Phillips thus describes the favorites of his time, most of which we find in our own orchards, and still in good repute:—
"Now turn thine eye to view Alcinous' groves, The pride of the Phœacian isle, from whence, Sailing the spaces of the boundless deep, To Ariconian precious fruits arrived:— The pippin burnished o'er with gold, the moyle Of sweetest honied taste, the fair pearmain, Tempered, like comeliest nymph, with red and white; Nor does the Eliot least deserve thy care, Nor John's apple, whose withered rind, intrenched With many a furrow, aptly represents Decrepit age; nor that from Harvey named, Quick relishing. Why should we sing the thrift, Codling, or Pomroy, or of pimpled coat The russet; the red-streak, that once Was of the sylvan kind, uncivilized, Of no regard, till Scudamore's skilful hand Improved her, and by courtly discipline Taught her the savage nature to forget: Let every tree in every garden own The red-streak as supreme, whose pulpous fruit With gold irradiate, and vermilion spires, Tempting, not fatal, as the birth of that Primeval interdicted plant, that won Fond Eve, in hapless hour, to taste and die."
A quaint old Englishman, writing about orchards, quotes the proverb: "It will beggar a doctor to live where orchards thrive." So Cowley writes:—
"Nor does this happy place only dispense Its various pleasures to the sense, Here health itself doth live, That salt of life which doth to all a relish give; Its standing pleasure and intrinsic wealth, The body's virtue, and the soul's good fortune, health. The tree of life when it in Eden stood, Did its immortal head to heaven rear; It lasted a tall cedar till the flood, Now a small thorny shrub it doth appear, Nor will it thrive too everywhere; It always here is freshest seen, 'Tis only here an evergreen: If, through the strong and beauteous fence Of temperance and innocence, And wholesome labors and a quiet mind, Diseases passage find, They must fight for it, and dispute it hard Before they can prevail; Scarce any plant is growing here, Which against death some weapon does not bear: Let cities boast that they provide For life the ornaments of pride; But 'tis the country and the field That furnish it with staff and shield."
Nor can we spare his praises of budding and grafting from our account:—
"We nowhere art do so triumphant see, As when it grafts or buds a tree; In other things we count it to excel If it a docile scholar can appear To nature, and but imitates her well: It overrules and is her master here: It imitates her Maker's power divine, And changes her sometimes, and sometimes does refine; It does like grace, the fallen tree restore To its blest state of Paradise before; Who would not joy to see his conquering hand O'er all the vegetable world command, And the wild giants of the wood, receive What laws he's pleased to give? He bids the ill-natured crab produce The gentle apple's winy juice, The golden fruit that worthy is Of Galatea's purple kiss; He does the savage hawthorn teach To bear the medlar and the pear; He bids the rustic plum to rear A noble trunk and be a peach; Even Daphne's coyness he does mock, And weds the cherry to her stock, Though she refused Apollo's suit, Even she, that chaste and virgin tree, Now wonders at herself to see That she's a mother made, and blushes in her fruit."
"Thick growing thyme, and roses wet with dew, Are sacred to the sisterhood divine."
As orchards to man, so are flowers and herbs to women. Indeed the garden appears celibate, as does the house, without womanly hands to plant and care for it. Here she is in place,—suggests lovely images of her personal accomplishments, as if civility were first conceived in such cares, and retired unwillingly, even to houses and chambers; something being taken from their elegancy and her nobleness by an undue absorption of her thoughts in household affairs. But there is a fitness in her association with flowers and sweet herbs, as with social hospitalities, showing her affinities with the magical and medical, as if she were the plant All-Heal, and mother of comforts and spices. Once the herb garden was a necessary part of every homestead; every country house had one well stocked, and there was a matron inside skilled in their secret virtues, having the knowledge of how her
"Herbs gladly cure our flesh, because that they Have their acquaintance there,"