Of Saint John, English Memmius, I presumed
To sing Britannic trophies, inexpert
Of war, with mean attempt; while he intent
(So Anna's will ordains) to expedite

His military charge, no leisure finds

To string his charming shell; but when, return'd,
Consummate Peace shall rear her cheerful head,
Then shall his Churchill in sublimer verse
For ever triumph; latest times shall learn
From such a chief to fight, and bard to sing.

4 Viscount Bolingbroke; then Secretary of War.

Subject proposed.-Address to the natives of Herefordshire. -Dedication to Mr. Mostyn.-Situation for an orchard.Soil. Places famous for their Cider.-King Ethelbert murdered by Offa, at Sutton Walls.-Account of MarcleyHill being moved.-A soil not rich enough for apples will suit pears. Very poor land will serve to support sheep and geese.-Goats browse on the steepest mountains of Wales.-Dangerous practice of gathering samphire from rocks that hang over the sea.-The most barren land may be improved, so as to be made capable of some produce.-In very hot summers, trenches should be dug round appletrees, and filled with water; a long continuance of hot weather being unfavourable to the fruit.-The unhealthiness of hot seasons.-Extreme heat of the summer in the year 1705.-Death of Miss Winchcomb.-Heat, a cause of earthquakes.-Destruction of Ariconium.-Some different sorts of trees and plants will flourish well, when planted near together; but others will not.-What sorts of trees may be planted near the apple-tree, without injuring it and what are noxious to it.-Grafting.- Different stocks proper for different sorts of fruit.-In the plantation of orchards, ornament as well as profit may be

attended to; and the different kinds of apple-trees may be intermixed with taste, so as to produce a pleasing effect. —Virgil has finely diversified his Georgics by introducing several beautiful digressions and descriptions.-Grafting, budding, pruning, to be learned by experience.-Many discoveries, the result of experience.-The barometer.— Tobacco first discovered.—Beneficial effects and pleasure of smoking tobacco.-The microscope.-Kernels of apples dissected and viewed in the microscope.-Industry recommended.-Pruning of apple-trees.-Trees, when too much loaded with fruit, should have their crops thinned.-Birds should be frightened from fruit-trees, pigs kept out of orchards, and wasps and snails destroyed.-No care is sufficient to secure fruit from grubs.-Ludicrous description of a person tasting a fair-looking, grub-eaten apple.-The garden of Alcinous.-Different sorts of apples.—Pears.The musk apple.-The red-streak apple, cultivated and improved by the first Lord Scudamore.-Compliment to his great-grandson.-Excellence of red-streak Cider.-The Poet, inspired by it, sings its praises, and those of its native country.-General fertility of Herefordshire.-Its hops, prospects, iron, saffron, wool.-Its natives famous for valour; distinguished at the battles of Cressy and Agincourt ;-particularly the ancestor of the noble family of Chandos.-Compliment to Lord Chandos, and his son: to Lord Salisbury: and to Aldrich, Dean of Christchurch.University of Oxford.-Sir Thomas Hanmer.-Mr. Bromley.-Mew, Bishop of Winchester.-Duke of Beaufort.Lord Weymouth.-Harley, Secretary of State.-Beauty of Herefordshire females.-Love.-Friendship.-Trevor, Chief Justice.-Panegyric on sincerity;-on virtue in general. Amiableness of Virgil's character.-Homer, Spenser, Milton;-censured for his politics, but extolled for his poetry, of which the Author professes himself an humble imitator.

WHAT soil the apple loves, what care is due,
To Orchats, timeliest when to press the fruits,
Thy gift, Pomona! in Miltonian verse
Adventurous I presume to sing, of verse
Nor skill'd nor studious; but my native soil
Invites me, and the theme, as yet unsung.

Ye Ariconian Knights and fairest Dames, To whom propitious Heaven these blessings grants, Attend my lays! nor hence disdain to learn How Nature's gifts may be improved by art.

And thou, O Mostyn! whose benevolence
And candour, oft experienced, me vouchsafed
To knit in friendship growing still with years,
Accept this pledge of gratitude and love:
May it a lasting monument remain

Of dear respect, that when this body frail
Is moulder'd into dust, and I become

As I had never been, late times may know-
I once was bless'd in such a matchless friend.
Whoe'er expects his labouring trees should bend
With fruitage, and a kindly harvest yield,
Be this his first concern, to find a track
Impervious to the winds, begirt with hills
That intercept the Hyperborean blasts
Tempestuous, and cold Eurus' nipping force,
Noxious to feeble buds; but to the west
Let him free entrance grant; let Zephyrs bland
Administer their tepid genial airs:

Nought fear he from the west, whose gentle warmth
Discloses well the earth's all-teeming womb,
Invigorating tender seeds, whose breath
Nurtures the orange and the citron groves,
Hesperian fruits, and wafts their odours sweet
Wide through the air, and distant shores perfumes.
Nor only do the hills exclude the winds,

But when the blackening clouds in sprinkling showers

Distil from the high summits down the rain

Runs trickling; with the fertile moisture cheer'd

The Orchats smile; joyous the farmers see
Their thriving plants, and bless the heavenly dew,
Next, let the planter with discretion meet
The force and genius of each soil explore,
To what adapted, what it shuns averse:
Without this necessary care in vain
He hopes an Apple vintage, and invokes
Pomona's aid in vain. The miry fields,
Rejoicing in rich mould, most ample fruit
Of beauteous form produce, pleasing to sight,
But to the tongue inelegant and flat.
So Nature has decreed; so oft we see
Men passing fair, in outward lineaments
Elaborate, less inwardly exact.

Nor from the sable ground expect success,
Nor from cretaceous, stubborn and jejune;
The Must, of pallid hue, declares the soil
Devoid of spirit: wretched he that quaffs
Such wheyish liquors! oft with colic pangs,
With pungent colic
distress'd he'll roar,

pangs,

And toss, and turn, and curse the' unwholesome

draught.

But, farmer, look where full-ear'd sheaves of rye
Grow wavy on the tilth; that soil select
For Apples; thence, thy industry shall gain
Tenfold reward; thy garners thence with store
Surcharged shall burst; thy press with purest juice
Shall flow, which in revolving years may try
Thy feeble feet and bind thy faltering tongue.
Such is the Kentchurch, such Dantzeyan ground,
Such thine, O learned Brome! and Capel such,
Willisian Burlton, much-loved Geers his Marsh,
And Sutton acres, drench'd with regal blood
Of Ethelbert, when to the' unhallow'd feast