28

A DISCOURSE

days of Galen, it grew no nearer than Egypt , of all the Roman Provinces-,but was not seen in the city till about thirty years before Pliny ’s time ;whereas there is now hardly a more common and universal tree inEurope. Thus likewise the Avellana travelled from Pontus in Asia , intoGreece ; and from thence into Italy, to the city of Abellino in Campania .I might affirm the same of our Damasco Plum, Quince, Medlar, Fig , andmost ordinary Pears , as well as of several other peregrine trees, fruit-bearers, and others; for even the very Damask Rose itself, (as my LordBacon tells us, Cent. ii. Exp. 659 .) is little more than an hundred yearsold in England; Methinks this should be of wonderful incitement. Itwas six hundred and eighty years after the foundation of Rome , beforeItaly had tasted a cherry of their own, which being then brought thither

the open air, they should have a dry, warm soil, and a well-sheltered place, and even thenwe cannot insure their safety.

The Cyprefs is a native of Crete; and Theophrastus informs us that it grows sponta-neously upon Mount Ida. Virgil properly calls it the Idaean Cyprefs •.

--- —nec Idifeis Cyparifsis. georg. il.

Branches of Cyprefs used antiently to be placed before the doors of the deceased, andServius gives the reason, “ quia hujus generis arbor excisa non renascitur.” It not onlywas stationed before the doors, but also at the sepulchres and funeral piles:

Linquenda tellus, et domus, et placens

Uxor, neque harum, quas colis, arborum

Te, prater invisas Cuprefsos,

Ulla brevem dominum sequetur. HOR.

Lucan informs us that the Cyprefs was only used at the funerals of persons of distinc-tion ; and probably because it was Diti Sacra. He says,

Et non plebe’ios luctus testata Cuprefsus. LIB yy

Virgil introduces the Cyprefs at the funeral of Polydore;

---—stant m'anibus arse,

Caeruleis msests vittis atraque Cuprefso. jen. iii.

It is also mentioned at the funeral Pile of Misenus:

Ingentem strux&re pyram: cui frondibus atris

Intexunt latera, et ferales ante Cuprefsos

Constituunt, decorantque super fulgentibus armis, jen. vi.