Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Their fylvan lore convey: O may I join This choral band, and from their precepts learn 1 5 To deck my theme, which though to fong unknown, Is moft momentous to my Country's weal So fhall my numbers win the Public ear; And net difpleafe Aorelhw; Mm to whom, Imperial George, the monarch of the main, 26 Hath given to wield the fcepter of thofe ifles, Where firft the Mufe beheld the fpiry Cane, Supreme of plants, rich fubjecl: of my fong. Where'er Ver. 22. tbtfplry Catte, ' ] The botanical name of theCane isHaccbanan. The Greeks and Romans foem to have known very little of this moft ufeful and beautiful plant. Lncan and Pliny are the only Authors among the former who mention it; and, fo far as I can find, Arrian is the only Greek. The firft of thefe Writers, in enumerating Pompey's Eaftern auxiliaries, defcribes a nation who made ufe of the Cane- juice as a drink: Dulcts bibebaM ex aTttndint fuecos. The induftrious Naturalift fays, Safcharum it Arabia frt, fed laudatius India; and tlie Greek Hiftorian, in his irtpnr.ov( of the Red-fea, tells us of a neighbouring nation who drank it alfo; his words are, jutA ro xapivov To Ajj/o/ajvok o-x;a/i. The Cane, however, as it was a native of the Eaft, fo has it been probably cultivated there time immemorial. The raw juice was doubtlefs firft made ufe of; they afterwards boiled it into a fyrup; and, in procefs of time, an inebriating fpirit was prepared therefrom by fermentation. This conjecture is confirmed by the etymology, for the Arabic word lQ is evidently derived from the Hebrew 135, which fignifies an intoxicating liquor. When the Indians began to make the Cane- juice into fugar, I cannot difcover; probably, it foon found its way into Europe in that form, firft by the Red-fea, and afterwards thro...