[3244] “Visere saepe amnes nitidos, per amaenaque Tempe,
        Et placidas summis sectari in montibus auras.”

       “To see the pleasant fields, the crystal fountains,
        And take the gentle air amongst the mountains.”

[3245]To walk amongst orchards, gardens, bowers, mounts, and arbours, artificial wildernesses, green thickets, arches, groves, lawns, rivulets, fountains, and such like pleasant places, like that Antiochian Daphne, brooks, pools, fishponds, between wood and water, in a fair meadow, by a river side, [3246]_ubi variae, avium cantationes, florum colores, pratorum frutices_, &c. to disport in some pleasant plain, park, run up a steep hill sometimes, or sit in a shady seat, must needs be a delectable recreation. Hortus principis et domus ad delectationem facia, cum sylva, monte et piscina, vulgo la montagna:  the prince’s garden at Ferrara [3247]Schottus highly magnifies, with the groves, mountains, ponds, for a delectable prospect, he was much affected with it:  a Persian paradise, or pleasant park, could not be more delectable in his sight.  St. Bernard, in the description of his monastery, is almost ravished with the pleasures of it.  “A sick [3248]man” (saith he) “sits upon a green bank, and when the dog-star parcheth the plains, and dries up rivers, he lies in a shady bower, Fronde sub arborea ferventia temperat astra, and feeds his eyes with variety of objects, herbs, trees, to comfort his misery, he receives many delightsome smells, and fills his ears with that sweet and various harmony of birds:  good God” (saith he), “what a company of pleasures hast thou made for man!” He that should be admitted on a sudden to the sight of such a palace as that of Escurial in Spain, or to that which the Moors built at Granada, Fontainebleau in France, the Turk’s gardens in his seraglio, wherein all manner of birds and beasts are kept for pleasure; wolves, bears, lynxes, tigers, lions, elephants, &c., or upon the banks of that Thracian Bosphorus:  the pope’s Belvedere in Rome, [3249]as pleasing as those horti pensiles in Babylon, or that Indian king’s delightsome garden in [3250]Aelian; or [3251]those famous gardens of the Lord Cantelow in France, could, not choose, though he were never so ill paid, but be much recreated for the time; or many of our noblemen’s gardens at home.  To take a boat in a pleasant evening, and with music [3252]to row upon the waters, which Plutarch so much applauds, Elian admires, upon the river Pineus:  in those Thessalian fields, beset with green bays, where birds so sweetly sing that passengers, enchanted as it were with their heavenly music, omnium laborum et curarum obliviscantur, forget forthwith all labours, care, and grief:  or in a gondola through the Grand Canal in Venice, to see those goodly palaces, must needs refresh and give content to a melancholy dull spirit.  Or to see the inner rooms of a fair-built and sumptuous edifice, as that of the Persian kings, so much renowned by Diodorus and Curtius, in which all was almost beaten gold, [3253]chairs, stools, thrones, tabernacles, and pillars of gold, plane trees, and vines of gold, grapes of precious stones, all the other ornaments of pure gold,