[61] About eighty years previous to Hyll's Treatise on Bees, Rucellai, an Italian of distinction, who aspired to a cardinal's hat, and who laboured with zeal and taste (I am copying from De Sismondi's View of the Literature of the South of Europe) to render Italian poetry classical, or a pure imitation of the ancients, published his most celebrated poem on Bees. "It receives (says De Sismondi) a particular interest from the real fondness which Rucellai seems to have entertained for these creatures. There is something so sincere in his respect for their virgin purity, and in his admiration of the order of their government, that he inspires us with real interest for them. All his descriptions are full of life and truth." [62] Ben Jonson, in his _Discourses_, gives the following eulogy on this illustrious author:--"No member of his speech but consisted of his own graces. His hearers could not cough or look aside from him without loss. He commanded where he spoke, and had his judges angry and pleased at his devotion: no man had their affections more in his power; the fear of every man that heard him was, lest he should make an end." Mr. Loudon, when treating on the study of plants, observes, that "This wonderful philosopher explored and developed the true foundations of human knowledge, with a sagacity and penetration unparalleled in the history of mankind." What Clement VIII. applied to the eight books of Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, may well apply to the writings of Bacon:--"there is no learning that this man hath not searched into. His books will get reverence by age, for there is in them such seeds of eternity, that they will continue till the last fire shall devour all learning." Monsieur Thomas, in his Eulogy of Descartes, says, "Bacon explored every path of human knowledge, he sat in judgment on past ages, and anticipated those that were to come." The reader will be gratified by inspecting the second volume of Mr. Malone's publication of Aubrey's Letters, in the Bodleian Library, as well as the richly decorated and entertaining Beauties of England and Wales, and Pennant's Tour from Chester to London, for some curious notices of the ancient mansion, garden, and orchard, at Gorhambury. [63] The reader will be amply gratified by Mr. Johnson's review of the general state of horticulture at this period, in his History of English Gardening, and with the zeal with which he records the attachment of James I. and Charles, to this science; and where, in a subsequent chapter, he glances on the progress of our Botany, and proudly twines round the brows of the modest, but immortal, Ray, a most deserved and generous wreath.