formerly in Holland, may be seen in Phillips's Flora Historica.

[35] Perhaps no one more truly painted rich pastoral scenes than Isaac
Walton. This occurs in many, many pages of his delightful _Angler_. The
late ardently gifted, and most justly lamented Sir Humphry Davy too, in
his _Salmonia_, has fondly caught the charms of Walton's pages. His pen
riots in the wild, the beautiful, the sweet, delicious scenery of
nature:--"how delightful in the early spring, to wander forth by some
clear stream, to see the leaf bursting from the purple bud, to scent the
odours of the bank, perfumed by the violet, and enamelled as it were
with the primrose, and the daisy; to wander upon the fresh turf below
the shade of trees, whose bright blossoms are filled with the music of
the bee." Mr. Worlidge, in his Systema Agriculturae, says, that the
delights in angling "rouzes up the ingenious early in the spring
mornings, that they have the benefit of the sweet and pleasant morning
air, which many through sluggishness enjoy not; so that health (the
greatest treasure that mortals enjoy) and pleasure, go hand in hand in
this exercise. What can be more said of it, than that the most
ingenious, most use it." Mr. Whately, in his usual charming style, thus
paints the spring:--"Whatever tends to animate the scene, accords with
the season, which is full of youth and vigour, fresh and sprightly,
brightened by the verdure of the herbage, and the woods, gay with
blossoms, and flowers, and enlivened by the songs of the birds in all
their variety, from the rude joy of the skylark, to the delicacy of the
nightingale."

[36] Tusser seems somewhat of Meager's opinion:--

Sow peason and beans, in the wane of the moon,
Who soweth them sooner, he soweth too soon;
That they with the planet may rest and arise,
And flourish, with bearing most plentifull wise.

The celebrated Quintinye says, "I solemnly declare, that after a
diligent observation of the moon's changes for thirty years together,
and an enquiry whether they had any influence in gardening, the
affirmative of which has been so long established among us, I perceive
it was no weightier than old wives' tales."

The moon (says Mr. Mavor) having an influence on the tides and the
weather, she was formerly supposed to extend her power over all nature.

There is a treatise, by _Claude Gadrois_, on the _Influences des
Astres_. Surely this merits perusal, when the Nouv. Dict. Hist. thus
spea