reflects onely on compounded bodies; and, as the philosophers do define, is the beginning of their motion, and their rest.

Your Honour may here behold the latter in all her beauty; and observe how industrious is Art to work her up to her quintesence of perfection; from whence many inestimable treasures may be derived to advance as well the mind as the body of the creature, and to improve the glory of the Creator.

My Lord, you have read that Art doth perfect Nature, which can never more properly be understood than in this sence; for although Nature appears a most fair and fruitful body, and as admirable in her variety as abundance; yet the Art, here mentioned, is as a soul to inform that body to examine and to refine her actions, and to teach her to understand those abilities of her own, which before lay undiscovered to her.

My Lord, this is a subject which is worthy of the greatest and gravest apprehensions, and deserves the noblest patronage; by which your Honour shall obliege both Art and Nature; and more particularly him who is, My Lord,

Your most humbly devoted servant, D. B."

The Garden of Eden': or, an accurate Description of all Flowers and Fruits now growing in England, with particular Rules how to advance their Nature and Growth, as well in Seeds and Herbs, as the secret ordering of Trees and Plants. In two Parts. By that learned and great Observer, Sir Hugh Plat, Kt. The sixth Edition.

"London, printed for William and John Leake, at the Crown in Fleetstreet, betwixt the two Temple Gates, 1675.

Small 8°. pp. 148.

"To the honourable and most perfect Gentleman, Francis Finch, junior, of the Inner Temple, Esquire.

SIR,

Yov may please to pardon my forward inscribing this Book to your name. Were it a work of mine own composition, I should have thought on a meaner patron. But the memory of that learned Knight the Author (to whom I had so near alliance) may excuse this presumption. He was a great searcher after all sorts of knowledge, and as great a lover of it in all others. And I humbly conceiv'd I could not do him a higher service than by placing his Book under your protection, who are not more honour'd by those many noble families whence you are descended, than by that large portion of learn-' ing and vertue which have so enriched your noble mind: and rendred you precious to all that know you. I hope that candor and sweetness, which accompanies all your actions, will also shew it self in acceptation of this offering from him who is ambitious of no other title than,

Sir,

The most humble and most devoted

of all those that honour you, CHARLES BELLINGHAM,

The Publisher to the Reader.

I shall not blush to tell you, I had some ambition to publish this Book, as well to do right to the learned Author, (my ever honoured kinsman) as to check their forwardness who were ready to violate so useful a work. There are some men (of great name in the world) who made use of this Author, and it had been civil to have mentioned his name who held forth a candle to light them to their desires; but this is an unthankful

age. And whatever you may think of this small piece, it cost the Author many years search, and no small expence, there being not extant (in our language) any work of this subject so necessary and so brief. He had consultation with all Gentlemen, Scholars, nay not a Gardiner in England (of any note) but made use of his discoveries, and confirmed his inventions by their own experience. And whatever they discovered (such was his modesty) he freely acknowledges by naming the authors, sometimes in words at length, as Mr. Hill, Mr. Taverner, Mr. Pointer, Mr. Colborn, Mr. Melinus, Mr. Simson, and sometimes by T. T. A. P. &c. Whatever is his own, hath no name at all, unless sometimes (and that not often) he add H. P. at the end of the paragraph. And when he refers you to some other part of the Book, 'tis according to the number or section, not the page, for that only serves for the table. He wrote other pieces of natural philosophy, whereunto he subjoyned an excellent abstract of Cornelius Agrippa de Occulta Philosophia; but they fell into ill hands, and worse times. As for this Collection of Flowers and Fruits, I would say (if I had not so near relation to it) that no Englishman that hath a garden or orchard can handsomely be without it; but at least by having it, will find a large benefit. And all Ladies and Gentlemen, by reading these few leaves may not only advance their knowledge and observation when they walk into a garden, but discourse more skilfully of any Flower, Plant, or Fruit than the Gardiner himself, who (in a manner) grows there night and day. Farewel C. B.

The Author's Epistle to all Gentlemen, Ladies, and all others delighting in God's vegetalle Creatures.

Having out of mine own experience, as also by long conference with divers Gentlemen of the best skill and practice, in the altering, multiplying, enlarging, planting, and transplanting of sundry sorts of Fruits and Flowers, at length obtained a pretty volume of experimental observations in this kind; and not knowing the length of my days, nay, assuredly knowing that they are drawing to their period, I am willing to unfold my napkin, and deliver my poor talent abroad, to the profit of some, who by their manual works, may gain a greater employment than heretofore in their usual callings: and to the pleasuring of others, who delight to see a rarity spring out of their own labors, and provoke Nature to play, and shew some of her pleasing varieties, when she hath met with a stirring workman.

I hope, so as I bring substantial and approved matter with me, though I leave method at this time to schoolmen, who have already written many large and methodical volumes of this subject (whose labors have greatly furnished our studies and libraries, but little or nothing altered or graced our gardens and orchards) that you will accept my skill, in such a habit and form as I shall think most fit and appropriate for it; and give me leave rather to write briefly and confusedly, with those that seek out the practical and operative part of Nature, whereunto but a few in many ages have attained, than formally and largely to imitate her theorists, of whom each age affordeth great store and plenty.

And though amongst these two hundred experiments, there happen a few to fail under the workman's hand (which yet may be the operator's mistake, not mine) yet seeing they are such as carry both good sense and probability with them, I hope in your courtesie I shall find you willing to excuse so small

a number, because I doubt not, but to give good satisfaction in the rest.

And let not the concealing, or rather the figurative describing of my last and principal secret, withdraw your good and thankful acceptation, from all that go before, on which I have bestowed the plainest and most familiar phrase that I can: for Jo. Baptista Porta himself, that gallant and glorious Italian, without craving any leave or pardon, is bold to set down in his Magia Naturalis, amongst many other conclusions of Art and Nature, four of his secret skils, (viz. the secret killing of men, the precipitation of salt out of sea-water, the multiplying of corn two hundred fold, which elsewhere I have discovered : and the puffing up of a little paste, to the bigness of a foot-ball) in an obscure and ænigmatical phrase. And I make no question, but that if he had known this part of vegetable philosophy, he would have penned the same as a sphinx, and roled it up in the most cloudy and darksome speech that he could possibly have devised.

This author, I say, hath emboldened me, and some writers of more worth and higher reach than himself, have also charged me not to disperse or divulgate a secret of this nature, to the common and vulgar eye or ear of the world.

And thus having acquainted you with my long, costly, and laborious collections, not written at adventure, or by an imaginary conceit in a scholar's private study, but wrung out of the earth by the painful hand of experience: and having also given you a touch of nature, whom no man as yet ever durst send naked into the world without her veil; and expecting by your good entertainment of these, some encouragement for higher and deeper discoveries hereafter, I leave you to the God of Nature, from whom all the true light of Nature proceedeth.

H. P. Knight."