A History of Inventions, Discoveries, and Origins, Volume I (of 2). Johann Beckmann
to the purchasers at the prices agreed on; but as the latter had no desire for tulips at even such a low rate, they refused to take them or to pay for them. To end this dispute, the tulip-dealers of Alkmaar sent in the year 1637 deputies to Amsterdam; and a resolution was passed on the 24th of February, that all contracts made prior to the last of November 1636 should be null and void; and that, in those made after that date, purchasers should be free on paying ten per cent. to the vender.
The more people became disgusted with this trade, the more did complaints increase to the magistrates of the different towns; but as the courts there would take no cognizance of it, the complainants applied to the states of Holland and West Friesland. These referred the business to the determination of the provincial council at the Hague, which on the 27th of April 1637 declared that it would not deliver its opinion on this traffic until it had received more information on the subject; that in the mean time every vender should offer his tulips to the purchaser; and, in case he refused to receive them, the vender should either keep them, or sell them to another, and have recourse on the purchaser for any loss he might sustain. It was ordered also, that all contracts should remain in force till further inquiry was made. But as no one could foresee what judgement would be given respecting the validity of each contract, the buyers were more obstinate in refusing payment than before; and venders, thinking it much safer to accommodate matters amicably, were at length satisfied with a small profit instead of exorbitant gain; and thus ended this extraordinary traffic, or rather gambling.
It is however certain, that persons fond of flowers, particularly in Holland, have paid, and still pay, very high prices for tulips, as the catalogues of florists show53. This may be called the lesser Tulipomania, which has given occasion to many laughable circumstances. When John Balthasar Schuppe was in Holland, a merchant gave a herring to a sailor who had brought him some goods. The sailor, seeing some valuable tulip-roots lying about, which he considered as of little consequence, thinking them to be onions, took some of them unperceived, and ate them with his herring. Through this mistake the sailor’s breakfast cost the merchant a much greater sum than if he had treated the prince of Orange. No less laughable is the anecdote of an Englishman who travelled with Matthews. Being in a Dutchman’s garden, he pulled a couple of tulips, on which he wished to make some botanical observations, and put them in his pocket; but he was apprehended as a thief, and obliged to pay a considerable sum before he could obtain his liberty54.
Reimman and others accuse Just. Lipsius of the Tulipomania55; but if by this word we understand that gambling traffic which I have described, the accusation is unfounded. Lipsius was fond of scarce and beautiful flowers, which he endeavoured to procure by the assistance of his friends, and which he cultivated himself with great care in his garden; but this taste can by no means be called a mania56. Other learned men of the same age were fond of flowers, such as John Barclay57, Pompeius de Angelis, and others, who would probably have been so, even though the cultivation of flowers had not been the prevailing taste. It however cannot be denied, that learned men may be infected with epidemical follies. In the present age, many have become physiognomists because physiognomy is in fashion; and even animal magnetism has met with partisans to support it.
CANARY BIRD
This little bird, highly esteemed for its song, which is reared with so much care, particularly by the fair sex, and which affords an innocent amusement to those who are fond of the wild notes of nature, is a native of those islands from which it takes its name. As it was not known in Europe till the fifteenth century, no account of it is to be met with in any of the works of the old ornithologists. Bellon, who about the year 1555 described all the birds then known, does not so much as mention it. At that period it was brought from the Canary Islands. It was therefore so dear that it could be procured only by people of fortune, and those who purchased were even often imposed on58. It was called the sugar-bird, because it was said to be fond of the sugar-cane, and that it could eat sugar in great abundance. This circumstance seems to be very singular; for that substance is to many birds a poison. Experiments have shown, that a pigeon to which four drachms of sugar were given died in four hours, and that a duck which had swallowed five drachms did not live seven hours after. It is certain, therefore, that the power of poison is relative.
The first figure of this bird is given by Aldrovandus, but it is small and inaccurate. That naturalist reckons the Canary bird among the number of those which were scarce and expensive, as it was brought from a distant country with great care and attention. The first good figure of it is to be found in Olina59: it has been copied by both Johnston and Willughby.
In the middle of the seventeenth century these birds began to be bred in Europe, and to this the following circumstance, related by Olina, seems to have given occasion. A vessel, which, among other commodities, was carrying a number of Canary birds to Leghorn, was wrecked on the coast of Italy; and these birds, being thus set at liberty, flew to the nearest land, which was the Island of Elba, where they found the climate so favourable, that they multiplied, and perhaps would have become domesticated, had they not been caught in snares; for it appears that the breed of them there has been long since destroyed. Olina says that the breed soon degenerated; but it is probable that these Canary birds, which were perhaps all males, did at the Island of Elba what the European sailors do in India. By coupling with the birds of the island, they may have produced mules. Such hybrids are described by Gesner and other naturalists60.
The breeding of these birds was at first attended with great difficulty; partly because the treatment and attention they required were not known, and partly because males chiefly, and few females, were brought to Europe. We are told that the Spaniards once forbade the exportation of males, that they might secure to themselves the trade carried on in these birds, and that they ordered the bird-catchers either to strangle the females or to set them at liberty61. But this order seems to have been unnecessary; for, as the females commonly do not sing, or are much inferior in the strength of their notes to the males, the latter only were sought after as objects of trade. In the like manner, as the male parrots are much superior in colour to the females, the males are more esteemed, and more of them are brought to Europe than of the females. It is probable, therefore, that in our system of ornithology, many female parrots belonging to species already well-known are considered as distinct species. It was at first believed that those Canary birds bred in the Canary Islands were much better singers than those reared in Europe; but this at present is doubted62. In latter times various treatises have been published in different languages, on the manner of breeding these birds, and many people have made it a trade, by which they have acquired considerable gain. It does no discredit to the industry of the Tyrolese that they have carried it to the greatest extent. At Ymst there is a company who, after the breeding season is over, send out persons to different parts of Germany and Switzerland to purchase birds from those who breed them. Each person brings with him commonly from three to four hundred, which are afterwards carried for sale, not only through every part of Germany, but also to England, Russia, and even Constantinople. About sixteen hundred are brought every year to England; where the dealers in them, notwithstanding the considerable expense they are at, and after carrying them about on their backs, perhaps a hundred miles, sell them for five shillings apiece. This trade, hitherto neglected, is now carried on in Schwarzwalde; and at present there is a citizen here at Göttingen, who takes with him every year to England several Canary birds and bullfinches (Loxia pyrrhula), with the produce of which he purchases such small wares as he has occasion for.
The principal food of these birds is the Canary seed, which, as is commonly affirmed, and not improbably, was first brought, for this purpose, from the Canary Islands to Spain, and thence dispersed all over Europe. Most of the old botanists, however, are of opinion that the plant which produces it is the same as that called Phalaris by Dioscorides63. Should this be true, it will follow that this kind of grass must have grown
In the year 1769, the dearest kinds in England were
Blainville’s Travels.
Introd. in Hist. Lit. iii. 3, p. 92.
That he might relax and refresh his mind, worn out by study, he amused himself with the cultivation of his garden and of flowers, and particularly of tulips, the roots of which he was at great pains to procure from all parts of the world, by means of Dodonæus, Clusius, and Boisotus, men singularly well-skilled in horticulture, and by others of his friends. Here, at a distance from civil tumult, with a cheerful countenance and placid eye, he sauntered through his plants and flowers, contemplating sometimes one declining, sometimes another springing up, and forgetting all his cares amidst the pleasure which these objects afforded him. See the Life of Lipsius, prefixed to the edition of his works printed at Antwerp in 1637. This is confirmed by what Lipsius says himself in his book De Constantia, ii. 2, 3, in praise of gardening.
He rented a house near to the Vatican, with a garden, in which he had planted the choicest flowers, and those chiefly which are not propagated from seeds or roots, but from bulbs. These flowers were not known about thirty years before, nor had they been ever seen at Rome, but lay neglected in the Alps. – Of these flowers, which have no smell, but are esteemed only on account of their colours, Barclay was remarkably fond, and purchased their bulbs at a great price. Erythræi Pinacotheca. Lips. 1712, 8vo, iii. 17, p. 623. See also Freheri Theatrum, p. 1515.
Gesneri Historiæ Animalium, liber tertius. Tiguri, 1555, fol. p. 234.
Uccelliera, overo Discorso della natura di diversi Uccelli. Roma, 1622, 4to.
Gesneri redivivi, aucti et emendati, tomus ii. Franc. 1669, fol. p. 62. More information respecting hybrids may be found in Brisson, Ornithologie, t. iii. p. 187; and Frisch, Vorstellung der Vögel in Teutschland, the twelfth plate of which contains several good figures.
Coleri Œconomia ruralis et domestica. Franc. 1680, folio.
Barrington’s paper in the Phil. Trans. vol. lxiii. p. 249.