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A58064
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Of gardens four books first written in Latine verse by Renatus Rapinus ; and now made English by J.E.; Hortorum libri IV. English
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Rapin, René, 1621-1687.; Evelyn, John, 1655-1699.
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1672
(1672)
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Wing R268; ESTC R6425
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57,715
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284
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OF GARDENS Four Books First written in Latine Verse BY RENATUS RAPINUS And now made English By I. E. LONDON Printed by T. R. N. T. for Thomas Collinsand Iohn Ford at the Middle-Temple Gate and Benjamin Tooks at the Shipin St. Paul's Church-yard 1672. To the Right Honourable HENRY Earl of ARLINGTON Viscount THETFORD c. His Majesties Principal Secreiary of State of his most honourable Privy Council and Knight of the most noble Order of the Garter c. MY LORD T is become the mode of this writing age to trouble Persons of the highest Rank not only with the Real Productions of Wit but if so I may be allowed to speak with the trifles and follys of it hardly dos an ill Play come forth without a Dedication to some great Lady or man of Honour and all think themselves sufficiently secure if they can obtain but the least pretence of Authority to cover their imperfections My Lord I am sensible of mine but they concern only my self and can never lessen the dignity of a Subject which the best of Poets and perhaps the greatest Wits too have celebrated with just applause I know not how my Lord I may have succeeded with this adventure in an age so nice and refin'd but the Die is cast and I had rather expose my selfe to the fortune of it then loose an occasion of acknowledging your Lordships favours which as they have oblig'd the Father so ought they to command the gratitude of the Son nor must I forget to acquaint your Lordship that the Author of this Poem address'd it to one of the most Eminent Persons in France and it were unhappy if it should not meet with the same good Fortune in England I am sure the origiginal deserves it which though it may have lost much of its Lustre by my Translation will yet recover its credit with advantage by having found in your Lordship so Illustrious a Patron Great Men have in all Ages bin favourable to the Muses and done them honour and your Lordship who is the true Model of Virtue and Greatness cannot but have the same inclinations for the delights which adorn those Titles especially when they are innocent and useful and excellent as this Poem is pronounced to be by the Suffrages of the most discerning I had else my Lord suppress'd my ambition of being in Pring and setting up for a Poet which is neither my talent nor design But my Lord to importune you no further this peice presumes not to intrude into your Cabinet but to wait upon you in your Gardens at Euston where if when your Lordships more weighty affairs give leave you vouchsafe to divert your self with the first Blossoms of my Youth they may by the instuence of your Lordships favour one day produce fruits of more maturity and worthy the oblation of My Lord Your Lordships Most dutiful and most obedient Servant I. EVELYN The Preface IT will doubtless appear an intollerable presumption in the to prosecute that part of the perfectest Work of all Antiquity which was omitted by the most accomplished Poet that ever wrote Few are ignorant of what he says in the fourth of his Georgicks For sitan Pingues hortos quae cura colendi Ornaret canerem biferique rosaria Poesti Quoque modo potis gauderent intyba rivis Et virides apio ripae You would think in this place that Virgil was pleased with his own fancy he is so fluent nor without cause where he is invited by the charm of so liberal a Subject But whether he was hastened by his design'd Poem of Bees ot that he reserved his time for the setting forth of his Hero not mâ—ch after he leaves off what he had begâ—n yet not without a commendation of the Argument as worthy to be handled by all posterity Verum haec ipse equidem spatiis disclusus iniquis Praetereo atque aliis post commemoranda relinquo Now to go on where so great a man left off to treat of a matter which if we may believe Pliny was able to deter so expert a Writer makes me fear I can scarce free my self from the guilt of an extream confidence besides in the imitation of so divine a Pattern I raise a greater expectation then I can satisfie And the example which I propose to my self is not so much an advantage to me as it leads me to an infallible despair What a rashness is it to attempt that which partly for the difficulty of what Virgil has omitted partly for the excellency of what he has perform'd none ever yet dared to undertake The Culture of Gardens also being arrived to that height that nothing can render it more perfect and their dignity is such that when I have done all I can I shall have done less then they deserve Nor was I a little discouraged by the defects of the Latine Tongue since it is an insufferable arrogance to write of a thing in Latine of which the Latines were wholly ignorant For the method of Gardening which is now in vogue either of disposing Flowers in Beds or the planting and ordering of Wall Fruits was not used among them But yet if I transgress either through the penury of the Language or my own ignorance I am so vain as to hope that our Age which admires Gardens above all others will forgive me if I fall short in an Essay which none have made trial of before me On the other side I was encouraged by the kind reception which Gardening finds every where even with those of the highest and noblest rank insomuch that I question whether it was ever in greater esteem And it was requisite since we are grown more curious in this affair then formerly that somewhat of the delightful part of it should be communicated which as well by the discipline of the times as the industry of the improvers is come to its utmost perfection For certainly that symmetry of parts which is now visible in every Garden is that exact beauty to which nothing can be added I need not say much here of the nature of that Verse in which Precepts were wont to be delivered the Georgicks of Virgil are the best patterns of it whose natural Ingenuity is such as will hardly admit of that more elegant dress which I have put on considering also the humility of that style in which a naked and unmixed simplicity is most sought after I will not go about to excuse my self since I have happened on a Subject in which Virgil could not easily contain himselfe though it was no difficult matter for him to do it especially in that duller part of Husbandry in which nevertheless as Pliny observes he onely cull'd the flowers of things leaving out nothing that was capable of any splendour or ornament hence proceeded those frequent digressions from his purpose that he might avoid the inconvenience of being tedious which Maâ—robius speaks of in the 5th book of his Saturnalia In the Georgicks says he after