that City; and fo magnificently built his * HangingGardens, that from fucceeding Writers he had the Honour of the Firft. From whence, over-looking Babylon, and all the Region about it, he found no Circumfcription to the Eye of his Ambition, till overdelighted with the Bravery of this Paradife; in this melancholy Metamorphofis he found the Folly of that Delight, and a proper Punishment, in the contrary Habitation, in wild Plantations and Wanderings of the Fields.

The Perfian Gallants, who deftroyed this Monarchy, maintained their Botanical Bravery. Unto whom we owe the very Name of Paradife: Wherewith we meet not in Scripture before the Time of Solomon, and conceived originally Perfian. The Word for that dif puted Garden, expreffing in the Hebrew no more than a Field inclosed, which from the fame Root is content to derive a Garden and a Buckler.

Cyrus the Elder, brought up in Woods and Mountains, when Time and Power enabled, purfued the Dictate of his Education, and brought the. Treasures of the Field into Rule and Circumfcription; fo nobly beautifying the Hanging-Gardens of Babylon, that he was alfo thought to be the Author thereof.

Abafuerus (whom many conceive to have been Artaxerxes Longi-manus) in the + Country and City of Flowers, and in an open Garden, entertained his Princes and People, while Vashti more modeftly treatthe Ladies within the Palace thereof.

But if (as fome opinion ||) King Abafuerus were Artaxerxes Memnon, that found a Life and Reign anfwerable unto his great Memory, our magnified Cyrus was his fecond Brother: Who gave the Occafion of that memorable Work, and almoft miraculous Retreat of Xenophon. A Perfon of high Spirit and Honour,

*Fofephus.

Sufhan in Sufiana,

Plutarch in the Life of Artaxerxes,

naturally

naturally a King, tho' fatally prevented by the harmlefs Chance of Poft-geniture: Not only a Lord of Gardens, but a Manual Planter thereof: Difpofing his Trees like his Armies, in regular Ordination. Sa that while old Laertas hath found a Name in Homer for pruning Hedges, and clearing away Thorns and Briars; while King Attalus lives for his poyfonous Plantations of Aconites, Henbane, Hellebore, and Plants, hardly admitted within the Walls of Paradife; while many of the Ancients do poorly live in the fingle Names of Vegetables; all Stories do look upon Cyrus as the fplendid and regular Planter.

According whereto, Xenophon* defcribeth his gallant Plantation at Sardis, thus rendered by Strebæus. ✦ Arbores pari intervallo fitas, rectos ordines, & omnia perpulchrè in Quincuncem directa. Which we fhall take for granted, as being accordingly rendered by the moft Elegant of the || Latins; and by no made Term, but in Ufe before by Varro. That is the Rows and Orders fo handsomely difpofed, or Five Trees fo fet together, that a regular Angularity and thorough Pro fpect 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 Decuffation, or Fundamental Figure.

Now, tho' in fome ancient and modern Practice the Area, or decuffated Plot, might be a perfect Square, anfwerable to a Tuscan Pedestal, and the Quinquernio, or Cinque-point of a Dye; wherein, by Diagonal Lines, the Intersection was regular; accommodable unto Plantations of large growing Trees; and we must not deny ourselves the Advantage of this Order; yet fhall we chiefly infift upon that of Cur

*

Xenophon in Oeconomico.

† Καλὰ μὲν τὰ δένδρα, δί ἴσε δέλα περιλευμένα, όρθοι δε δι ειχοι τῶν δένδρων, κυδώνια δε πάντα καλῶς.

Cicero in Cat. Major.

tius

tius* and Porta, in their brief Defcription hereof. Where in the Decuffs is made within a Longilateral Square, with oppofite, Angles, acute and obtufe at the Interfection and fo upon Progreffion, making a Rhombus or Lozenge Figuration, which feenieth very agreeable unto the original Figure; anfwerable whereunto we ob ferve the decuffated Characters in many confulary Coins, and even in thofe of Conftantine and his Sons, which pretend their Pattern in the Sky; the Crucigerous Enfign carried this Figure, not Tranfverly or Rectangularly interfected, but in a Decuffation, after the Form of an Andrean or Burgundian Crofs, which anfwereth this Defcription.

Where, by the Way, we fhall decline the old Theme, fo traced by Antiquity of Croffes and Crucifixion: Whereof fome being right, and of one fingle Piece, without Traverfion or Tranfome, do little advantage our Subject. Nor fhall we take in the myftical Tau, or the Crofs of our Bleffed Saviour, which having in fome Defcriptions an Empedon, or Croffing Foot-ftay, made not one fingle Tranfverfion. And fince the Learned Lipfius hath made fome Doubt even of the Crofs of St. Andrew; fince fome Martyrological Hiftories deliver his Death by the general Name of a Crofs, and Hippolitus will have him fuffer by the Sword; we should have enough to make out the received Crofs of that Martyr. Nor fhall we arge the Labarum, and famous Standard of Conftantine, or make farther Ufe thereof, than as the first Letters in the Name of our Saviour Chrift, in Ufe amongst Chriftians, before the Days of Conftantine, to be obferved in † Sepulchral Monuments 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 Medal of King Ptolomy, figned with the fame Characters, and might be the Beginning of *Benedi&t Curtius de Hortis. Bapt. Porta in Villa. + Of Marius, Alexander, Roma Sotterranea.

fome

fome Word or Name, which Antiquaries have noť hit on.

We will not revive the mysterious Croffes of Egypt, with Circles on their Heads, in the Breaft of Serapis, and the Hands of their Genial Spirits, not unlike the Character of Venus, and looked on by ancient Chrif tians, with relation unto Chrift. Since however they firft began, the Egyptians thereby expreffed the Procefs and Motion of the Spirit of the World, and the Diffusion thereof upon the Celestial and Elemental Nature, implyed by a Circle and Right-lined Interfection. A Secret in the Telefmes and Magical Characters among them. Tho' he that confidereth the * plain Crofs upon the Head of the Owl in the Lateran Obelifk, or the + Crofs erected upon a Pitcher diffufing Streams of Water into two Bafons, with sprinkling Branches in them, and all defcribed upon a Two-footed Altar, as in the Hieroglyphics of the Brazen Table of Bembus, will hardly decline all Thought of Christian Signality in them.

We shall not call in the Hebrew Tenapha, or Ceremony of their Oblations, waved by the Prieft unto the four Quarters of the World, after the Form of a Crofs; 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 Oyl was poured Coronally or Circularly upon the Heads of Kings, fo the High-Prieft was anointed decuffatively, or in the Form of an X; tho' it could not escape a typical Thought of Christ, from myftical Confiderators; yet being the Conceit is Hebrew, we fhould rather expect its Verification from Analogy in that Language, than to confine the fame unto the unconcerned Letters of

* Wherein the lower Part is somewhat longer, as defined by Upton, De ftudio militari, and Johannes de Bado Aureo, cum comment. clarif. doctiff. Biffai.

+ Cafal. de Ritibus. Bofio, Nella Trionfame croce.

Greece,

·Greece, or make it out by the Characters of Cadmus or Palamedes.

Of this Quincuncial Ordination the Ancients practifed much, difcourfed little; and the Moderns have nothing enlarged; which he that more nearly confidereth, in the Form of its fquare Rhombus, and Decuffation, with the feveral Commodities, Myfteries, Parallelifms, and Refemblances, both in Art and Nature, fhall eafily difcern the Elegancy of this Order.

That this was in fome Ways of Practice in divers and diftant Nations, Hints or Deliveries there are from no flender Antiquity. In the Hanging-Gardens of Babylon, from Abidenus, Eufebius, and others, Curtius defcribeth this Rule of Decuffation In the memorable Garden of Alcinous, anciently conceived an original Fancy from Paradife, Mention there is of well contrived Order; for fo hath Dydimus and Euftachius expounded the Emphatical Word. Diomedes defcribing the Rural Poffeffions of his Father, gives Account, in the fame Language, of Trees orderly planted. And Ulyffes being a Boy, was promised by his Father Forty Fig-trees, and Fifty + Rows of Vines, producing all Kind of Grapes.

That the Eastern Inhabitants of India made Ufe of fuch Order, even in open Plantations, is deducible from Theophraftus; who defcribing the Trees whereof they made their Garments, plainly delivereth that they were planted nal' opes, and in fuch Order, that at a Distance Men would miftake them for Vineyards. The fame feems confirmed in Greece, from a fingular Expreffion in || Ariftotle concerning the Order of Vines, delivered by a Military Term, reprefenting the Or

*Decufatio ipfa jucundum ac peramænum confpectum præbuit. Cart.

Hortar. 1. 6.

† Ορχοι, είχοι ἀμπέλων φυλῶν εἶχος ἡ κατὰ τάξιν φυλεία. Phavorinus Philoxenus.

Η Συνάδας αμπέλων. Polit. 7.

ders