Footnotes
[1]. This article is taken from the first volume of the Transactions of the Horticultural Society, and was communicated by the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks, Bart.—The additions, within brackets, are by the Editor.
[2]. Probably the fruit of Cornus Mascula, commonly called Cornelian Cherry.
[3]. Hurtleberries, the fruit of Vaccinium vitis idea, though no longer cultivated in our gardens, are still esteemed and served up at the tables of opulent people in the counties that produce them naturally. They are every year brought to London from the rocky country, near Leath Tower in Surrey, where they meet with so ready a sale among the middle classes of the people, that the richer classes scarcely know that they are to be bought.—They also grow very plentifully on some of the hills and heaths in the counties of Somerset and Devon.
[4]. The Yellow fleshed Peach, now uncommon in our gardens, but which was frequent 40 years ago, under the name of the Orange Peach, was called by our ancestors Melicoton.
[5]. By Raisins it is probable that Currants are meant; the imported fruit of that name of which we make puddings and pies was called by our ancestors Raisin de Corance.—In the Percy Household Book it is said that 200 pounds of Raisins de Corance should be purchased for the use of the Earl of Northumberland’s family, which were to serve one year.
[6]. There is a portrait of this lady among the Holbein Heads, published by Mr. Chamberlaine.
[7]. Pliny, Hist. Nat. xii. 18.
[8]. Shakespeare, occasionally, in his plays, uses couplets.
[9]. Gildas, called Badonicus, because said to be born at Bath, was, for his singular prudence and the severity of his morals, surnamed the WISE; he was a monk of Bangor, and his “Description of the state of Britain,” above alluded to, is the only one of his writings extant, as we are assured by Archbishop Usher. Gildas wrote this work in Latin, in a style, according to that age, harsh and perplexed enough. The first printed edition of it was published by Polydore Virgil, in octavo, London, 1525, and dedicated to Cuthbert Tunstal, Bishop of Durham, which, however, was from an incorrect copy. It was reprinted at Basil, in 12mo, in 1541; and at London, 1548, though Bishop Nicolson says 1568. It was again printed at London, in 12mo, in 1638, translated by Thomas Habingdon, of Henlip, in Worcestershire. John Josseline, secretary to Archbishop Parker, reprinted Gildas more correctly from two new manuscripts, Basil, 1568, 12mo; and Paris 1576; but these are little more perfect than the first.—The latest and best copy of Gildas is in Dr. Gale’s collection of Ancient English Historians, 2 vols. folio, Oxford, 1687 and 1691; who had the advantage of a more ancient and better copy, as Bishop Nicolson observes. Besides Habingdons’s translation above mentioned, there was another printed during the Cromwell rebellion, in 1652, for the mere purpose, it has been said, of retailing Gildas’s sharp reproofs of Kings and Priests.—For an account of this edition, see Oldys’s British Librarian, and Savage’s Librarian, vol. 1. p. 117.