The historie of the vvorld: commonly called, The naturall historie of C. Plinius Secundus. Translated into English by Philemon Holland Doctor of Physicke. The first [-second] tome

CHAP. I.

¶ The wonderfull varietie of Floures.

CAto in his Treatise of Gardens ordained as a necessary point, That they should be planted and inriched with such herbs as might bring forth floures for Co∣ronets and Garlands. And in very truth, their diuersitie is such, that vnpossible it is to decipher and expresse them accordingly. Whereby wee may see, that more easie it was for dame Nature to depaint & adorn the earth with sundrie [unspec F] pictures, to beautifie the fields (I say) with all maner of colours, by her handy∣worke (especially where she hath met with a ground to her minde, and when she is in a merrie humour and disposed to play and disport her selfe) than for any man in the world to vtter the same by word of mouth. Wherin certes her admirable prouidence she hath shewed principally

in this, That whereas she hath giuen vnto those fruits of the earth which serue for necessities & [unspec G] the sustentation of man, long life and a kind of perpetuitie, euen to last yeares and hundreds of yeres; these floures of pleasure and delight, good only to content the eye, or please the sence of smelling, she would haue to liue and die in one day. A great document and lesson for vs men in generall to learne, How all things whatsoeuer that flourish most louely and be gayest in shew, soonest fade and are gon suddenly. But to come again to the varietie of floures aforesaid, toge∣ther with their diuers mixtures: verily there is no painter with all his skil, able sufficiently with his pensil to represent one liuely garland of floures indeed; whether they be plaited and inter∣medled in maner of nosegaies one with another, or set in ranks and rewes one by another; whe∣ther they be knit and twisted cord-wise and in chain-work of one sort of floures, either to wind and wreath about a chaplet, bias, or in fashion of a circle, or whether they be sorted round into a [unspec H] globe or ball, running one through another, to exhibit one goodly sight and entire vniformity of a crosse garland.