e of working or walking,
but, above all, the exemption from cares and solicitude, seem
equally to favour and improve both contemplation and health, the
enjoyment of sense and imagination, and thereby the quiet and ease
both of the body and mind.... Where Paradise was has been much
debated, and little agreed; but what sort of place is meant by it
may perhaps easier be conjectured. It seems to have been a Persian
word, since Xenophon and other Greek authors mention it as what was
much in use and delight among the kings of those eastern countries.
Strabo describing Jericho: 'Ibi est palmetum, cui immixtae sunt
etiam ahae stirpes hortenses, locus ferax palmis abundans, spatio
stadiorum centum, totus irriguus: ibi est Regis Balsami
paradisus.' "--_Essay on Gardens._

In the same famous essay Temple speaks of a friend, whose conduct
and prudence he characteristically admires.

"I thought it very prudent in a gentleman of my friends in
Staffordshire, who is a great lover of his garden, to pretend no
higher, though his soil be good enough, than to the perfection of
plums; and in these (by bestowing south walls upon them) he has very
well succeeded, which he could never have done in attempts upon
peaches and grapes; and _a good plum is certainly better than an ill
peach_."

39 SWIFT'S THOUGHTS ON HANGING.

(_Directions to Servants._)

"To grow old in the office of a footman is the highest of all
indignities; therefore, when you find years coming on without hopes
of place at Court, a command in the army, a succession to the
stewardship, an employment in the revenue (which two last you cannot
obtain without reading and writing), or running away with your
master's niece or daughter, I directly advise you to go upon the
road, which is the only post of honour left you: there you will meet
many of your old comrades, and live a short life and a merry one,
and making a figure at your exit, wherein I will give you some
instructions.

"The last advice I give you relates to your behaviour when you are
going to be hanged; which, either for robbing your master, for
housebreaking, or going upon the highway, or in a drunken quarrel by
killing the first man you meet, may very probably be your lot, and
is owing to one