ed cherries
from Pontus into Italy; and the newly-imported fruit was found so
pleasing, that it was rapidly propagated, and six-and twenty years
afterwards Pliny testifies the cherry-tree passed over into Britain.
Thus a victory obtained by a Roman consul over a king of Pontus, with
which it would seem that Britain could not have the remotest interest,
was the real occasion of our countrymen possessing cherry-orchards. Yet
to our shame must it be told, that these cherries from the king of
Pontus's city of Cerasuntis are not the cherries we are now eating; for
the whole race of cherry-trees was lost in the Saxon period, and was
only restored by the gardener of Henry VIII., who brought them from
Flanders--without a word to enhance his own merits, concerning the
_bellum Mithridaticum_!

A calculating political economist will little sympathise with the
peaceful triumphs of those active and generous spirits, who have thus
propagated the truest wealth, and the most innocent luxuries of the
people. The project of a new tax, or an additional consumption of ardent
spirits, or an act of parliament to put a convenient stop to population
by forbidding the banns of some happy couple, would be more congenial to
their researches; and they would leave without regret the names of those
whom we have held out to the grateful recollections of their country.
The Romans, who, with all their errors, were at least patriots,
entertained very different notions of these introducers into their
country of exotic fruits and flowers. Sir William Temple has elegantly
noticed the fact. "The great captains, and even consular men, who first
brought them over, took pride in giving them their own names, by which
they ran a great while in Rome, as in memory of some great service or
pleasure they had done their country; so that not only laws and battles,
but several sorts of apples and pears, were called Manlian and Claudian,
Pompeyan and Tiberian, and by several other such noble names." Pliny has
paid his tribute of applause to Lucullus, for bringing cherry and
nut-trees from Pontus into Italy. And we have several modern instances,
where the name of the transplanter, or rearer, has been preserved in
this sort of creation. Peter Collinson, the botanist, to "whom the
English gardens are indebted for many new and curious species which he
acquired by means of an extensive correspondence in America," was highly
gratified when Linnaeus baptized a plant with his n