celebrity for the growth of figs, which yet attaches to the Eastern
Archipelago; to learn to dry them as in the Levant, and to supply the
desserts of the English tables.
FRUITS,
CULTIVATED AT ROME IN THE TIME OF PLINY, THAT ARE NOW GROWN IN OUR
ENGLISH GARDENS.
APPLES.—The Romans had twenty-two sorts of Apples. Sweet Apples
(_melimala_) for eating, and others for cookery. They had one sort
without kernels.
[Eugene Aram, in his collections for a dictionary of the Celtic
language, says that the name of the Apple Tree is a corruption of
“Apollo’s Tree.”—“And that this is its original, will be easily
deducible from a little reflection on the proofs in support of it. The
prizes in the sacred games were the Olive Crown, Apples, Parsleys and
the Pine. Lucian, in his Book of Games, affirms that Apples were the
reward in the Sacred Games of Apollo; and Curtius asserts the same
thing. It appears also that the Apple Tree was consecrated to Apollo
before the Laurel; for both Pindar and Callimachus observe that Apollo
did not put on the Laurel until after his conquest of the Python, and
that he appropriated it to himself on account of his passion for Daphne,
to whom the laurel was sacred. The Victor’s wreath at first was a bough
with its apples hanging upon it, sometimes with a branch of laurel; and
antiquity united these together as the reward of the Victor in the
Pythian games.”]
APRICOTS.—Pliny says of the Apricot (Armeniaca) _quæ sola et odore
commendantur_. He arranges them among his plums.—Martial valued them but
little, as appears by his epigram, xiii. 46.
[The Apricot, we are told came originally from Armenia, whence its name
_Armeniaca_. Wolfe, gardener to King Henry the 8th, first introduced
Apricots into England. Tusser mentions the Apricot in his list of fruits
cultivated here in 1573.]
ALMONDS—were abundant, both bitter and sweet. [The Almond was introduced
into England in 1570; it is not, however, in Tusser’s list of fruits
cultivated here in 1573.]
CHERRIES—were introduced into Rome in the year of the city 680, B. C.
73, and were carried thence to Britain 120 years after, A. D. 48. The
Romans had eight kinds, a red one, a black one, a kind so tender as
scarce to bear any carriage, a hard fleshed one (_duracina_) like our
bigarreau, a small one with a bitterish flavour (_laurea_) like our
little wild black, also a dwarf one, the tree bearing which did not
exceed three feet in height.
[Cherries are said to have come originally from Cerasus, a city of
Pontus, from which Lucullus brought them into Italy, after the
Mithridatic War. They so generally pleased at Rome, and were so easily
propagated in all climates into which the Romans extended their arms,
that within the space of a hundred years, they had become common. It has
been erroneously supposed that Cherries were first introduced into this
country by Richard Haynes, fruiterer to King Henry the eighth, who
planted them at Teynham, in Kent, whence they had the name of Kentish
cherries; but Lydgate who wrote his poem called “Lickpenny” before the
middle of the fifteenth century, or probably before the year 1415,
mentions them in the following lines, as being commonly sold at that
time by the hawkers in the streets of London:
“Hot pescode oon began to cry,
”Straberys rype, and cherreys in the ryse.”
Ryce, rice, or ris, properly means a long-branch; and the word is still
used in that sense in the West of England.
Dr. Bulleyn shews there were plenty of good native cherries at
Ketteringham, near Norwich; pears, called the Blackfriars, in and about
that city; and excellent grapes at Blaxhall in Suffolk, where he was
rector from 1550 to 1554.]
CHESNUTS.—The Romans had six sorts, some more easily separated from the
skin than others, and one with a red skin. They roasted them as we do.
[The chesnut, _castanea_, is a native of the South of Europe, and is
said to take its name from Castanea, a city of Thessaly, where anciently
it grew in great plenty. Gerard says that in his time there were several
woods of chesnuts in England, particularly one near Feversham, in Kent;
and Fitz-Stephen, in a description of London, written by him in Henry
the second’s time, speaks of a very noble forest which grew on the north
side of it. This tree grows sometimes to an amazing size. There is one
at Lord Ducie’s at Tortworth, in the county of Gloucester, which
measures 19 yards in circumference, and is mentioned by Sir Robert
Atkyns, in his History of that County, as a famous tree in King John’s
time; and by Mr. Evelyn in his Sylva, to have been so remarkable for its
magnitude in the reign of King Stephen, as then to be called the great
chesnut of Tortworth; from which it may be reasonably supposed to have
been standing before the conquest. Lord Ducie had a drawing of it taken
and engraved in 1772. Formerly a great part of London was built with
chesnut and walnut timber.]
The Horse Chesnut was brought from the northern parts of Asia into
Europe, about the year 1550, and was sent to Vienna, about the year
1558. From Vienna it migrated into Italy and France: but it comes to us
from the Levant immediately. Gerard in his Herbal, printed in 1597,
speaks of it only as a foreign Tree. In Johnson’s edition of the same
Work printed in 1633, it is said, “Horse Chesnut groweth in Italy, and
in sundry places of the East Country; it is now growing with Mr.
Tradescant at South Lambeth.” Parkinson says “our Christian World had
first the knowledge of it from Constantinople.”—The same Author places
the Horse Chesnut in his Orchard, as a fruit tree between the Walnut and
the Mulberry. How little it was then known, 1629, may be inferred from
his saying not only that it is of a greater and more pleasant aspect,
for the fair leaves, but also of a good use for the fruit, which is of a
sweet taste, roasted and eaten as the ordinary sort.—This tree does not
seem to have been so common a hundred years ago as it is now. Mr.
Houghton (1700) mentions some at Sir William Ashhurst’s at Highgate, and
especially at the Bishop of London’s at Fulham. Those now standing at
Chelsea College were then very young. There was also a very fine one in
the Pest-house garden near Old-Street, and another not far from the
Ice-house under the shadow of the Observatory in Greenwich Park.
FIGS.—The Romans had many sorts of figs, black and white, large and
small; one as large as a pear, another no larger than an olive.
[The fig has been cultivated in England ever since 1562. It is omitted
by Tusser in his list of fruits cultivated in our gardens. Cardinal Pole
is said to have imported from Italy that tree, which is still growing in
the garden of the Archbishop’s palace at Lambeth. It is the oldest fig
tree that is known in this kingdom. In the Percy Household-book, the
person who had the charge of providing for the consumption and use of
the Earl of Northumberland’s numerous family, was ordered to purchase
four coppets of figs, for which he was to pay twenty pence for each
coppet. This quantity was to serve for one year.]
MEDLARS.—The Romans had two kinds of medlars, the one larger, and the
other smaller.
MULBERRIES.—The Romans had two kinds of the black sort, a larger and a
smaller. Pliny speaks also of a mulberry growing on a briar: _Nascuntur
et in rubis_, (1. xv. sect. 27) but whether this means the raspberry, or
the common blackberry, does not appear.
[The mulberry, _Morus_, is a native of Persia, whence it was introduced
into the southern parts of Europe, and is commonly cultivated in
England, Germany, and other countries where the winters are not very
severe. “We are informed,” says Forsyth in his treatise on fruit trees,
“that mulberries were first introduced into this country in 1596; but I
have reason to believe that they were brought hither previous to that
period, as many old trees are to be seen standing at this day about the
sites of ancient abbeys and monasteries, from which it is at least
probable that they had been introduced before the dissolution of
religious houses. Four large mulberry trees are still standing on the
site of an old kitchen garden, now part of the pleasure-ground, at Sion
House, which, perhaps may have stood there ever since that house was a
monastery. The first Duke of Northumberland has been heard to say, that
these trees were above 300 years old. At the Priory near Stanmore,
Middlesex, (the seat of the Marquis of Abercorn) there are also some
ancient Mulberry trees. The Priory was formerly a religious house.”
Gerard in his description of the mulberry tree has the following curious
paragraph: “Hexander in Athenæus affirmeth, that the mulberry trees in
his time did not bring forth fruit in twenty years together; and that so
great a plague of the gout reigned and raged so generally, as not only
men, but boys, and women were troubled with that disease.”
Tusser, in his list of fruits cultivated in England in 1573 enumerates
the Mulberry.—Gerard, who published his history of plants in 1597, says
in that book, that Mulberry Trees then grew in sundry gardens in
England.]
NUTS.—The Romans had Hazel Nuts and Filberds. They roasted these Nuts.
PEARS.—Of these the Romans had many sorts, both Summer and Winter Fruit,
melting and hard; they had more than thirty six kinds, some were called
_Libralia_. We have our Pound Pear.
[Pliny mentions twenty kinds of this fruit, and Virgil five or six.
Ælian describing the most ancient food of several nations, reports that
at Argos they fed chiefly upon Pears.
Tusser, states that “Pears of all sorts” were cultivated here in his
time.
The Arms of Wardon Abbey, in Bedfordshire, as given by Tanner, are
Argent, Three Pears, Or.—Quere, if these are the species called Wardons,
or if they are peculiar to that part of England.
The Wardon Pear is common in Yorkshire.]
PLUMS.—The Romans had a multiplicity of sorts (_ingens turba prunorum_)
black, white, and variegated; one sort was called _asinia_, from its
cheapness; another _damascena_; this had much stone and little flesh:
from Martial’s Epigram, xiii. 29, we may conclude that it was what we
now call prunes.
[The Plum is generally supposed to be a native of Asia, and the
Damascene (Damson) to take its name from Damascus, a city of Syria.
Tusser enumerates in his list of fruits “Grene or Grass Plums, and Peer
Plums, black and yellow.”
Lord Cromwell introduced the Perdrigon Plum in the Reign of Henry the
seventh.]
QUINCES.—The Romans had three sorts, one was called _Chrysomela_, from
its yellow flesh. They boiled them with honey as we make marmalade. See
Martial, xiii. 24.
[The Quince is called Cydonia, from Cydon, a town of Crete, famous for
this fruit.—Tusser mentions it among his fruit-trees, and Gerard says it
was cultivated here in his time.]
SERVICES.—They had the Apple-shaped, the Pear-shaped, and a small kind,
probably the same that we gather wild, the Azarole.
[There are three sorts of the Service Tree cultivated in England, namely
the cultivated Service; the Wild Service or Mountain Ash; and the Maple
leaved Service. The first is a native of the warmer climes of Europe;
and the other two grow wild in different parts of England.]
STRAWBERRIES.—The Romans had Strawberries, but do not appear to have
prized them. The climate is too warm to produce this fruit in perfection
unless in the hills.
[Tusser enumerates Strawberries, red and white, as being cultivated when
he wrote.]
VINES.—The Romans had a multiplicity of Vines, both thick-skinned,
(_duracina_,) and thin-skinned: one Vine growing at Rome produced 12
Amphoræ of juice, equal to 84 gallons. They had round-berried, and
long-berried sorts, one so long that it was called _dactilydes_, the
grapes being like the fingers on the hand. Martial (xiii. 22.) speaks
favourably of the hard-skinned grape for eating.
[In Domesday Book, (1. p. 8. col 1.) there are said to be in the Bishop
of Bayeux’s Manor of _Chert_, in the county of Kent, three arpents of
_Vineyard_, and in the Manor of Leeds (1. p. 7. col. 4.) belonging to
the same Bishop, two Arpents of _Vineyard_.
In several Charters in the “Registrum Roffensis” mention is made of _the
Vineyard_ belonging to the Monks of Rochester, wherein grew great
quantities of grapes; and which is also, in much later days, said by
Worlidge, to have produced excellent wines. Bishop Hamon presented some
of the wine and grapes of his own growth, at Halling, near Rochester, to
Edward the second, when at Bockinfold; and in some old leases of the
bishoprick, mention has been found made, of considerable quantities of
_Blackberries_ being delivered to the Bishop of Rochester, by sundry of
his Tenants, for the purpose of _colouring the wine_ growing in his
Vineyard. This gives us some idea of what sort the wine was, and also
deserves well to be compared with that ancient usage of making wines in
this country, the remembrance whereof is preserved by means of some
records of the reign of Henry the third; amongst which are two precepts,
the one (Claus. An. 34. Hen. III.) to the keepers of the king’s wines at
York, to deliver out to one Robert (de Monte Pessulano) such wines, and
as much as he pleased to make _for the king’s use, against the feast of
Christmas, (Claret) such drink, as he used to make in preceding years_.
The first record says, _ad potus regis pretiosos delicatos inde
faciendos_. The second says, _ad Claretum inde faciend.—Ad opus regis
sicut annis preteritis facere consuevit._ And both may be seen at length
in Walpole’s Anecdotes of Painting, vol. i. p. 11. Perhaps it may not be
undeserving notice, that even to the beginning of the eighteenth
Century, almost all red wine was, in this country, called Claret.
Honey and Mead, constituted a part of the mixture of the royal Norman
Claret, and for several ages Claret was considered as belonging to the
Materia Medica; and formed a part of the old English Apothecaries store
of Medicines, preserved in white glazed earthern pitchers, with labelled
inscriptions burnt in large blue letters in the ware; several of which
are still preserved.
Several other Monasteries and Abbeys, had remarkable Vineyards, as well
as Rochester; particularly that of St. Edmund’s Bury; that at Ely; that
at Peterborough; and even that at Darley Abbey, in Derbyshire; And
indeed most of the original Vineyards mentioned are found to have
belonged to Abbeys. It is a curious circumstance, and elucidating the
_prices_ of the age, that in the time of Henry the third, a _Dolium_. or
cask of the best wine, sold for forty shillings, and sometimes even for
twenty.
For an enlarged account of Vineyards in England see Archæologia, vol. i.
p. 821.; and vol. iii. p. 53. and 67.]
WALNUTS.—The Romans had soft shelled, and hard shelled, as we have. In
the golden age, when men lived upon acorns, the gods lived upon Walnuts,
hence the name _Juglans_, that is _Jovis glans_.[1]
* * * * *
As a matter of curiosity, it has been deemed expedient, to add a list of
the fruits cultivated in our English Gardens in the year 1573. This list
is taken from Tusser’s _Five hundred points of good Husbandry_.
Thomas Tusser, who had received a liberal education at Eton school, and
at Trinity hall, Cambridge, lived many years as a farmer in Suffolk and
Norfolk. He afterwards removed to London, where he published in 1557,
the first edition of his work, under the title of “One hundred points of
good husbandry.”
In his fourth edition, from which this list is taken, he first
introduced the subject of Gardening, and has given us not only a list of
the fruits, but also of all the plants then cultivated in our gardens,
either for pleasure or profit, under the following heads:—
“Seedes and herbes for the kychen, herbes and roots for sallets and
sauce, herbes and rootes to boyle or to butter, strewing herbes of all
sorts, herbes, branches, and flowers for windowes and pots, herbs to
still in summer, necessarie herbes to grow in the gardens for physick
not reherst before.”
This list consists of more than 150 species besides the following
fruits:—
Apple Trees of all sorts—Apricots
Barberries—Bullass, black and white
Cherries, red and black—Chesnuts—Cornet Plums[2]
Damsons, white and black
Filberds, red and white
Gooseberries—Grapes, white and red—Green or Grass Plums.
Hurtle Berries.[3]
Medlars or Merles—Mulberries.
Peaches, white and red[4]—Pears of all sorts. Pear Plums, black and
yellow.
Quince Trees.
Rasps—Raisins.[5]
Small Nuts—Strawberries, red and white—Service Trees.
Wardons, white and red—Walnuts—Wheat Plums.
Footnote 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.
Footnote 2:
Probably the fruit of _Cornus Mascula_, commonly called Cornelian
Cherry.
Footnote 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.
Footnote 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_.
Footnote 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.
PEACOCKS.
India, says Mr. Pennant, gave us Peacocks, and we are assured by Knox,
in his History of Ceylon, that they are still found in the wild state,
in vast flocks, in that island and in Java. So beautiful a bird could
not be permitted to be a stranger in the more distant parts; for so
early as the days of Solomon (1 Kings, x. 22.) we find among the
articles imported in his Tarshish navies, Apes and Peacocks. A monarch
so conversant in all branches of natural history, would certainly not
neglect furnishing his officers with instructions for collecting every
curiosity in the country to which they made voyages, which gave him a
knowledge that distinguished him from all the princes of his time. Ælian
relates that they were brought into Greece from some barbarous country,
and that they were held in such high estimation, that a male and female
were valued at Athens at 1000 _drachmæ_, or £32. 5_s._ 10_d._ Their next
step might be to Samos; where they were preserved about the temple of
Juno, being the birds sacred to that goddess; and Gellius in his _Noctes
Allicæ_ commends the excellency of the Samian Peacocks. It is therefore
probable that they were brought there originally for the purposes of
superstition, and afterwards cultivated for the uses of luxury. We are
also told, when Alexander was in India, he found vast numbers of wild
ones on the banks of the Hyarotis, and was so struck with their beauty,
as to appoint a severe punishment on any person that killed them.
Peacocks’ crests, in ancient times were among the ornaments of the kings
of England. Ernald de Aclent (Acland) paid a fine to king John in a
hundred and forty palfries, with sackbuts, _lorains_, gilt spurs and
peacock’s crests, such as would be for his credit.—Some of our regiments
of cavalry bear on their helmets, at present, the figure of a peacock.
ANCIENT LIBRARIES.
Many events have contributed to deprive us of a great part of the
literary treasures of antiquity. A very fatal blow was given to
literature by the destruction of the Phœnician temples and the Egyptian
colleges, when those kingdoms and the countries adjacent, were conquered
by the Persians, about 350 years before Christ. The Persians had a great
dislike to the religion of the Phœnicians and the Egyptians, and this
was one reason for destroying their books, of which Eusebius says they
had a great number.
The first celebrated library of antiquity was at Alexandria, and called
from thence the Alexandrian library; it owed its foundation to Ptolemy
Soter, king of Egypt, though his Son Ptolemy Philadelphus enjoys the
reputation of being its founder. This was about 284 years before the
Christian æra.
The palace of Ptolemy Philadelphus was the asylum of learned men whom he
admired and patronized. He paid particular attention to Euclid,
Theocritus, Callimachus, and Lycophron, and by increasing the library,
of which his father had laid the foundation, he shewed his taste for
learning and wish to encourage genius. This celebrated library at his
death contained 200,000 volumes of the best and choicest books, and it
was afterwards increased to 700,000 volumes. The method adopted for
making this collection was the seizing of all the books that were
brought by the Greeks or other foreigners into Egypt, and sending them
to Ptolemy, who had them transcribed by persons employed for that
purpose. The transcripts were then delivered to the proprietors, and the
originals laid up in the library. Ptolemy Euergetes, for instance,
borrowed of the Athenians the works of Sophocles, Euripides, and
Æschylus, and only returned them the copies, which he caused to be
transcribed in as beautiful a manner as possible; the originals he
retained for his own library, presenting the Athenians with fifteen
talents for the exchange, that is, with upwards of £3,000 sterling. As
the Alexandrian academy was at first in the quarter of the city called
_Bruchion_, the library was placed there, but when the number of books
amounted to 400,000 volumes, another library within the _Serapeum_ was
erected, by way of supplement to it, and on that account called the
daughter of the former. The books lodged in the Serapeum increased to
the number of 300,000, and these two made up the number of 700,000
volumes, of which the royal libraries of the Ptolemys were said to
consist.
In the war which Julius Cæsar waged with the inhabitants of Alexandria,
the library of Bruchion was accidentally, but unfortunately, burned; but
the library in the Serapeum still remained. The whole was magnificently
repaired by Cleopatra, who deposited there the 200,000 volumes, forming
the library of the kings of Pergamus, with which she had been presented
by Antony. These, and others added to them from time to time, rendered
the new library of Alexandria more numerous and considerable than the
former, and though it was plundered more than once during the
revolutions which happened in the Roman empire, yet it was as frequently
supplied with the same number of books, and continued for many ages to
be of great fame and use, until it was burnt by the Saracens, in the
year 642 of the Christian æra.
There was a building adjoining to this library, called the Museum, for
the accommodation of a college or society of learned men, who were
supported there at the public expense, and where there were covered
walks and seats where they might carry on disputations.
The next library of antiquity was that founded at Pergamus, by Eumenes,
and considerably increased by the literary taste of his wealthy and
learned successors, at whose court merit and virtue were always sure of
finding an honorable patronage. This library which consisted of 200,000
volumes, was given by Antony to Cleopatra, as has been already
mentioned.—Parchment was first invented and made use of at Pergamus to
transcribe books upon, as Ptolemy had forbidden the exportation of
Papyrus from Egypt, in order to prevent Eumenes from making a library as
valuable and choice as that of Alexandria.
The first public library at Rome, and in the world, as Pliny observes,
was erected by Asinius Pollio, in the Atrium of the Temple of Liberty on
Mount Aventine. Augustus founded a Greek and Latin library in the Temple
of Apollo on the Palatine Hill, and another in the name of his sister
Octavia, adjoining to the Theatre of Marcellus.