Dr. Forster notices, that “beds of tulips begin now to flower, and about
London, Haerlem, Amsterdam, and other cities of England and Holland, are
seen in perfection in the gardens of florists, who have a variety of
very whimsical names for the different varieties. The early, or Van Thol
tulip, is now out of blow, as is the variety called the Clarimond, beds
of which appear very beautiful in April. The sort now flowering is the
_tulipa Gesneriana_, of which the names Bizarre, Golden Eagle, &c. are
only expressive of varieties. For the amusement of the reader, we quote
from the ‘Tatler’ the following account of an accident that once befell
a gentleman in a tulip-garden:--‘I chanced to rise very early one
particular morning this summer, and took a walk into the country, to
divert myself among the fields and meadows, while the green was new,
and the flowers in their bloom. As at this season of the year every lane
is a beautiful walk, and every hedge full of nosegays, I lost myself
with a great deal of pleasure among several thickets and bushes that
were filled with a great variety of birds, and an agreeable confusion of
notes, which formed the pleasantest scene in the world to one who had
passed a whole winter in noise and smoke. The freshness of the dews that
lay upon every thing about me, with the cool breath of the morning,
which inspired the birds with so many delightful instincts, created in
me the same kind of animal pleasure, and made my heart overflow with
such secret emotions of joy and satisfaction as are not to be described
or accounted for. On this occasion, I could not but reflect upon a
beautiful simile in Milton:--
As one who long in populous city pent,
Where houses thick and sewers annoy the air,
Forth issuing on a summer’s morn, to breathe
Among the pleasant villages, and farms
Adjoined, from each thing met conceives delight:
The smell of grain, or tedded grass, or kine,
Or dairy, each rural sight, each rural sound.
“‘Those who are conversant in the writings of polite authors, receive an
additional entertainment from the country, as it revives in their
memories those charming descriptions, with which such authors do
frequently abound. I was thinking of the foregoing beautiful simile in
Milton, and, applying it to myself, when I observed to the windward of
me a black cloud falling to the earth in long trails of rain, which made
me betake myself for shelter to a house which I saw at a little distance
from the place where I was walking. As I sat in the porch, I heard the
voices of two or three persons, who seemed very earnest in discourse. My
curiosity was raised when I heard the names of _Alexander the Great_ and
_Artaxerxes_; and as their talk seemed to run on ancient heroes, I
concluded there could not be any secret in it; for which reason I
thought I might very fairly listen to what they said. After several
parallels between great men, which appeared to me altogether groundless
and chimerical, I was surprised to hear one say, that he valued the
_Black Prince_ more than the _duke of Vendosme_. How the duke of
Vendosme should become a rival of the Black Prince, I could not
conceive: and was more startled when I heard a second affirm with great
vehemence, that if the _emperor of Germany_ was not going off, he should
like him better than either of them. He added, that though the season
was so changeable, the _duke of Marlborough_ was in blooming beauty. I
was wondering to myself from whence they had received this odd
intelligence; especially when I heard them mention the names of several
other great generals, as the _prince of Hesse_, and the _king of
Sweden_, who, they said, were both running away. To which they added,
what I entirely agreed with them in, that the _crown of France_ was
very weak, but that the _marshal Villars_ still kept his colours. At
last one of them told the company, if they would go along with him he
would show them a _Chimney-sweeper_ and a _Painted Lady_ in the same
bed, which he was sure would very much please them. The shower which had
driven them as well as myself into the house, was now over; and as they
were passing by me into the garden, I asked them to let me be one of
their company. The gentleman of the house told me, if I delighted in
flowers, it would be worth my while; for that he believed he could show
me such a bowl of _tulips_ as was not to be matched in the whole
country. I accepted the offer, and immediately found that they had been
talking in terms of gardening, and that the kings and generals they had
mentioned were only so many tulips, to which the gardeners, according to
their usual custom, had given such high titles and appellations of
honour. I was very much pleased and astonished at the glorious show of
these gay vegetables, that arose in great profusion on all the banks
about us. Sometimes I considered them with the eye of an ordinary
spectator, as so many beautiful objects varnished over with a natural
gloss, and stained with such a variety of colours as are not to be
equalled in any artificial dyes or tinctures. Sometimes I considered
every leaf as an elaborate piece of tissue, in which the threads and
fibres were woven together into different configurations, which gave a
different colouring to the light as it glanced on the several parts of
the surface. Sometimes I considered the whole bed of tulips, according
to the notion of the greatest mathematician and philosopher that ever
lived, (sir Isaac Newton,) as a multitude of optic instruments, designed
for the separating light into all those various colours of which it is
composed. I was awakened out of these my philosophical speculations, by
observing the company often seemed to laugh at me. I accidentally
praised a tulip as one of the finest I ever saw, upon which they told me
it was a common _Fool’s Coat_. Upon that I praised a second, which it
seems was but another kind of Fool’s Coat. I had the same fate with two
or three more; for which reason I desired the owner of the garden to let
me know which were the finest of the flowers, for that I was so
unskilful in the art, that I thought the most beautiful were the most
valuable, and that those which had the gayest colours were the most
beautiful. The gentleman smiled at my ignorance: he seemed a very plain
honest man, and a person of good sense, had not his head been touched
with that distemper which Hippocrates calls the Τυλιππομανια,
_Tulippomania_, insomuch, that he would talk very rationally on any
subject in the world but a tulip. He told me, that he valued the bed of
flowers, which lay before us, and was not above twenty yards in length
and two in breadth, more than he would the best hundred acres of land in
England; and added, that it would have been worth twice the money it is,
if a foolish cookmaid of his had not almost ruined him the last winter,
by mistaking a handful of tulip roots for a heap of onions, and by that
means, says he, made me a dish of porridge, that cost me above a
thousand pounds sterling. He then showed me what he thought the finest
of his tulips, which I found received all their value from their rarity
and oddness, and put me in mind of your great fortunes, which are not
always the greatest beauties. I have often looked upon it as a piece of
happiness, that I have never fallen into any of these fantastical
tastes, nor esteemed any thing the more for its being uncommon and hard
to be met with. For this reason, I look upon the whole country in spring
time as a spacious garden, and make as many visits to a spot of daisies,
or a bank of violets, as a florist does to his borders or parterres.
There is not a bush in blossom within a mile of me which I am not
acquainted with, nor scarce a daffodil or cowslip that withers away in
my neighbourhood without my missing it. I walked home in this temper of
mind through several fields and meadows with an unspeakable pleasure,
not without reflecting on the bounty of Providence, which has made the
most pleasing and the most beautiful objects the most ordinary and most
common.’”
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