And now, _My Lord_, I expect some will wonder what my Meaning is, to
usher in a _Trifle_, with so much Magnificence, and end at last in a
fine _Receipt_ for the _Dressing_ of a _Sallet_ with an Handful of
_Pot-Herbs_! But yet, _My Lord_, this _Subject_, as low and despicable
as it appears, challenges a Part of _Natural History_, and the Greatest
Princes have thought it no Disgrace, not only to make it their
_Diversion_, but their _Care_, and to promote and encourage it in the
midst of their weightiest Affairs: He who wrote of the _Cedar_ of
_Libanus_, wrote also of the _Hysop which grows upon the Wall_.
To verifie this, how much might I say of _Gardens_ and _Rural
Employments_, preferrable to the Pomp and Grandeur of other Secular
Business, and that in the Estimate of as Great Men as any Age has
produc'd! And it is of such _Great Souls_ we have it recorded; That
after they had perform'd the Noblest Exploits for the Publick, they
sometimes chang'd their _Scepters_ for the _Spade_, and their _Purple_
for the Gardiner's _Apron_. And of these, some, My _Lord_, were
_Emperors, Kings, Consuls, Dictators_, and Wise _Statesmen_; who amidst
the most important Affairs, both in Peace and War, have quitted all
their Pomp and Dignity in Exchange of this Learned Pleasure: Nor that
of the most _refin'd_ Part of _Agriculture_ (the _Philosophy_ of the
_Garden_ and _Parterre_ only) but of _Herbs_, and wholesom _Sallets_,
and other plain and useful Parts of _Geoponicks_, and Wrote _Books_ of
_Tillage_ and _Husbandry_; and took the _Plough-Tackle_ for their
_Banner_, and their _Names_ from the _Grain_ and _Pulse_ they sow'd,
as the Marks and Characters of the highest Honor.
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