armer than this. In
his address to the reader, he says, "I have continued my affection to
this honest recreation, without companion or encouragement; and now in
my old age, (wearied and weaned from other delights) find myself more
happy in this retired solitude, than in all the bustles and busie
employments of my passed days." He thus concludes his book:--

---- this is all I crave:
Some gentle hand with flowers may strew my grave,
And with one sprig of bays my herse befriend,
When as my life, as now my book, doth end.

Laus Deo.

Rea gives us also another very long poem, being that of "Flora to the
Ladies," which he thus concludes:--

Silent as flow'rs may you in virtues grow,
Till rip'ning time shall make you fit to blow,
Then flourish long, and seeding leave behind
A numerous offspring of your dainty kind;
And when fate calls, have nothing to repent,
But die like flow'rs, virtuous and innocent.
Then all your fellow flow'rs, both fair and sweet,
Will come, with tears, to deck your winding-sheet;
Hang down their pensive heads so dew'd, and crave
To be transplanted to your perfum'd grave.

These love poems seem all to have been written in his old age; and that
passion causes him thus to open his first book:--"Love was the inventor,
and is still the maintainer, of every noble science. It is chiefly that
which hath made my flowers and trees to flourish, though planted in a
barren desert, and hath brought me to the knowledge I now have in plants
and planting; for indeed it is impossible for any man to have any
considerable collection of plants to prosper, unless he love them: for
neither the goodness of the soil, nor the advantage of the situation,
will do it, without the master's affection; it is that which renders
them strong and vigorous; without which they will languish and decay
through neglect, and soon cease to do him service. I have seen many
gardens of the new model, in the hands of unskilful persons, with good
walls, walks and grass-plots; but in the most essential adornments so
deficient, that a green meadow is a more delightful object; there nature
alone, without the aid of art, spreads her verdant carpets,
spontaneously embroidered with many pretty plants and pleasing flowers,
far more inviting than such an immured nothing. And as noble fountains,
grottoes, statues, &c. are excellent ornaments and marks of
magnificence, so all such dead works in