the danger of the sea, and forces them to infinite charge in the continual fences and repairs of their banks to oppose it; which employ yearly more men, than all the corn of the Province of Holland could maintain (as one of their chief ministers has told me). They have lately found the common sea-weed to be the best material for these dykes, which, fastened with a thin mixture of earth, yields a little to the force of the sea, and returns when the waves give back whether they are thereby the safer against water, as, they say, houses that shake are against wind; or whether, as pious naturalists observe, all things carry about them that which serves for a remedy against the mischief they do in the world.

towns.

The extreme moisture of the air I take to be the occasion of the great neatness of their houses, and cleanliness in their For without the help of those customs their country. would not be habitable by such crowds of people, but the air would corrupt upon every hot season, and expose the inhabitants to general and infectious diseases; which they hardly escape three summers together, especially about