1509. Fruits and flowers of sundry sorts
before unknown, were brought into England in the reigns of Henry VII.
and VIII. from about 1500 to 1578. Grapes were first planted at
Blaxhall, in Suffolk, 1552. The ingenuity and fostering care of the
people of England, have brought under their tribute all the vegetable
creation.

Lord Bacon has truly observed, "A garden is the purest of all human
pleasures," and no doubt he felt its influence, when he returned from
the turmoil of a _court_ and _courts_. Many of his writings were
composed under the shade of the trees in Gray's Inn Gardens; he lived in
a house facing the great gates, forming the entrance to the gardens, and
Sir Fulke Greville, Lord Brook,[3] frequently sent him "home-brewed
beer." Epicurus, the patron of refined pleasure, fixed the seat of his
enjoyment in a garden. Dr. Knox says, "In almost every description of
the seats of the blessed, ideas of a garden seem to have predominated.
The word paradise itself is synonymous with garden. The fields of
Elysium, that sweet region of poesy, are adorned with all that
imagination can conceive to be delightful. Some of the most pleasing
passages of Milton are those in which he represents the happy pair
engaged in cultivating their blissful abode. Poets have always been
delighted with the beauties of a garden. Lucan is represented by Juvenal
as reposing in his garden. Virgil's _Georgies_ prove him to have been
captivated with rural scenes; though to the surprise of his readers he
has not assigned a book to the subject of a garden. But let not the rich
suppose they have appropriated the pleasures of a garden. The possessor
of an acre, or a smaller portion, may receive a real pleasure from
observing the progress of vegetation, even in the plantation of culinary
plants. A very limited tract properly attended to, will furnish ample
employment for an individual, nor let it be thought a mean care; for the
same hand that raised the cedar, formed the hyssop on the wall."

P.T.W.

[3] In the street called Brook Street, was Brook House.

* * * * *

GRECIAN FLIES--SPONGERS.

(_For the Mirror_.)

In modern days we should term _Grecian Flies, Spongers; alias Dinner
Hunters_. Among the Grecians (according to Potter) "They who forced
themselves into other men's entertainments, were called _flies_, which
was a general name of reproach for such as insinuated themselves into
any company where t