was able to think for himself had indulged the same fancy, and who was in ecstasies at the mere mention of the word tulips.
Boxtel had not the good fortune of being rich like Van Baerle. He had, therefore, with great care and patience, and by dint of strenuous exertions, laid out, near his house at Dort, a garden fit for the culture of his cherished flower; he had mixed the soil according to the most approved prescriptions, and given to his hotbeds just as much heat and fresh air as the strictest rules of horticulture exact.
Isaac knew the temperature of his frames to the twentieth part of a degree. He knew the strength of the current of air, and tempered it so as to adapt it to the wave of the stems of his flowers. His productions also began to meet with the favour of the public. They were beautiful, nay, distinguished. Several fanciers had come to see Boxtel’s tulips. He had even started a tulip which bore his name, and which, after having travelled all through France, had found its way into Spain, and penetrated as far as Portugal; and the King, Don Alphonso VI.,—who, being expelled from Lisbon, retired to the Island of Terceira, where he amused himself, not, like the Great Condé, with watering his carnations, but with growing tulips—had, on seeing the Boxtel tulip, exclaimed, “Not so bad, by any means!”
All at once, Cornelius Van Baerle, who, after all his learned pursuits, had been seized with the tulipomania, made some changes in his house at Dort, which, as we have stated, was next door to that of Boxtel. He raised a certain building in his courtyard by a story, which shutting out the sun, took half a degree of warmth from Boxtel’s garden, and, on the other hand, added half a degree of cold in winter; not to mention that it
