indifference, become new and interesting when
reproduced, individualised, and focussed by art;
this fact is eternally true, and is one of the
great secrets of the origin of the pleasure we
derive from the representation of nature.

It is always pleasant, walking in a garden,
to remember the native home of the flowers,
and imagine them surrounded by their own
scenery. It gives them a new interest and
a fresh beauty. We see them growing, the
dewy Auriculas, among the moss and snow
of the Lower Alps; the Guernsey Lily in the
Japanese meadow; the Ranunculus in the fields
of Cyprus; the rich dyed Pelargonium in the
rank kloof of the Caffre frontier; the flaunting
Dahlia in the plains of sunny Mexico; the
burnished Escholzia in the sands of hot Peru;
the gay yellow bladders of the Calceolaria in the
fiery forests of Chili. Think of them with these
surroundings, and you will see how the flowers
fit their own special countries. A Caffre beauty
would twist a thick cluster of dark crimson
Pelargoniums in her black oily hair. The dashing
Mexican horseman, all leather and lace, would
stick a huge white dahlia in the band of his
enormous sombrero. A Japanese lady would
pace over the bamboo-bridge with a Guernsey
lily carried like a sceptre in her hand.

Just so it is with vegetables; they too have
their history, their legends, and their poetry.
It is not uninteresting to recal whence they
came, and how they reached in slow procession
their great parliament house in Covent Garden.
Crusaders, merchants, pilgrims, monks, brought
them to us from eastern hill, and southern
plain, from northern meadow, and from western
forests.

Those slow changes of the patient toiling world
which slowly, very slowly, ground the sand from
the solid rock, and blackened the tree ferns into
coal, collected from all regions of the world
the vegetables that now deck our tables. Many
strange histories are wrapped up in the glossy
Portugal onion, and the portly pumpkin; the
cauliflower came to Italy from Cyprus, and in
Elizabeth's reign spread its powdered wigs in
Italian gardens, which Keats's Pot of Basil has
consecrated for ever. It did not spread in
England, however, much before William and Mary.
The tender and agreeable broccoli came to
France from Italy, about 1560 or so. The useful
turnips, known to the Romans, and mentioned
both by Pliny and Columella, were grown
in English gardens in the sixteenth century,
but not in open fields until nearly Queen
Anne's reign. The Greeks knew our carrots.
Scorzonera (pleasant with white sauce), a well
known Moorish and Spanish antidote for snake
bites, was introduced into France in 1616.
The savoury shallot was brought by Greek
merchants from the sandy plains of Ascalon in
Palestine, where it still grows wild. Pliny and
Strabo both mention it. Our good old unpresuming
friend, spinach, derived its name from its
native country, Hispania, thence Hispanica,
Hispanage, and was used by our monks on fast days
as early as 1358.

Potatoes were at first expensive luxuries, and
had an evil name, as several passages in
Shakespeare show. They are South American plants,
that grow on the western coasts as well as on
high elevations. They are supposed to have first
come from the Quito hills, to Spain, early in the
sixteenth century. They were then called papas.
Introduced into Italy, they were called
taratoufli, truffles. Thence, they spread to Vienna
in 1598. Sir John Hawkins, brought them
first to England from Santa Fe in 1563.
But Drake and Raleigh are also claimed
as introducers of " the curse of Ireland." If
Raleigh introduced them, they must have
come in 1586, when his ships returned from
Virginia. He certainly introduced the use of
the fickle and sloth feeding tuber, at his estates
near  Youghal, one of the Southwells first
planting them. They were soon after grown in
Lancashire —thrown there, some say, by a ship-
wreck. In 1619 potatoes sold at one shilling
the pound. It is said they were not known in
Flanders until 1620.

Celery, was introduced into England by a
French general, Marshal Camille Tallard, whom
Marlborough defeated and took prisoner at the
overthrow of Blenheim, in 1704. He was a
tremendous creature at home, being a count and
a marshal, and he knew England, as he had
been ambassador here in 1697. When brought
by powder-blackened Corporal Trim and his
friends before the impassive English duke,
Tallard said:

"Your grace has beaten the finest troops in
Europe."

"You will, I hope," replied our man, "except
those who have defeated them."

The marshal being thus beaten both by English
hands and English tongues, remained with us,
diffusing the knowledge of celery, fragrant
ingredient of the best soups, until 1712, when he
returned to his master, Louis the Fourteenth,
and was made a duke. He became secretary
of state in 1726, and two years after ceased
for ever to read official papers, to burn official
sealing wax, and to diffuse a knowledge of
celery.

A confusion between the Latin words for
parsnip and carrot compels us here to pour
forth some long accumulating gall against Pliny.
We have been lately still more embittered by a
serious discussion in a German writer as to
whether the Blitum of Pliny was spinach or
amaranth, (oh, vexed ghost of Milton, only think
of amaranth used in salad!) and whether their
Buglossum was borage, the blue flowered weed
which we put into cider cup. It is quite
impossible—that is the simple fact, and we boldly
avow it—to define either Pliny's animals, fish,
or herbs. It is a mere chance whether the
creature he writes about, is a mule, a zebra, or
an ass; whether the fish he mentions is turbot,
cod, or good red herring; whether the plant
on which he expatiates, is plum, pear, or quince.
In fact, his farrago of imperfectly digested learning
is all missorted and unindexed, and has
become very nearly what printers call "pie."