phypega Of deeper doubt is its Topography, and local designation, yet being the primitive garden, and without much controversiel seated in the East; it is more than probable the first curiosity, and cultivation of plants, most flourished in those quarters. And since the Ark of Noah first toucht upon some mountains of Armenia, the planting art arose again in the East, and found its revolution not far from the place of its Nativity, about the Plains of those Regions. And if Zoroaster were either Cham, Chus, or Mizraim, they were early proficients therein, who left (as Pliny delivereth,) a work of Agriculture.

However the account of the Pensill or hanging gardens of Babylon, if made by Semiramis, the third or fourth from Nimrod, is of no slender antiquity; which being not framed upon ordinary levell of ground, but raised upon pillars, admitting under-passages, we cannot accept as the first Babylonian Gardens; but a more eminent progress and advancement in that art, than any that went before it: Somewhat answering or hinting the old Opinion concerning Paradise itself, with many conceptions elevated, above the plane of the Earth.2

1 For some there is from the ambiguity of the word Mikedem, whether ab Oriente, or a principio.

2 In MS. SLOAN. 1847, occurs the following passage, evidently intended for this work:-"We are unwilling to diminish or loose the credit of Paradise, or only pass it over with [the Hebrew word for] Eden, though the Greek be of a later name. In this excepted, we know not whether the ancient gardens do equal those of late times, or those at present in Europe. Of the gardens of Hesperides, we know nothing singular, but some golden apples. Of Alcinous his garden, we read nothing beyond figgs, apples, and olives; if we allow it to be any more than a fiction of Homer, unhappily placed in Corfu, where the sterility of the soil makes men believe there was no such thing at all. The gardens of Adonis were so empty that they afforded proverbial expression, and the principal part thereof was empty spaces, with herbs and flowers in pots. I think we little understand the pensile gardens of Semiramis, which made one of the wonders of it [Babylon], wherein probably the structure exceeded the plants contained in them. The excellency thereof was probably in the trees, and if the descension of the roots be

Nebuchodonosor whom some will have to be the famous Syrian King of Diodorus, beautifully repaired that City; and so magnificently built his hanging gardens, that from succeeding Writers he had the honour of the first. From whence overlooking Babylon, and all the Region about it, he found no circumscription to the eye of his ambition, till overdelighted with the bravery of this Paradise; in his melancholy metamorphosis, he found the folly of that delight, and a proper punishment, in the contrary habitation, in wild plantations and wanderings of the fields.

The Persian Gallants who destroyed this Monarchy, maintained their Botanicall bravery. Unto whom we owe the very name of Paradise: wherewith we meet not in Scripture before the time of Solomon, and conceived originally Persian. The word for that disputed Garden, expressing in the Hebrew no more than a Field enclosed, which from the same Root is content to derive a garden and a Buckler.

Cyrus the elder brought up in Woods and Mountains, when time and power enabled, pursued the dictate of his education, and brought the treasures of the field into rule and circumscription. So nobly beautifying the hanging Gardens of Babylon, that he was also thought to be the authour thereof.

2

Ahasuerus (whom many conceive to have been Artaxerxes Longi-manus) in the Countrey and City of Flowers, and in an open Garden, entertained his Princes and people, while Vashti more modestly treated the Ladies within the Palace thereof.

But if (as some opinion)3 King Ahasuerus were Artaxerxes Mnemon, that found a life and reign answerable unto his great memory, our magnified Cyrus was his second Brother: who gave the occasion of that

equal to the height of trees, it was not [absurd] of Strebæus to think the pillars were hollow that the roots might shoot into them."

1 Josephus.

2 Sushan in Susiana.

3 Plutarch, in the Life of Artaxerxes.

memorable work, and almost miraculous retreat of Xenophon. A person of high spirit and honour, naturally a King, though fatally prevented by the harmlesse chance of post-geniture: Not only a Lord of Gardens, but a manuall planter thereof: disposing his trees, like his armies in regular ordination. So that while old Laertes hath found a name in Homer for pruning hedges, and clearing away thorns and bryars; while King Attalus lives for his poysonous plantations of Aconites, Henbane, Hellebore, and plants hardly admitted within the walls of Paradise; While many of the ancients do poorly live in the single names of Vegetables; All stories do look upon Cyrus as the splendid and regular planter.

According whereto Xenophon1 describeth his gallant plantation at Sardis, thus rendered by Strebaus. Arbores pari intervallo sitas, rectos ordines, et omnia perpulchrè in Quincuncem directa. Which we shall take for granted as being accordingly rendred by the most elegant of the Latines,2 and by no made term, but in use before by Varro. That is the rows and orders so handsomely disposed; or five trees so set together, that a regular angularity, and through prospect, was left on every side. Owing this name not only unto the Quintuple number of Trees, but the figure declaring that number, which being doubled at the angle, makes up the letter X, that is the Emphatical decussation, or fundamentall figure. that which lear

Now though in some ancient and modern practice the area or decussated plot, might be a perfect square, answerable to a Tuscan Pedestall, and the Quinquernio or Cinque point of a dye; wherein by diagonall lines the intersection was regular; accommodable unto Plantations of large growing Trees; and we must not deny ourselves the advantage of this order; yet shall we chiefly insist upon that of Curtius and Porta,3 in their brief description hereof. Wherein the decussis is made within a longilaterall square, with opposite angles, 2 Cicero in Cat. Major.

1 In Economico.

• Benedict. Curtius de Hortis. Bapt. Porta in villa.

N

acute and obtuse at the intersection; and so upon progression making a Rhombus or Lozenge figuration, which seemeth very agreeable unto the Originall figure; Answerable whereunto we observe the decussated characters in many consulary Coynes, and even in those of Constantine and his Sons, which pretend their pattern in the Sky; the crucigerous Ensigne carried this figure, not transversely or rectangularly intersected, but in a decussation, after the form of an Andrean or Burgundian cross, which answereth this description.

Where by the way we shall decline the old Theme, so traced by antiquity, of crosses and crucifixion: Whereof some being right, and of one single peece without transversion or transome, do little advantage our subject. Nor shall we take in the mysticall Tau, or the Crosse of our blessed Saviour, which having in some descriptions an Empedon or crossing footstay, made not one single transversion. And since the Learned Lipsius hath made some doubt even of the Crosse of St. Andrew, since some Martyrologicall Histories deliver his death by the general Name of a crosse, and Hippolytus will have him suffer by the sword; we should have enough to make out the received Crosse of that Martyr. Nor shall we urge the labarum, and famous Standard of Constantine, or make further use thereof, then as the first Letters in the Name of our Saviour Christ, in use among Christians, before the dayes of Constantine, to be observed in Sepulchral Monuments1 of Martyrs, in the reign of Adrian and Antoninus; and to be found in the Antiquities of the Gentiles, before the advent of Christ, as in the Medall of King Ptolemy, signed with the same characters, and might be the beginning of some word or name, which Antiquaries have not hit on.

We will not revive the mysterious crosses of Egypt, with circles on their heads, in the breast of Serapis, and the hands of their Geniall spirits, not unlike the 1 Of Marius, Alexander. Roma Sotterranea.

character of Venus, and looked on by ancient Christians, with relation unto Christ. Since however they first began, the Ægyptians thereby expressed the processe and motion of the spirit of the world, and the diffusion thereof upon the Celestiall and Elementall nature; implyed by a circle and right-lined intersection. A secret in their Telesmes and magicall Characters among them. Though he that considereth the plain cross1 upon the head of the owl in the Lateran obelisk, or the cross2 erected upon a picher diffusing streams of water into two basins, with sprinkling branches in them, and all described upon a two-footed Altar, as in the Hieroglyphicks of the brasen Table of Bembus; will hardly decline all thought of Christian signality in them.

We shall not call in the Hebrew Tenupha, or ceremony of their Oblations, waved by the Priest unto the four quarters of the world, after the form of a cross; as in the peace-offerings. And if it were clearly made out what is remarkably delivered from the Traditions of the Rabbins, that as the Oyle was powred coronally or circularlly upon the head of Kings, so the HighPriest was anointed decussatively or in the form of an X; though it could not escape a typicall thought of Christ, from mysticall considerators; yet being the conceit is Hebrew, we should rather expect its verification from Analogy in that language, than to confine the same unto the unconcerned Letters of Greece, or make it out by the characters of Cadmus or Palamedes. Of this Quincuncial Ordination the Ancients

practised much, discoursed little; and the Moderns have nothing enlarged; which he that more nearly considereth, in the form of its square Rhombus, and decussation, with the several commodities, mysteries, parallelismes, and resemblances, both in Art and Nature, shall easily discern the elegancy of this order.

1 Wherein the lower part is somewhat longer, as defined by Upton de studio militari, and Johannes de Bado Aureo, cum comment. clariss. et doctiss. Bissai.

2 Casal, de Ritibus. Bosio nella Trionfante croce.