Coles, nevertheless, treats with scorn, and by arguments peculiarly his own, the old belief in the connection between the stars and herbs. "It [the study of herbs] is a subject as antient as the Creation, yea more antient than the Sunne or the Moon, or Starres, they being created on the fourth day whereas Plants were the third. Thus did God even at first confute the folly of those Astrologers who goe about to maintaine that all vegetables in their growth are enslaved to a necessary and unavoidable dependence on the influences of the starres; whereas Plants were even when Planets were not." In another passage, however, he writes, "Though I admit not of Master Culpeper's Astrologicall way of every Planets Dominion over Plants, yet I conceive that the Sunne and Moon have generall influence upon them, the one for Heat the other for Moisture; wherein the being of Plants consists." The most attractive parts of the _Art of Simpling_ are the chapters devoted to the "Joys of Gardening." Coles tells us that "A house, though otherwise beautifull, if it hath no garden is more like a prison than a house." Of what he has to say about gardens and the happiness to be found in gardening I quote much because it is all so pleasant. "That there is no place more pleasant [than a garden] may appear from God himselfe, who after he had made Man, planted the Garden of Eden, and put him therein, that he might contemplate the many wonderful Ornaments wherewith Omnipotency had bedecked his Mother Earth.... As for recreation, if a man be wearied with over-much study (for study is a weariness to the Flesh as Solomon by experience can tell you) there is no better place in the world to recreate himself than a Garden, there being no sence but may be delighted therein. If his sight be obfuscated and dull, as it may easily be, with continuall poring, there is no better way to relieve it, than to view the pleasant greennesse of Herbes, which is the way that Painters use, when they have almost spent their sight by their most earnest contemplation of brighter objects: neither doe they onely feed the Eyes but comfort the wearied Braine with fragrant smells. The Eares also (which are called the Daughters of Musick, because they delight therein) have their recreation by the pleasant noise of the warbling notes, which the chaunting birds accent forth from amongst the murmuring Leaves...."